Gingerbread Cake

This recipe is a variation of the Yorkshire Gingerbread recipe made by Clarissa Dickson Wright in the first series of 'Two Fat Ladies' and is printed in their companion book, Cooking with the Two Fat Ladies, which is currently out of print, but you can find second-hand copies for a pretty good rate these days.

I have altered her recipe to include whole wheat flour and adjusted the cooking times for cupcakes.

My version:

Ingredients

1 cup - whole wheat flour

2/3 cup - self-rising flour

2 tbls - ground ginger

1 tbls - ground allspice

1/2 tsp - salt

1 tsp - baking soda

1/2 cup (1 stick) - unsalted butter

1/2 cup - packed dark brown sugar

3 eggs, beaten

2/3 cup - molasses

Method

Preheat oven to 340F

Sift together flours, ginger, allspice, salt and baking soda into a bowl.

In a separate bowl cream butter and brown sugar until very soft.

Beat the eggs into the butter/sugar mixture a bit at a time until fully incorporated, then mix in the molasses. Gently fold in the dry ingredients a bit at a time.

Pour into a greased 8x8 cake pan.

Turn oven down to 325F and bake for 50-60 minutes. Cake is done when the top springs back when gently pressed.

tarabu's 2 cents:

Clarissa says to let it cool in the pan and that you should store it in an airtight container for a few days before eating. Mine does not even get the chance to cool before I have eaten some. I made this into cupcakes this evening - I ate three before they were all out of the pan.

They are very chewy and thick with the molasses and I can definitely suggest that if you have dental work like partials, bridgework or braces, that you should probably let it cure for a couple of days or the trauma of cleaning your mouth may outweigh the spicy goodness in your memory.

A note on the baking - if you are using a square pan, it needs to be an old 2.5+ inch deep metal or glass casserole type pan. If you are using a shallow pan like the disposable ones or the kind for making layer cakes divide the batter between two pans, otherwise the batter will pour all over your poor oven as it rises.

If you are going to make cupcakes (like I did today) make 30. I know it looks like it only needs to make two dozen, but you'll have some overflow - and not in a cute muffin top sort of way, but in a 'Who's got a chisel?' sort of way. Bake cupcakes for 25-30 minutes.

Clarissa recommends eating it spread with butter or served with clotted cream and sliced ginger in syrup.

I say it's also good with maple cream cheese and apple cider. There's no apple cider in my house so I will have to settle for a rum toddy.

*contented sigh*

Ridiculously Simple Scones

It's Sunday morning, you may well have all these ingredients in your house, make something lovely.

Preheat oven to 425F

In a large bowl blend:
2 cups flour (all-purpose is fine)
2 tbls white sugar
1 tbls baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Cut into this 1/4 cup (half stick/four tbls) butter or vegan margarine until it is uniformly coarse. A pastry cutter works best, but a couple of knives or a large serving fork can do the job in a pinch.

In a separate bowl blend 1/2 cup light cream (whole milk/soymilk work fine, skim won't do) and one large egg.

Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix quickly until you have a soft slightly sticky dough.

Turn out onto a floured surface and knead gently until it comes together (you'll feel it happen)

Press, pat or roll out until it's about 1/2 inch thick. Cut into rounds using a 2.5 inch biscuit cutter, round cookie cutter or the edge of whisky tumbler* leaving as little space between them as possible, re-roll and cut out the rest of the dough.

Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake in hot oven for 12 minutes. Cool for a few minutes on the sheet before moving to a rack.

Eat soon (or right away) with a little butter and jam and a cup of tea.

tarabu's 2 cents:

Cutting - I use a 7 oz neat whisky glass and my scones still separate easily for filling, so you do not necessarily need to have a fancy knife-edged metal cutter. A proper metal cutter does make the job easier, and is necessary if you are making very light biscuits that need room to rise. If you don't have a dedicated cutter and are worried about rising, roll your scone dough out into a rectangle and use a very sharp knife to cut 5" squares, then cut the squares into triangles.

Wash - if you want scones like in a shop, brush a little milk over the top and sprinkle with pearl sugar before baking.

Yes, that's a Highlander mug, and yes, I am a dork.

Shortbread Cookies

Here by popular demand (okay, only Karen asked, but she's popular!) I offer up my Ridiculously Simple Shortbread Cookie Recipe.

Ingredients:

1/2 pound of butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups flour

1/8 teaspoon salt (totally optional, I usually forget it)

1 tsp TrueLemon (crystallized lemon juice, yum, optional)

Tools:

A mixer (hand or stand)

a sieve

a large glass or metal mixing bowl

a rolling pin

oven mitt and cookie sheets or jelly roll pans

a sharp knife

a fork

spatula

The process:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F

Cream the butter and sugar really well. In the words of Devo, Whip it Good. Get a good bit of air into the mix.

Then sift the flour (and salt and powdered lemon, if using) in a little at a time. It will be a little coarse at the beginning, just keep mixing and it will come together.

When thourougly mixed, dump out onto a well-floured clean surface. Gently roll out to about 1/2 inch thick, in as close to a rectangle as you can manage. This is a very soft dough, so you just need to push the rolling pin across the surface, rather than push down on the dough. If you do not have a rolling pin, you can just pat it into shape with your hands.

Cut into sticks approx 1/2 inch wide by 2 inch long. Prick a row in the top with tines of a fork.

Transfer sticks to ungreased baking sheets, approx 1/2 inch apart. Load into oven and immediately turn temp down to 275 degrees Farenheit. Bake for 25-30 minutes (check after 20 if your oven is not too reliable), remove when they are a very pale golden.

Cool on wire racks.

Makes approx 3.5 dozen. Enjoy with a copy of tea.

I am sorry I do not have a photo of the finished cookies, but I have eaten them all.