Smother it in a layer of butter and serve it up with a cup of tea and you’ve got the perfect cold night treat! The warming spices, the sticky top and stodgy-cakey centre. If it doesn’t make you feel Autumnal, nothing will.
I played about with a few recipes before concluding this one was the absolute best. The perfect balance between Golden Syrup and Treacle, as well as opting for brown sugar for a deeper flavour. Ginger is obviously a must and is nicely complimented by the Ground Mixed Spice but the addition of some Cinnamon and Nutmeg makes this Gingerbread more delicious than any I’ve had before.
Put the kettle on, crank up the heating and get ready for Autumn!
Ingredients:
Butter or Margarine
Either will do and it’s personal preference to which you choose. I opt for margarine as a way to omit the dairy. Usually I would say to have your butter or margarine at room temperature for a cake but we will be melting it for this Gingerbread recipe so this isn’t necessary
Treacle
For that deep colour and warming flavour to your Gingerbread, treacle is a must! For those outside the UK struggling to get treacle, molasses can be used as a substitute, although you may need to experiment with the quantities to get the perfect flavour.
Golden Syrup
Similar to treacle, golden syrup will give your Gingerbread Loaf a warming flavour but also an undeniable punch of extra sweetness.
Milk
This Gingerbread recipe is a long, slow bake so a moist batter is a must. Milk helps with this and you can use dairy milk or whatever plant milk substitute you prefer (I use soya).
Self-raising Flour
As with most cake, self-raising flour is required. But if you only have plain to hand, fear not! You can use a plain flour with the addition of some extra-extra baking powder.
Baking Powder
Although our flour already has some raising power, as this cake batter has a lot of liquid we give it a little extra help with some baking powder too.
Soft Brown Sugar
As if this cake wasn’t sweet enough with the treacle and syrup, we’re also going to add some sugar too! Soft brown sugar is ideal for getting into the batter and adding a caramel-like flavour too.
Ground Ginger
And plenty of it! I recommend 4 teaspoons but if you like a really ginger-y gingerbread, add a little more.
Mixed Spice, Nutmeg and Cinnamon
All delicious extras which add more flavour and depth to your gingerbread.
Free-range Eggs
The traditional glue of choice in any cake batter. I don’t tend to stress to much about the size of eggs in a loaf cake, as long as they’re free-range.
Love this? Try this:
Ingredients
- 110 g Butter or Margarine
- 100 g Golden Syrup
- 100 g Treacle
- 150 ml Milk
- 225 g Self-raising Flour
- ½ tsp Baking Powder
- 55 g Soft Brown Sugar
- 4 tsp Ground Ginger
- 1 tsp Gound Mixed Spice
- 2 Free-range Eggs
- ½ tsp Ground Cinnamon
- ½ tsp Ground Nutmeg
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 160°c (140°c for fan assisted ovens or Gas Mark 2), line a 2lb loaf tin with some greaseproof paper and set aside.
- In a saucepan, warm the butter/margarine, golden syrup and treacle over a low heat until melted and just combined. Remove from the heat and stir in the milk. Set aside to cool.
- In a large bowl, sift in the flour, baking powder, sugar, ginger and spices. Add the melted mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until combined.
- Add the eggs to the batter and mix until combined.
- Transfer the batter to your pre-lined loaf tin and bake in your pre-heated oven for 1 hour - 1 hour 30 mins. You'll know the cake is ready when a skewer inserted comes out clean.
- Loosely cover the top of the loaf with a sheet of tin foil and allow to cool in the oven.
Notes
Free-from
Nut-free: There are no nuts in this Gingerbread recipe but double check your ingredients for any hidden nuts.
Dairy-free: To make this Gingerbread recipe dairy-free, simply use dairy-free margarine in place of butter, and your dairy-free milk of choice.
22 Responses
Any chance the ingredient list could be also published in US cup measurements?
Margot Petersen here is a useful website for converting
https://www.thecalculatorsite.com/cooking/cups-grams.php
Is the subscription free
Can I check that this gingerbread actually needs 90mins in the oven. Don’t want to dry it out so just checking first. Thanks in advance.
Can I freeze this gingerbread?
Lovely recipe very easy to do…. I give mine around 1hr 15mins then test … it’s usually done by then….. absolutely delicious gingerbread… very moist
This is the nearest i have come to a ginger bread recipe my 96year old mum gave me some years ago, I remember stiring the butter, treacle and golden syrup in the saucepan for her as a child (unfortunately I lost it) Thank you for this delicious recipe it brings back so many memories. Im off now to bake one to take to my mum.
This is also almost exactly the same as the recipe my mum cooked for us (and I helped with) as a child! We loved it spread with butter. Thanks so much for sharing!
Who needs Autumn to eat anything Gingerbread, I know I don’t, I’m almost obsessed with Ginger, we are in the beginning of what looks like one ery hot summer, and its still December. Your cake sounds wonderful just the kind that deserve a good slab of fresh cold butter, I have a date, pecan and Ginger I created that I love a good portion of real butter on, it’s diffinently going in my reportire, have it in my oven as I’m typing this, it smelling rather gorgeous might I say. Didn’t have quite enough treacle so topped it off with Molasses and I also added some chopped naked Ginger. Can’t wait for to be ready …
Such a great recipe. Easy and delicious. Just as gingerbread should be; moist, deep flavoured and rich in colour. Thanks
Excellent recipe the best gingerbread yet ,and ive tried a few recipes .I used a bit extra treacle butter and spices but it beats other recipes hands down
Great recipe, easy to follow. Swapped out the Ginger spice for Dutch spices Speculaas, which made from pepper, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, cardamom and nutmeg.
And was delicious . One for the favourite recipe book..
Tried this out today as love gingerbread. It is amazing. I have recently started baking so this was easy to follow. Absolutely delicious with lashings of butter. Thank you for sharing the recipe. I can’t wait to try out some of your other family favorites.
Beauful full flavoured ginger cake well worth making
Do you think it’ll be ok if I use a cake tin instead of a loaf tin? Can’t wait to try it out
Hi,is it full fat milk or can I use semi skimmed?
Oh my goodness! This is delicious! Thank you very much, this will be a firm favourite.
Asked two loads amazing. I poured icing on top. Whal. Thank you.
First time making a gingerbread and turned out yummy
My Son and I have made Ginger cake using this recipe and it turned out beautifully!
Thankyou.
Made this earlier today house smells amazing , gingerbread just like my gran used to make , its delicious, thank you so much for sharing your recipes .. it’s very kind of you .. xxx
Lovely cake, made for the first time today. Made a few tweaks in slightly less sugar, we don’t have that sweet a tooth and as I didn’t have any mixed spice that got left out. Nonetheless it is a delicious cake, so moist, doubt it will last long here . Reminded me of my Nan .