This is just the kind of gingerbread you crave when
dinnertime has suddenly become pitch-black and cold, as it now has, and you
feel like it’s midnight all the time and like you’re up in Scotland drinking
whiskey from the bottle and waiting for spring. It’s big, soft, and comforting,
like the down comforter of the cake world, and it fills your house with the
spicy, delicious smell of holiday baking, even on a regular old school night.
Plus, it will take you no more than 10 minutes to get it into the oven, promise.
Or, as we say to the kids when we are quite sure about something but don’t want
to get into it later, if there is, say, a surprise hurricane or earthquake, I almost promise.
The recipe is hand-written in my recipe binder, and when I
was trying to figure out how properly to credit it, I naturally consulted my
mother. “Is this your gingerbread?” I asked, and she said, “Oh, is it this?”
and pulled out a recipe card titled “Mummy’s Gingerbread” that calls for, among
other things, treacle, and the mystifying
measurements ½ egg and also 1 gill milk. “I don’t think it’s that,”
I said, “seeing as how my gill has been, er, missing since the middle of the
nineteenth century.” Hmm. “Is it this?” And strangely, there it was—an ancient
clipping from the Times, called “Edna’s Blueberry Gingerbread.” I have never in
my life added blueberries (I didn’t even write that part when I copied the
recipe), but I suppose you could. But then it would go from a big, comforting
cake to a more challenging cake studded with hot, puckery berries, which is not
what I’m going for at all. Still, if you want to try adding “1 cup blueberries,
lightly floured,” be my guest.
I was going to make a note here about how this is a great
way to get more iron into your diet, what with the legendary iron-containing
properties of molasses, but when I looked at my molasses bottle, I noticed
that, to achieve your daily requirement, you’d need to swallow 25 tablespoons
of it. If you’re anemic, try eating the whole pan of gingerbread all by yourself,
and let me know if you feel a burst of energy afterwards (I’m being ironic. Ha ha.). But I will tell you
that Ben and I were talking over dinner about how your body actually needs
small quantities of various metals, which surprised and delighted him. “Wow,”
he said. “If I died and you
melted me down, would there be enough copper in me to make even, like, a tiny,
tiny dollhouse spoon?” Kill me.
Soft and Sticky Gingerbread
I like to grate the nutmeg fresh—not because I’m fancy or
because I think it makes such a big difference flavorwise, but because it’s
such a pleasant thing to do, and it’s a little job I can give the kids. If
you’ve never tried this, do: it involves buying whole nutmegs and a tiny
grater, and it’s a small and worthwhile investment.
½ cup sugar
½ cup room-temperature butter
2 eggs
1 cup molasses
2 cups flour (I used half spelt)
½ teaspoon salt (I use one scant teaspoon of Kosher salt)
¼ teaspoon cloves
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ginger
1 cup boiling water
2 teaspoons baking soda
Heat the oven to 350, and butter and flour a lasagna-sized
(10 by 14 inch) baking pan.
Now, in the bowl of an electric mixer, cream
together the butter and sugar until it’s light and fluffy, then add the eggs
one at a time, followed by the molasses. Take a moment to stop the mixer and
scrape the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula to make sure there’s no
butter hiding out down there. Meanwhile, sift together the flour, spices, and
salt (and by “sift together” I mean, of course, whisk together, because I’m lazy like that), then mix them into the
batter until they just disappear.
Now measure the boiling water (I do this
right in the dirty molasses cup), add the baking soda to it, call your kids
over to see the amazingly foaming mixture, explain the science of it (each
crystal of baking soda actually contains a tiny, burping angel), and beat it
gently into the batter, which will now seem incredibly runny, which is fine.
Pour it into your prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes, until the cake is
starting to pull away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick comes out clean
or with crumbs on it, rather than ooky batter still. Serve with whipped cream,
if you have company, or plain. Yum.
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ReplyDeleteI like this page.It really interesting.
ReplyDeleteFinally! A fast, simple recipe for my cravings that does not require my body weight in butter :D added a bit of lemon zest for contrast.
ReplyDeleteReally good, especially with whipped cream. I put it in a 9x13 pan and it was perfect.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the very nice recipe for gingerbread. Mother made this sometimes because Daddy liked plain cakes (no icing). She would serve it with a dish of applesauce.
ReplyDelete