I love baking on a Sunday morning, and as I haven’t done any for a while I thought that today would be a perfect day to try this new recipe! It comes from Paul Hollywood’s ‘How To Bake‘ – I think there was a series of the same name, but even if you haven’t seen it it’s worth getting the book! In the book the gingerbread is served with poached pears, but I haven’t bothered with those here. If you want to have a go at making else from the book, Mr C-C (husband of Daria, my partner-in-craft) has made the pork pies, which went down a treat!

Ingredients (serves 8)

175ml dark treacle
70g caster sugar
250g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
50g crystallised ginger, chopped
50g marmalade
250g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
4 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
4 medium eggs
175ml full-fat milk (I actually used semi-skimmed milk)
75g creme fraiche

Method

1. Put the treacle, caster sugar, butter, crystallised ginger and marmalade into a saucepan and slowly bring to the boil. Transfer to a large bowl and leave to cool for 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, heat your oven to 160C/just under Gas mark 3. Butter a 30 x 20cm baking tin, about 6cm deep, and line with parchment (I don’t own one of these, so I used my brownie pan with a lot of parchment paper up the sides and a loaf tin).

3. Sift the flour, baking powder and spices into a bowl. In another large bowl, whisk the eggs, milk and creme fraiche together. Pour the warm treacle mix into the egg mixture, whisking constantly, then beat in the dry ingredients.

4. Pour the gingerbread mixture into the prepared baking tin and bake for 40-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool until warm (if serving with some creme fraiche as a dessert) or until completely cooled so that it can be stored in an airtight tin.