Not Quite Gingerbread

It feels as if I have baked a cake every weekend recently.   Sometimes it’s my Banana Bread, sometimes it’s been Lemon Drizzle Cake and when we were overloaded with carrots, it was Carrot Cake.  (I’ll share those two recipes later - I’m still working to perfect my carrot cake, having lost my original, reliable recipe.) 

Today, I baked the closest recipe I’ve got to gingerbread.  This is inspired by a war time recipe for Fat Free Gingerbread that was posted on MSE.  I made the original and found it very tough and chewy.  Of course, it may have been different if I’d used it for gingerbread men, but in a loaf cake, it didn’t work.  The spicing, however, was amazing.  I’ve experimented a bit and this is the result.  While I’ve always made it using my food processor, uou can use a stand mixer, a hand held electric mixer or mix by hand in a large bowl with a whisk or wooden spoon. The recipe doubles up well.  (I normally bake two at a time and and freeze the second.)

Not Quite Gingerbread - makes 1 loaf cake or 12 muffins

Ingredients

1 cup of milk

1 teaspoon white wine or cider vinegar

1 egg

150g/1 cup soft, dark, muscovardo sugar

1/2 cup rapeseed oil

1 cup plain flour

1 cup rolled oats

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons mixed spice

Method

1. In the food processor, combine the milk with the vinegar.  It should curdle.  Leave it to rest for 5 minutes while you measure out the rest of your ingredients.  Put the flour and oats in one container, the sugar in another and the baking powder, bicarb soda, salt and spices in a third.
2. Preheat the oven to 180C.  Line a loaf pan or muffin tins with paper liners.
3. After 5 minutes, combine the sugar, oil and egg with the milk.  Whiz for at least 10 seconds.
4. Add the baking powder/spice mixture and whiz until there are no visible lumps.
5. Finally, pour in the flour and oats.  Process until all is combined.  The mixture will appear a bit grainy from the oats and that is perfectly OK.  The mixture will be runny.
6. If making a loaf cake, pour your mixture into your lined loaf pan and bake at 180C for 55 minutes.
7. If making muffins, use a quarter cup measure to ladle the mixture into individual muffin cases and bake 180C for 20-25 minutes.  One muffin case should equal one filled quarter cup measure.  If you have any mixture left over, distribute it evenly between the cases.
8. Once cooked, remove your  cake or muffins from their tin and cool on a rack.  Don’t put in a cake tin until cold.
9. If you are going to freeze the cake, ensure it is cold, keep the liner on and place in a bag or wrap in cling film before freezing.   Once defrosted, remove the paper liner before placing in your cake tin.  The liner will be soggy and a damp cake goes mouldy faster.

Enjoy!

- Pip