However, I do not have those American ingredients such as molasses and others and I therefore use what I have at home.
Instead of all purpose flour, I use a French flour - Francine Farine Supreme. I do not have any plain flour or all purpose flour in my cupboards! LOL I do not use such flour for baking.
For molasses, I use Tate and Lyle treacle - but as this is more viscous than the American Molasses, I have decided to use less and I will therefore be using 300 grams [7/8 of a cup] of treacle and Golden Syrup instead of Gretchen's 1.25 cups of molasses.
Instead of light brown sugar, I use Billington's natural molasses sugar and I have reduced the amount of sugar from 200 grams to 113 grams or 4 ozs.
So here is my revised list of gingerbread cake ingredients
4 ozs [113 g] unsalted butter
4 ozs [113 g] Billington's natural molasses sugar
7/8 cup Tate and Lyle treacle and Golden Syrup = 300 grams [260 grams of treacle and 40 grams of Golden Syrup]
2 eggs - I have increased the number of eggs by 1 and I use medium size eggs
2.5 cups [350 grams] Francine Farine Supreme flour
1 tsp bi-carbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground cloves
1.25 cups [10 fl oz or half a pint] hot water [off the boil] - same temperature as in making coffee at around 80 C
- Weigh the butter and molasses sugar in a bowl and set aside
- Measure the flour and the other dry ingredients and sift them twice
- Grease a 12 cup bundt baking tin with butter and flour - I use NordicWare 12 - 15 cups bundt baking tin and I am therefore presetting my oven to 165 C with fan switched off
- Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy and then add the treacle and Golden Syrup and mix well until all the sugar has dissolved.
- Add the eggs one at a time and beat to combine well.
- The add the dry ingredients and hot water alternately ending with dry ingredients, and mixing well after each addition.
- Pour the cake mixture into the prepared bundt baking tin and bake at 165 C convectional oven for 50 to 55 minutes - and it took 53 minutes to bake. The idea is not to over bake your gingerbread cake.
- Leave the gingerbread cake to cool in the bundt tin.
As for the icing glaze, I followed Joy of Baking and used 150 grams of sifted icing sugar and 2 tbsp of freshly squeezed lemon juice.
I personally think the icing is too thin and it does not look too good. So here is the transformation!
I rather like the variegated moss green leaves - and the colour was given to me by Vero - and thanks Vero!
Questions and Answers
I do not have a bundt baking tin. What should I do? You could use a 9 inch [23 cm] square or a 10 inch round baking tin instead.
I have a bundt tin but not a Nordic Ware Bundt tin. What temperature should I bake the cake? Nordic Ware advises people to bake their cakes at a lower temperature if they were to use their platinum range baking tins as the metal they use to make these tins is a very efficient conductor of heat. If you have an ordinary baking tin, may it be a 9 inch square baking tin or other makes of baking tin, then you need to read the manufacturer's instructions. This cake would normally be baked at 175 C or 350 F.
I do not have that Francine flour. What flour should I use? Use plain flour if you are in the UK. If you are in other countries, you may use all purpose flour. The Francine flour has 9 % protein and do not use flour which has a protein contain more than 11 %. AND I am unlikely to go to Holland Park to buy all purpose flour from an American shop just to make this cake.
I cannot find natural molasses sugar. What sugar can I use? You can use any brown sugar - light brown sugar, dark brown sugar, or any muscovado sugar or even caster sugar.
I do not have treacle in my country. What should I use? The Americans use Grandma's Molasses - Yellow brand - the original version. You can use this if you can purchase it. In London, a 12 oz jar of Grandma's Molasses costs nearly £5 and if I were to buy it from Amazon, it would cost over £7. As for a pound weight of treacle only costs £1.18. Therefore it is not economical for me not to use Tate and Lyle treacle.
Why did I use such odd quantities of treacle and Golden Syrup? It is rather late at night and it is too late for me to go to the shops to buy more treacle. I therefore made up the quantity I wanted with Golden Syrup. I am making this cake for Deacon David's birthday and I have to make the mixture tonight to bake the cake tomorrow morning as the birthday party is tomorrow. LOL
Why am I using 2 eggs and Gretchen uses one egg? This is because Grandma's website uses two eggs for such proportion of ingredients to make a gingerbread cake.
Other recipes have salt and why is there no salt in this recipe? I have a dislike of salt in my sweet creations - cakes, biscuits and others. I just cannot imagine why people like salt and sugar in the same food item - like cakes and biscuits. I do not mind having salt and sugar in my sweet and sour but not cakes and biscuits.
Evaluation
The cake served 9 people after dinner tonight and everybody loved the cake. They said the cake was moist and they liked the flavour of the cake. The ginger was not over the top and the cake was not too sweet. I served the cake with sweetened whipped double cream and this really went well with cake. There is no need to change this excellent recipe and may God bless America as this is an American cake!
27 December 2014
Made the cake again for Dominic's baptismal agape and used the following ingredients.
113 grams unsalted butter
113 grams molasses sugar
188 grams treacle
145 grams Golden Syrup - total syrup 333 grams just under 1 cup of syrup
2 large free range eggs
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
0.5 tsp ground cloves
350 grams mąka tortowa
1.25 cups of hot water
Icing Glaze: 150 grams icing sugar & 5 tsp of lemon or orange juice and this gives a much better glaze.
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