Super easy and packed with flavor is written all over this bread. Actually it’s more like a cake. It is not like the conventional bread, it’s a bread disguised as a cake. Not every dessert lives up to this reputation. I still remember my last year’s soufflé that fell apart. My nephew was visiting and he has quite a sweet tooth to say the least and you know ‘finally teen’ can live on dessert and honey, that might have been reason enough to try a new dessert, but it was also the holidays, so there was more than one reason to indulge. We were excited anticipating a French delicacy. I don’t know what went wrong, we had such terrible soufflé, it was probably, not probably but surely the worse thing I have ever made. So much so that even the name soufflé evokes very strong emotions lol! But fear not am not going to be baking an exotic delicacy, am going to stick to SIMPLE. This old fashioned gingerbread is easy and most of the ingredients are already in your pantry…almost as good as mix and bake. If you are going to go and buy the boxed ready version of this am going to personally come over and make you bake this… ! With a cup of coffee or mulled wine it is d e v i n e. I did not just tell you that I made a meal out of this (sheepishly)
Don’t you just want to plunge into that, I do! ;)
Without further ado here is the recipe, get your apron, arm yourself with the tools and go. You will bless me for this. Before I forget if you are a ginger fanatic like me click here and here.
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
1 egg
1 cup unsulphured molasses
21/2 cup APF (all purpose flour)
11/2tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp red chili flakes (optional)
1tsp ground clove
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup candied ginger or 2 tbsp fresh ginger
1 cup hot water
Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 8 by 8 square pan
Cream butter and sugar, add the egg, beat, pour the molasses and ginger, stir
Stir in the dry ingredients : flour, baking soda, chili flakes, ground clove and salt.
Add it to the molasses, and fold in, add the hot water and beat on medium speed till it blends smoothly.
Pour into prepared pan and bake for 50 min.
Poke a toothpick, if it comes out clean, it is done. Serve with mulled wine or coffee.
What is Molasses?
Molasses is heavily used this time of this year. It is a dark thick syrupy byproduct made left over from the extraction of sugar. Typically sugar cane goes thru three process of boiling and the byproducts at these various stages gives us the 4 basic types of molasses.
Light Molasses : liquid left over after first boiling, it has the highest sugar quantity and is light in color.
Dark Molasses : liquid left over from second boiling, lesser sugar content and dark and thick
Black Strap Molasses : left from third boiling, least amount of sugar and highest level of nutrients. It has a mild bitter taste hence used with caution when baking dessert.
Sorghum Molasses : it is not actually a molasses as it is not made from sugar cane but a particular kind of grass.
The kind of sugar cane used determines if the Molasses is sulfured or unsulphured. Sulphured is made from young sugar cane and sulfur dioxide is added to keep the sugar cane fresh.
Unsulphured on the other hand is made from sun ripe sugarcane.
I used dark unsulphured Molasses. I really want to try black strap, probably I will try substituting 1/4 of dark with black strap. Will keep you guys posted.
Recipe adapted from all recipes.
Love this! Looks so perfect and tempting. Perfect for Christmas :)
ReplyDeleteI bet your kitchen is smelling gorgeous when this was being baked!
ReplyDeleteWhat a perfect festive spirit with a perfect recipe :) looks amazing
ReplyDeleteI love a classic and these pictures make me think of sitting in front of a cozy fire or by the twinkling Christmas tree in the evening. I love the flavors of gingerbread at this time of year and this would certainly hit the spot.
ReplyDeleteperfect for the season so nice pic..
ReplyDeleteYummy gingerbread.aromatic too.love the clicks
ReplyDeleteYummy thy name is ginger bread !
ReplyDeleteWonderfully aromatic gingerbread.
ReplyDeleteWhat a perfect treat for Christmas. Festive.
ReplyDeleteoh wow !! luk at that bite !!! perfect !!!
ReplyDeleteMouth watering! This is coming from the ultimate ginger advocate, but really, any scrumptious dessert which infuses fragrant spices is too hard to resist, even if Christmas has passed! Thanks for sharing. :)
ReplyDelete