Friday, October 15, 2010

In response to 'subtle' hints

From occasional comments along the lines of "So, Robyn... how's your Edmonds thing going..?" I gathered that I was about due to be feeding the "undeserving workmates" again. Friday's a good day to have something extra for morning tea, so last night I dug through my Edmonds book for a recipe.


My requirements in selecting a recipe were simple. I needed something that: a) does not take too much effort, and b) is comprised of ingredients I already had in the cupboard. Luckily, the Edmonds book is full of such recipes, and I soon selected gingerbread (p48), which also fitted requirement c): something that I personally wanted to eat.


As usual, it was quite straightforward: cream butter and sugar, warm golden syrup and add to creamed mixture. I found that I didn't quite have the full cup of golden syrup I needed, which was particularly annoying, since I'd actually wanted to add a little more than stated in the recipe.


You see, I was using Pams golden syrup. Normally, I'd be the first to argue that Pams, Home Brand or similar are just as good quality as the name brands - and sometimes better - but I don't think this is true for golden syrup: it just doesn't seem to have as much flavour. Never mind, I've finished the bottle now, and can replace it with good old Chelsea.


Still, for the time being, I had to make do with the slightly-less-than-one-cup of mediocre golden syrup I had. It didn't seem to matter, though - even just under one cup is a lot of golden syrup! I mixed this in with the creamed butter and sugar, then beat in an egg.


Next came the dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking soda, ginger and cinnamon to be sifted together. I didn't have enough cinnamon, so substituted the rest with a reduced quantity of cassia. Once the dry ingredients were sifted and thoroughly mixed in a bowl, I added them to the first bowl alternately with water.


There seemed to be a bit more water than I really needed - each time I stirred in the dry ingredients, the mixture looked quite good, then I'd add water and it'd go really runny. When I ran out of dry ingredients, I flagged the rest of the water. The mixture was runny enough as it was without another 1/4 cup of water in it!


I poured my mix into a lined cake tin and put it in the oven for 45-60 minutes. It was still quite gooey after 45, so I ended up taking it out at the 55-minute mark, at which point it was cooked through, but a little dark on top.


After resting it in the tin for 10 minutes, I took it out to cool on a wire rack. But of course I had to taste it while it was still warm, so I cut myself a chunk off the corner. It was pretty good gingerbread, really: a lovely soft, moist, spongy texture and a good gingery taste despite my misgivings about the golden syrup.


I cut the cake into generous chunks and took it to work today. On the whole, everyone agreed with my evaluation of the gingerbread: nice and moist, pretty good really. I did have to run around at the end of the day talking people into eating the last of it though - was this a matter of everyone being too polite to take the last piece, or did no one like it enough to eat second piece? What does it matter? I liked it, and I'm the one writing the blog!

2 comments:

  1. I visited NZ in 2002-3, didn't want to come home to a Canadian winter. Bought the "Edmonds" cookbook, published 1998. Want to make the Gingerbread loaf p29, don't have "Creamoata" but have something called "Scottish Stoneground Oats", finely ground oatmeal, not rolled,
    and will use Crosby's Fancy Molasses instead of golden syrup and 1/2 c chopped dates instead of sultanas.
    Will let you know how it works out, really have a yen for a slab of Gingerbread loaf with butter and a cuppa.

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  2. Yum, sounds good to me! I haven't done that one yet, so let me know how it turns out.

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