Dabbler Soup – Gilding the gingerbread

Bonfire Night, Guy Fawkes Day, Fireworks Night…so odd they named it thrice. Whatever it’s called, on this one The Dabbler is delighted to welcome the wonderful Jassy Davis, proprieter of Britain’s most delicious food blog Gin and Crumpets, who offers an appropriate recipe.
We’re hoping that Jassy will be bringing us plenty more postings for our Dabbler Soup feature over the coming months. And stick around, because later today we’ve got another exciting addition to the Dabbler roster – a whisky specialist….

One of the great consolations of being British is that there’s a cake for every occasion. Sponge cakes stuffed with jam and buttercream for birthdays, symbolically unrottable fruit cakes for weddings, similarly indigestible fruit and nut slabs for Christmas and, for burning heretics and political dissenters, there’s gingerbread.

How gingerbread ended up being the executioner’s cake of choice isn’t clear, although its history as a ‘fairing’ – a cake or biscuit sold at a fair or festival – probably plays a part. When there’s precious little entertainment on offer, any gathering is an excuse for spicing up the ale and baking a fresh batch of biscuits. A hiring fair, a monthly market or a bonfire of dismembered catholics – what’s the difference? Bring on the cake and let the good times roll.

My first attempt at making gingerbread resulted in a cheery red, flour-and-butter brick so heavy that it nearly buckled the cake tin. I’d baked a cosh and after watching it not decay at all for a couple of days (no one would eat it), I heaved it into the bin and considered myself done with gingerbread. But the corner shop delights of Jamaica Ginger Cake steadily brought me back round to the idea that hot spice and cake could go together and I’ve taken up my wooden spoon again.

The recipe below is a time traveling cake that straddles the evolving traditions of gingerbread, from the medieval spice mixes to the 17th century addition of treacle and ending with the modern wonder of self raising flour. It’s a bit of a muddle, but it’s a good one for eating with sticky fingers in the bonfire’s glow.

Gingerbread

Makes 12 squares

175g self raising flour

11/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tbsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

50g porridge oats

Grated zest of 1 lemon

100g sultanas

80g butter, plus extra for greasing

100g treacle

100g golden syrup

3 eggs, beaten

150ml whole milk

1. Grease a 18cm square cake tin with butter and set aside. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C/fan oven 160°C. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and the spices into a large mixing bowl and stir in the porridge oats, lemon zest and sultanas. Set aside.

2. Place the butter, treacle and golden syrup in a pan and warm over a medium heat until melted. Pour into the dry ingredients and beat well until combined. Beat in the eggs and then the milk. The gingerbread will be a bit stiff, so it will take some firm but gentle stirring to get the eggs and milk to combine.

3. Scrape the gingerbread batter into the cake tin and level the surface with the back of the spoon. Bake for approximately 45 minutes until firm and risen and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool in the tin. Wrap in foil and store in an airtight tin. The gingerbread is fine eaten straight away and slightly better after a day or 2 of resting.

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20 thoughts on “Dabbler Soup – Gilding the gingerbread

  1. Brit
    November 5, 2010 at 11:39

    That does look splendid.

    Guy Fawkes Day must be one of the oddest…um, celebrations (?) in the calendar, so I suppose gingerbread is as good as any way to mark it. Oop north they go for ‘parkin’, don’t they, which is gingerbreadish?

    As a kid we used to take a hot jacket spud in foil in our pockets to whatever dodgy fireworks display it happened to be that year. Kept your hands warm and for some reason tasted much more interesting than a common-or-garden year-round jacket spud.

  2. Brit
    November 5, 2010 at 11:42

    PS ‘I’d baked a cosh’ — that skill could come in useful if you know any prisoners who want to escape. Take it along on visiting day…

  3. Worm
    November 5, 2010 at 12:39

    this recipe looks so good I may even make it on sunday to bring into work on monday in an attempt to ingratiate myself with my colleagues

  4. finalcurtain@gmail.com'
    mahlerman
    November 5, 2010 at 12:46

    Over forty years ago I moved seamlessly from being cooked-for by my mother, to being cooked-for by my wife, with the result that I have become an expert on eating, and a complete dud in the kitchen…..but I did once pick up a recipe for German Choclate Cake.
    First occupy the kitchen……..

  5. andrewnixon@blueyonder.co.uk'
    November 5, 2010 at 12:50

    Oof, Mahlerman!

    I do mains, Mrs B does puds, though I do pride myself on my famous and highly unorthodox cupcakes.

