Chocolate Gingerbread Recipe

 

This made two x 2 lb loaves.  I have added some of the varieties for it.  Recipes from Sonia Allison's Home Baking Book, which I've had since 1983. 

Serves 14 - 18

BASIC VERSION: 

1 lb (450 g) plain flour  (FOR CHOC version only, reduce to 14 oz (400 g)

(FOR CHOC version only, add 2 oz (50 g) cocoa powder)

6 rounded teaspoons (tsps) ground ginger 

2 rounded tsps mixed spice

2 1/2 level tsps bicarbonate of soda

8 oz (225 g) golden syrup

8 oz (225 g) black treacle or molasses

4 oz (125 g) dark-brown soft sugar (Muscavado)

4 Grade 3 eggs

1/2 pint (275 ml) cold milk

2 tablespoons cold water (FOR CHOC version only, make this 4 tablespoons)

    Well grease and line a Yorkshire pudding tin of about 11 x 9 x 1 1/2 inches (or grease/line two x 2lb loaf tins).  Set oven to 300deg F (150 deg C), Gas mark 2.

    Sift first 4 ingredients into a bowl. Put fats, syrup, treacle and sugar into a pan and melt gently over a low heat.  Do not boil.  Beat together eggs, milk and water.  

    Make a dip in the centre of the dry ingredients.  Pour in egg mixture followed by the melted mixture. Stir briskly without beating, making sure you work in all the flour, etc.

    Transfer to prepared tin(s) and spread evenly with a knife.  Put into oven and bake 1-1 1/4 hrs or until well-risen and deep brown, and a thin metal skewer, pushed gently into the centre, comes out clean and dry. 

        Leave in tin for 15 mins, then lift gingerbread carefully out on to a wire cooling rack.  Put into an airtight tin when cold and store in a cool lace (warmth tends to turn a gingerbread mouldy).  Remove paper just before cutting.

Variations:

Marmalade Gingerbread - Make as basic version but halve the quantity of treacle and make up the weight with chunky orange marmalade.

Fruity Gingerbread - Make as basic version but after sifting dry ingredient into bowl, toss in 4 oz (125 g) raisins or sultanas.

Date Gingerbread - Make as basic version but after sifting dry ingredients into bowl, toss in 4 o (125 g) finely chopped cooking dates.

Double Gingerbread (which I often make) - after sifting dry ingredients into bowl, toss in 4 oz (125g) finely chopped preserved ginger, well-drained.

Enjoy.

Here we are having sunshine and showers, and my favourite curtains from my office at Ynyswen, are now keeping any winter draughts at bay on the half landing window.  A x-stitch picture of a dragonfly I had sewn many years ago for my friend Annie (and I got back from her daughter after Annie's death) is now hanging on the half-landing wall, with my other x-stitch pictures.  J is just fitting the new pull switch cover to the ceiling and we have light again.  It wasn't checked by the Electrician employed to check all the electrics last year and when I asked him what about if the light pull broke (which of course it did a year later) he said it was easily fixable.  Well, yes, except that the wires had been cut off very short and more or less bunged in the appropriate bits and since the internal fitting was Bakelite it was probably put in when the house was first electrified!  It wasn't very safe, so just as well the cord broke when it did.

I hope you've all had a good weekend.  If anyone has contact by email or similar with Weaver of Grass (Pat), I know her blogging friends are worried about her, so if you've heard anything, please let us know.