I have been hitting the bottle again - the molasses bottle. This time things got saucy.

Readers might remember that, in keeping with my New Year's resolution to eat better cake, I grabbed the molasses a few weeks ago and made a terrific gingerbread cake.

Only a few days ago my wife and I made that cake again, twice. She baked one version, I made the other. Her cake turned out a little better than mine, which sank in its middle.

But neither of them overflowed our square cake pan, a problem some readers have reported experiencing. (One possible explanation of why our cakes did not overflow is the depth of the pan. Our 9-inch square pan is 2 1/2 inches deep, about an inch deeper than the normal round cake pans.)

I love the smell of molasses. Once the cakes were baked, instead of putting the molasses back in the pantry, I kept it in the kitchen.

I used it to make a marinade for pork tenderloin. The marinade was pretty simple - molasses, two kinds of mustard and some apple-cider vinegar. It did require a four-hour soaking time. But because I was making this dish on a Saturday, I had plenty of time to work with.

The one ingredient I lacked was a zip-top plastic bag. The bag was the suggested snuggling spot, the place where the marinade and the meat were supposed to spend four hours in intimate contact. Instead, I put the meat in a small baking dish, poured on the marinade, covered them with foil and gave them some privacy.

The recipe also called for two types of mustard, coarse-grain and Dijon. That appealed to me because in my experience it is hard to go wrong slathering mustard on a piece of meat, or chicken, then tossing it in a barbecue cooker. Apple-cider vinegar is also a welcome addition to almost any marinade.

Then there was the aromatic molasses. The recipe from Fred Thompson's Barbecue Nation recommended light molasses, the kind that some folks put on pancakes. (I guess that is why most grocery stores place their molasses in the aisle that also holds pancake syrup.) I used a darker molasses, Grandma's brand. It made a good cake, so I figured it would make a good marinade.

I sampled the marinade as I mixed it, and it was tasty. It was a little strong, but pork tenderloins have so little fat and flavor that they often benefit from bold company.

I also was heartened to see that this marinade had a second life. After its assignation with the pork, the marinade was supposed to be cooked briefly, then poured over the sliced meat.

Many times I have labored in the kitchen, tossing a boatload of ingredients into a marinade only to pour it down the drain after its soaking session. It feels wasteful.

But the set of ingredients in this marinade - mustards, vinegar and molasses - combined with a quick boil, enabled it to be used as a table sauce. So for supper we had grilled tenderloin with the molasses-and-mustard sauce.

The pork tenderloin was a little dry. I had kept it on the cooker too long, distracted by watching a televised college basketball game that went into overtime. That is the drawback of cooking on a Saturday.

The sauce was fine, a pleasing mix of tang and sweetness. The dark cake, which we had for dessert, was wonderful. It was, I realized later, an all-molasses meal.

rob.kasper@baltsun.com

See Rob Kasper each Wednesday on ABC2/WMAR-TV's News at Noon.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin With Molasses and Mustard

Serves 2

3/4 pound pork tenderloin

1/4 cup mild-flavored molasses

3 tablespoons cider vinegar (divided use)

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons coarse-grain mustard

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Remove the silverskin from the tenderloin.

Whisk together the molasses, 2 tablespoons of the vinegar, and both mustards in a small bowl. Place the pork in a zip-top plastic bag, pour the marinade over it, seal the bag and squish to coat the pork well. Refrigerate for 4 hours.

Prepare a medium-heat fire in a charcoal or gas cooker. Remove the pork from the marinade. Pour the marinade into a small, heavy saucepan and set aside.

Sprinkle the pork with salt and pepper, then place on the grill and cook, turning occasionally until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center registers 150 degrees, about 20 minutes.

Transfer pork to a platter and let rest for 5 minutes.

Add the remaining vinegar to the saucepan and place over medium heat on a stove top. Bring to a boil and cook until thickened to sauce consistency.

Cut the pork crosswise on a slight diagonal into 1/2 -inch thick slices. Arrange on a plate, drizzle the sauce over pork and serve.

From "Barbecue Nation" by Fred Thompson

Per serving: 357 calories, 37 grams protein, 8 grams fat, 3 grams saturated fat, 32 grams carbohydrate, trace fiber, 113 milligrams cholesterol, 327 milligrams sodium