Well.

This NEVER happens.

I photographed this gingerbread last Christmas, then in a whirlwind of sherry drinking, turkey cooking, birthdays, Christmas and falling asleep by the fire I neglected to post it. So here it is. An old-fashioned gingerbread.

It tastes more delicious than the simple recipe has any right to. Especially if you leave it wrapped up in a tin for a couple of days. It mellows and gets stickier and lovelier the longer you leave it.

There is a point at which this would cease to be true I’m sure. There must be a tipping point where it becomes more mouldy than lovely but I’ll leave you to work that out for yourself.

If it’s Christmas time (it is) you can lay a Christmassy shaped thing on the top of the gingerbread and dust it with icing sugar to make it look a bit festive. If I remember rightly I did this in the studio and got icing sugar everywhere. That’s probably why I never posted it, I was too busy hoovering the icing sugar up, or more likely just rubbing it into the corners with my fluffy Christmas slipper socks.

This recipe was from my friend Tina when it formed the instructions for Ambergate Carnival Cake Baking Competition 2008. That was the year Ed that entered the “Best Banana Cake Baked by A Man” and I entered ‘Best Gingerbread Cake Baked by A Woman”.

We both proudly won 1st prize which is partly due to our amazing cake baking skills (obviously) but mostly due to the fact that there were only about two entries. But them’s just details.

It’s winning that counts.

Things{we}make Gingerbread

2oz Golden Syrup
2oz Treacle
4oz Soft Brown Sugar
1 Level Teaspoon Ground Ginger
1 Large Egg – Beaten
1 Teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda
Pinch of Salt
4oz Butter
6oz Plain Flour
1.5 Teaspoons Ground Cinnamon
¼ Pint of Milk

Grease and line a 7 or 8″ square baking tin
Preheat oven to 150ºc
You can add some glacé ginger to the mix, which is lovely but tends to sink to the bottom.

1. Gently melt the syrup, treacle, butter and brown sugar in a pan.
2. Sift in the flour, salt, ginger and cinnamon.
3. Stir in the beaten egg.
4. Warm the milk and pour into a jug with the bicarbonate of soda – mix.
5. Stir the warm milk/bicarb into the pan too.
6. Pour the mix into the lined tin.
7. Bake at 150ºc for 50-60 minutes – until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
8. Allow the cake to cool in the tin.
9. Ideally wrap up and leave in a tin for a day or two before you eat it.