[Recipe] A Loaf of Gingerbread
Feb. 24th, 2013 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitchenklutzFor Christmas, my ever-lovable sister got me an unusual cookbook -- "Homemade Winter", by Yvette Van Boxen. I was immediately intrigued by it -- it's laid out in a very nonstandard, flowing, I-just-wrote-this-recipe-down-by-hand manner. It's got scads of apparently hand-drawn illustrations to go along with the directions, so visually it definitely catches the eye.
This morning, I decided while making breakfast that I was going to give one of the recipes a shot --
Gingerbread, or Pan D'Epice
Let me state from the start that I changed this recipe substantially from what's in the book, based on my realizations mid-way thru recipe preparation. Below I'm noting what my final recipe was, and putting the original recipe quantities and instructions in parentheses.
Ingredients
* 3 1/4 cups self-rising flour
* a pinch of salt
* 1 tsp ground ginger
* 1 tsp ground cinnamon
* 1 tsp ground coriander
* a pinch of allspice
* 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
* 1/4 cup + 3 tablespoons honey
* 1 - 1 1/4 cups milk
--> (Here's the big change from the in-book recipe. The original recipe calls for only 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon of milk. When I tried this, the dough was WAY too dry and flaky and powdered still. I added milk little by little until I had a sticky, moist dough.)
Method
1. Grease a 8-inch by 4-inch pan with soft butter or margarine.
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. (The original recipe calls for heating it to 300 degrees F.)
3. Combine self-rising flour, salt, ginger, cinnamon, coriander, allspice, and brown sugar in a bowl. Blend in honey, then add milk 1/4 cup at a time until dough is firm and moist. Transfer into baking pan and bake in oven for 1 hour.
4. Cautiously remove loaf from pan by separating with a spatula, and allow to cool on a wire rack before slicing.
Mixing the dough is probably best accomplished with a standing mixer. I initially tried mixing it both with a wooden spoon and by hand, and the dough was so sticky as to coat my hands with scads of gingery flour that had to be scrubbed off under the faucet.
That said, I'm quite happy with the final, modified, result. The adapted recipe produced a lovely loaf of bread -- light, moist, subtly spiced, and quite delicious. I'll no doubt make it again in the future, keeping my modifications in mind.
Enjoy!
This morning, I decided while making breakfast that I was going to give one of the recipes a shot --
Gingerbread, or Pan D'Epice
Let me state from the start that I changed this recipe substantially from what's in the book, based on my realizations mid-way thru recipe preparation. Below I'm noting what my final recipe was, and putting the original recipe quantities and instructions in parentheses.
Ingredients
* 3 1/4 cups self-rising flour
* a pinch of salt
* 1 tsp ground ginger
* 1 tsp ground cinnamon
* 1 tsp ground coriander
* a pinch of allspice
* 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
* 1/4 cup + 3 tablespoons honey
* 1 - 1 1/4 cups milk
--> (Here's the big change from the in-book recipe. The original recipe calls for only 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon of milk. When I tried this, the dough was WAY too dry and flaky and powdered still. I added milk little by little until I had a sticky, moist dough.)
Method
1. Grease a 8-inch by 4-inch pan with soft butter or margarine.
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. (The original recipe calls for heating it to 300 degrees F.)
3. Combine self-rising flour, salt, ginger, cinnamon, coriander, allspice, and brown sugar in a bowl. Blend in honey, then add milk 1/4 cup at a time until dough is firm and moist. Transfer into baking pan and bake in oven for 1 hour.
4. Cautiously remove loaf from pan by separating with a spatula, and allow to cool on a wire rack before slicing.
Mixing the dough is probably best accomplished with a standing mixer. I initially tried mixing it both with a wooden spoon and by hand, and the dough was so sticky as to coat my hands with scads of gingery flour that had to be scrubbed off under the faucet.
That said, I'm quite happy with the final, modified, result. The adapted recipe produced a lovely loaf of bread -- light, moist, subtly spiced, and quite delicious. I'll no doubt make it again in the future, keeping my modifications in mind.
Enjoy!
