My sister makes the most amazing stuffing for Christmas, with gingerbread and bacon, which in itself sounds like something you'd dream of, whether in nightmare-, or day-dream form I'll leave for you to decide. It's a Nigella recipe, though, so you can imagine it's really pretty marvellous! (And it is!)
But you see, since discovering that gluten is not a friend of my internal workings, things like this are either put in the ‘No Can Do Any More' list, or relegated to the ‘Maybe On A Special Occasion If You're Lucky And The Planets Have Aligned In A Positive Manner' list, because GF gingerbread cake is impossible to find in the wilds of Morrisons, and the few recipes I had previously found looked faff-tastic to say the least. UNTIL (cue the lightbulb of discovery - ping) I stumbled across this recipe at Gluten-Free On A Shoestring. Oh me, oh my, oh just put it in my mouth already oh.
Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, I made this before Christmas for the afore-mentioned gingerbread stuffing but I forgot to document it in the style in which you're now accustomed. So for you, yes that includes you lurking at the back there, seeing as it's been a while since I bombarded you with a GF recipe translated into my own inimitable language style of occasional criticising commentary and Fake Food Blogger™ WTFery, here's a little morsel to keep you going...
You need:
350g all-purpose gluten-free flour
1 ¼ tsps xantham gum (don't add if your flour already contains some)
1 ½ tsps baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
2 tsps ground cinnamon
2 tsps ground ginger
½ tsp salt
100g granulated sugar
109g light brown sugar
2 tbsps or 42g molasses (I used black treacle)
6 tbsps or 126g pure maple syrup
4 tbsps or 84g honey
112g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 egg (at room temp, beaten)
1 cup or 225ml warm water
2 tbsps or 28g vegetable oil
We ALL know how much I am not a fan of being asked to pre-heat an oven that will stay pre-heating while you let your dough rise for 18 hours/freeze-form your cookies overnight, and I am pleased to say that this was not the case here, as having made this before I knew it was a relatively quick make. Yes indeed, I pre-heated my oven to 175℃ like a boss.
Then getting out a large bowl (:: sobs quietly, remembering her trusty mixing bowls that were donated to charity back in NL ::) you fill it with the flour, xantham gum, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, salt and granulated sugar and give it a jolly good mix.
Once it's all jolly well mixed, add the brown sugar and mix it up again, making sure to break up any lumps.
Next you need to add the molasses (treacle), maple syrup, honey, butter and egg, “mixing to combine after each addition". Or, if you're like me, you'll measure out all the treacle, maple syrup and honey into one bowl before adding them to the dry ingredients in one sticky go, forgetting that the honey will layer at the bottom, the maple syrup will lie nonchalantly on top, and the treacle will refuse to have anything to do with either of them and keep itself to itself in the centre of the bowl. I think treacle may have issues.
After mixing all the ingredients up, do NOT do as it did, and add the mix as-is to the prepared loaf tin. It will look like this - a thick, dough-like consistency, that, yes, tastes amazing (don't judge - the spoon had to get washed anyway), but doesn't look quite right.
It looks like this because it still needed the addition of warm water and vegetable oil.
I suppose the only good thing about this mistake was that it came straight out of the papered tin in one glop, leaving nary a gingery skid-mark on the paper.
No, this is what it's supposed to look like. Probably.
Possibly. The directions say that the batter will be thick, but I think the emphasis should be on ‘batter' as opposed to ‘thick', because otherwise you'll be left with something like I had to begin with - thick, yes, batter, no.
Then you place the tin in the pre-heated oven and bake for forty minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
...
...
Now, when it says forty minutes, you may find that that's not enough time, because your tin might not have been big enough and your cake might look baked on top, but the rest has the wobble of Homer Simpson's belly after being poked by the doctor in ‘The Simpsons'. This is not a good look for a baked cake. I ended up de-Homer-fying it for a total of seventy minutes. Yup.
It did come out looking like this, though,
and smelling absolutely scrumptious!
You can tell, however, that the baking wasn't one hundred percent efficient, as on slicing in to it you can clearly see the makings of an almost-crust around the edges, just drier than the rest due to it being in the oven for so long.
It does taste DIVINE, though. And the consistency is squidgy enough that it reminds me of bought gingerbread cake. Except this is better. No, really, it is!
The next time I make this, once I've saved up enough pennies to afford the maple syrup (oy, that stuff is dear) I'll split the batter between two tins and see how much a difference that makes with the baking time and consistency, but until then I shall be content to treat myself to a slice of this delectably squidgy cake and slather it in butter, just how my Granny used to make it for us when we were wee!
