Sticky gingerbread

Last week I had an urge to make gingerbread. I don't know why, as ginger isn't my spice of choice, but I couldn't shake off the thought of a wintery spiced gingerbread.

 

The batter for this loaf tasted so good, it's a wonder any of it reached the tin. It seems I like ginger more than I thought.

The recipe did state to leave the cake a day before eating but I have no willpower. The smell from the oven was too much for me and I had to have a piece there and then. The cake texture was very smooth and it tasted more of treacle than ginger which worried me. However all was ok the next day. The flavours were much more balanced, the cake developed more of a crumb texture and the crust started to feel sticky. It didn't have much of a chance to get stickier as we ate all the cake. Moral of the story: leave your gingerbread till the next day to eat.

 

Sticky gingerbread

Recipe from The Great British Book of Baking, p.238

 

225g self-raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tbsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground mixed spice

115g unsalted butter, chilled and diced

115g black treacle

115g golden syrup

115g dark brown muscovado sugar

275ml milk (it says not to use skimmed, but I only had semi-skimmed milk)

1 medium free range egg, beaten

 

Heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Grease and line a 900g loaf tin, about 26 x 13 x 7cm. Sift together the flour, bicarb. soda, ginger, cinnamon and mixed spice into a large bowl. Add the diced butter and rub into the flour mix using your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Gently warm the treacle and syrup in a pan until melted and runny but not hot. Set aside until lukewarm. Put the sugar and milk into another pan and heat gently, stirring well to dissolve the sugar. Leave to cool until lukewarm, then whisk the milk into the flour mixture, quickly followed by the treacle mixture and the egg, to make a smooth thick batter, the consistency of double cream.

 

Put the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the centre of the oven for about 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the loaf comes out clean. Leave the loaf to cool completely on a wire rack before turning out. Wrap the loaf in foil and leave for at least a day before cutting; it will get stickier the longer it is kept. Store in an air-tight container.