  6. tanith@telegraphy.co.uk'
    Adelephant
    November 5, 2010 at 13:04

    I don’t recall taking any hot jacket spuds to firework displays as a child, probably because I only recall said displays being cancelled due to rain. When any fireworks did go off they scared our dog into such a frenzy that we had to sedate him.

    The weather this year does not look promising, but should we get a break in the drizzle, and at the risk of terrifying our two infant children, we have a set of garden fireworks to annoy the neighbours’ dogs.

    Gingerbread looks a safer and altogether cosier bet (maybe eaten whilst burning the compost heap).

  7. russellworks@gmail.com'
    ian russell
    November 5, 2010 at 13:16

    So, when is a cake a bread and not a biscuit? Looks yummy nevertheless.

  8. stan@stanmadeley.com'
    November 5, 2010 at 14:51

    True story. I’ve just been to the local Co-op to buy some treacle toffee. I said to the woman serving: ‘excuse me, do you sell treacle toffee’. She replied: ‘we used to but we’ve just cleared the shelves for Christmas’.

    So, there you have it. No treacle toffee for tonight’s bonfire because she shops are already promoting mince pies and Noel Edmonds. Watching our effigy of Carol-Anne Duffy going up in smoke tonight just won’t be the same. We were going to do Wayne Rooney since he’s all the rage this year but we couldn’t get the ears right.

    Apologies to the editor for this poor quality comment but the best I could do at such short notice.

  9. Brit
    November 5, 2010 at 14:56

    In danger of wandering well off topic here, but my collleagues and I see Noel Edmonds often about these parts. He lives nearby and drives an old London taxi, Stephen Fry-style, so that he can go in the special lanes during rush hour on his way to the Deal or No Deal studio.

  10. stan@stanmadeley.com'
    November 5, 2010 at 15:07

    That’s an amazing coincidence, Brit. I once saw Carol-Anne Duffy in a taxi.

  11. ian@brollachan.com'
    Ian Buxton
    November 5, 2010 at 15:44

    I was in a taxi once.
    Does that count?

  12. stan@stanmadeley.com'
    November 5, 2010 at 16:18

    Of course it counts! You can’t fool me, Carol-Anne, with that thinly disguised pseudonym. I’d recognise the polished phrasing of a poet laureate anywhere.

  13. Brit
    November 5, 2010 at 16:20

    That does look like one of Duffy’s famous, pithy, eye–rhyming couplets.

  14. mcrean@snowpetrel.net'
    November 5, 2010 at 18:14

    That ginger cake looks utterly scrumptious, so thank you. I think I might try to make one over the weekend. I’ve never made a cake before but I’m not worried even if it turns out rock hard, since this thread makes clear that I can send it to one of at least three celebrities as a present from a grateful admirer. I imagine they must have received a few failed cakes in their time.

  15. gindrinkers@googlemail.com'
    November 6, 2010 at 10:41

    @Brit Cake coshes are the weapon of choice in British homes up and down the land. Particularly ones with a lot of Cath Kidson decorations.

    @Worm Cake is the quickest route to popularity known to man. Unless you have lots of spare tenners to hand out, but to be honest people treasure the memory of cake more.

    @mahlerman Perhaps a little lightning cooking is what you require.

    @ian russel I think I know the answer to this. Is it: When it’s a Jaffa Cake?

    *boring fact alert* In Britain gingerbread began it’s life as breadcrumbs mixed with honey, spices and red wine or sandalwood (for the colour), then pressed into moulds and thus it’s gingerbread, even though these days it’s quite clearly a cake. *boring fact ends*

    @Stan Madeley That doesn’t surprise me. I appreciated the side-by-side displays of Hallowe’en chocolates and advent calendars my local M&S set up at the start of October. There will be hot cross buns on special offer before the New Year is here.

    @Mark Thanks, glad you like the look of it and that you have a Plan B if it all goes wrong.

    I have never seen a celebrity in a taxi.

  16. tanith@telegraphy.co.uk'
    Adelephant
    November 12, 2010 at 13:46

    I was just about to make the cake, but got confused by the breadcrumb reference. How much do you need?

  17. gindrinkers@googlemail.com'
    November 12, 2010 at 14:42

    Hi, saw the question. Sorry, that’s sloppy editing on my part. There are no breadcrumbs in the recipe, I replaced them with porridge oats. It should read: “Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and the spices into a large mixing bowl and stir in the porridge oats, lemon zest and sultanas. Set aside.” Could we update the recipe?

  18. Brit
    November 12, 2010 at 15:00

    ‘Tis done.

  19. gindrinkers@googlemail.com'
    November 12, 2010 at 15:42

    Thank you 🙂

Comments are closed.