Gingerbread

If ever there was a time when I wished I could blog smells, this would have to be one of them. There's something about the smell of ginger and treacle baking. You might remember my opinion of treacle and ginger from quite a while ago. This is another example of sheer mouthy-delight.

I got this recipe from "The Margaret Fulton Cookbook", and had to adapt it slightly to fit with what I had on hand. Instead of ground cloves and allspice, neither of which I had in my cupboard, I used 1/4 tsp of nutmeg. I also didn't have any buttermilk, so used normal milk and soured it slightly with a few dribbles of vinegar. Still, I think it's damned yummy. Also, I didn't bother with the lemon frosting (which was basically runny lemon icing) - instead I dished it up with a sprinkling of icing sugar. And then some more for dessert, heated up, with ice cream.

Delish...

Gingerbread
(Recipe copied straight from The Margaret Fulton Cookbook)

1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbl ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground allspice
125g unsalted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup treacle
2 x 60g eggs
2 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 180C. Butter and line with baking paper the base of a deep 23cm round cake tin. Sift flour, soda and spices into a bowl. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and beat in the brown sugar, until the mixture is light and fluffy. Beat in the treacle and then the eggs, one at a time. Beat in the vanilla essence. Lastly, stir in the sifted flour mixture thoroughly, and then the buttermilk.

Turn the mixture into the prepared tin, smoothing the top and making a slight indentation in the centre with a spatula. Bake 35-40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Let the gingerbread cool in the tin on a wire rack. Turn out onto a serving plate and serve plain or spread with lemon frosting.