Firstly, ginger is my thing. I love it in all its forms; ginger ale is even my choice of mixer with Vodka! Ginger and treacle as a combination is another favourite. After a long search for a recipe for a Ginger & Treacle bread and finding none that perfectly suited what I was trying to create, I came up with this recipe which gives me everything I was looking for in a Ginger & Treacle bread.
What you need:
180g of Plain Flour
300g of Wholemeal Flour
2 teaspoons of Ground Ginger
1.5 teaspoons of Breadsoda
Pinch of Salt
100g of Butter
1 egg
280ml of Buttermilk
100ml of Treacle
What to do:
Preheat the oven to 195˚C.
Sieve the flour, breadsoda and ground ginger into a mixing bowl. Add the wholemeal and salt and stir. Add the butter and rub in until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Make a well in the mixture. Combine the egg, buttermilk and treacle and then add to the mixing bowl. Combine well.
Grease a 1lb loaf tin and add the mixture.
Bake for about 40 minutes. Then take the loaf out of the tin and turn upside down and return it to the oven for about another 5 minutes.
Cover in a clean tea towel and allow to cool.
The cooking time is generally 40-45 minutes in total but you can experiment with when to invert the cake towards the end of the cooking time to ensure the top of the cake does not burn.
The outcome:
This is a very gingery treacle bread but you can reduce the amount of ground ginger if you wish. I had tried so many different recipes. Some had no wholemeal so were more like a cake. Some had honey so were too sweet. Some claimed to be for 1lb loaf tins but produced way too much mixture. Some suggested cooking for a longer time at a lower temperature that did not deliver the desired end product. After much trial and error, I came up with my own recipe and I hope you like it too!