Gingerbread’s pretty big in our house, for lots of reasons; it’s easy to make, it’s very yummy and it freezes very well. I usually make a couple of loaves, one for the cake tin and one for the freezer. (Confession time: I’ve actually been known to make 4 or 6 and freeze all but one of them.) So there’s often a stash of these brick-like cakes, stacked up the freezer like a sweet-toothed builder’s yard, prompting the joke that one day I’m going to have enough of these to build my own little cottage.
Sweet little orphans had best beware; I may not have an oven big enough to bake you but you'll be plenty busy building my gingerbread extension and conservatory
The recipe I use is actually pretty old. The book, a charity shop find, is dated 1974, hence the ‘oz’ rather than ‘g’ measurements and written with a kind of sweet innocence.
It's a little (all right, a LOT) more 'used' looking now than it was when I found it
I particularly like the suggestion below…
Ideal for Sunday tea. Perhaps with 'Special Brownies'?
In the author’s defence, perhaps the 60’s took longer to reach farmhouse kitchens than swinging London.
- 4 oz margarine
- 4 oz golden syrup
- 4 oz treacle
- 4 oz sugar
- 10 oz plain flour
- 2 level teaspoons ground ginger
- pinch of salt
- 1 level teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- 1 egg
- 3/8 pint milk
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice*
Melt the margarine, golden syrup, treacle and sugar in a pan over a low heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Do not overheat.
Combine this syrup-y mixture with the dry ingredients (flour, ginger, salt, cinnamon, bicarb). The original recipe insists that sieving is necessary but I just stir it all very well.
Beat the egg, milk and lemon juice together and add to the mixture. Stir thoroughly. Place in a greased, lined loaf tin (paper liners are pretty handy).
Bake in the middle of a pre-heated oven for about an hour (it’s really hard to be exact with this – my oven is a smidge on the temperamental side so I just have to keep an eye out whenever I’m baking) at Gas No.2. When it’s done it’s springy to touch and beginning to shrink away from the sides of the tin.
Cool, and eat. Nom!
Now all I need is a little clearing in the woods and some icing for my windows 😉
* I’ve made it without lemon juice and it’s just as good. I’ve also subbed mixed spice for the cinnamon and made it without either and it’s still fine.
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