Minehead Fruit Gingerbread

A few weeks back I found a little booklet of Somerset recipes at a car boot sale for 50p (Old Somerset Recipes by Catherine Rothwell).  Of course, it came home with me.  I felt in a baking mood today - we have a guest popping in tomorrow afternoon so I needed to bake something for then - and I opened the booket and chose to make "Fruit Gingerbreads from Minehead", with a little modification by myself.

FRUIT GINGERBREADS FROM MINEHEAD

1/2 lb flour
1 tablespoon demerara sugar (I omitted this - sweet enough with the syrup)
3 oz butter
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (dissolved in the milk below)
1 oz sliced peel (I used orange peel, hand-made by my eldest daughter and delicious)
1 oz blanched, sliced almonds
1/4 lb golden syrup
3 teaspoons ground ginger
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
2 oz stoned raisins (I only had sultanas, so used them)
(I also added some dried preserved ginger, chopped small, or you could use preserved stem ginger from a jar of the sort preserved in syrup.  Or omit altogether.)

Put (sugar) butter and syrup in a pan and dissolve over a low heat.  (I weigh the pan, and then weigh the ingredients into it, saves cleaning up another bowl).  Mix the round ginger with the flour and stir into the syrup mixture (I added it the other way round).  Add the egg well beaten and the milk with the soda dissolved in it, the almonds, the raisins and the peel.  Beat well and turn without delay into well greased tins.  (I made a little cake of it in a 7" or so shallow cake tin.)  Bake for 45 mins in a moderate oven.  Allow to cool then cut into squares.

This is gorgeous.  Even my "I-don't-eat-cakes" husband scoffed it.  I'll try for a photo tomorrow, when I have the table laid out tidy.

It was WONDERFUL to be baking again.  To feel well enough to want to do it.  I always find it so satisfying, and I feel a real link with those ancestors of mine who I know cooked and baked (several were doing just that in service.)  Plus my g.grandfather was a Journeyman Baker.  It must be in the blood.