Gingerbread and a new book

Phew it seems like ages since I've blogged and yet again it seems like I've been super busy, I didn't even have time to bake last week although I've made up for it in the past few days, trying 3 new recipes. The first of which I'm posting today.

As I might have mentioned in the past I have a list 10 times as long as my arm of all the recipes for cakes & cookies etc I find and plan to bake, I even have a board in my kitchen with a list of those I really want to make soon. However sometimes all of that goes out the window and all those recipes get pushed back for something else, like when your Mum calls you to say she made a lovely ginger cake but there was none left and then all you can think of is how much you want a slice.

So off to mummy's I toddled (OK well I got boyfriend to drive me) to get the recipe and bake some for myself. And here it is: (Not the best picture as it didn't do how tasty and rich the cake was justice)

If preferred as well the cake can also be drizzled with Icing (Just a mix of Icing sugar and water)  and the top sprinkled with stem ginger however I was far to impatient for this and as soon as the cake was out of the oven I had to have a slice.

So It's not the fanciest looking loaf but I love this kind of cake, rich , moist and perfect with a nice cuppa.

It's a really easy one to make too and here's how:

Gingerbread

4oz Unsalted Butter
6oz Black Treacle
2oz Golden syrup
2oz Brown Sugar
1/4 Pint of milk
2 Eggs
8oz Plain Flour
1 tsp Mixed spice
1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
4 tsps Ground Ginger   (The original recipe called for 2 tsps but I like the cake to have a really deep ginger taste)

Icing and stem ginger to decorate (Optional)

Preheat the oven to 160 deg C. Grease and dust with a light layer of flour a 2lb loaf tin or a 7in square cake tin.
In a large saucepan, warm together the butter, treacle, syrup and sugar till melted, add the milk and allow to cool. Beat the eggs and blend with the cooled mixture.
Sift the dry ingredients together into a bowl add the liquid mixture and fold in gently until combined.
Turn into the greased tin and bake for 1 1/4  to 1 1/2 hours or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Ice when cool if preferred.

And that's it! Another option the recipe gives is to also fold in 4oz of sultanas to the mix before baking if desired. The recipe was from these small books / magazines my mum used to collect when I was little she had loads of folders of the magazines / booklets yet I can't remember the name of it.

Speaking of cook books though I went to Tesco the other day to pick up treacle to make this recipe and came back with a whole bag of shopping (as usual) which included this:

I just couldn't help myself! I love Hummingbirds recipes and bake a lot from their first book (even sticking it back together after naughty puppy decided to rip the cover and some pages up) and this book seems even better.
I want to bake pretty much everything from this book so no doubt one of their recipes will feature in my next blog, I know this for sure as I've just finished baking. You'll have to wait to find out which recipe it was though as that's all for today.

Bye for now

Cupcake Kris

xxx