To make ginger-bread cakes is a traditional British recipe, based on Hannah Glasse's recipe of 1747, for a classic method of making ginger-flavoured biscuits from a flour, sugar, butter, treacle (molasses) and cream dough. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: To make ginger-bread cakes.
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This is a traditional British recipe redacted from Hannah Glasse's 1747 volume The Aft of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, the classic Georgian cookbook.
To make ginger-bread cakes.
TAKE three pounds of flour, one pound of ſugar, one pound of butter rubbed in very fine, two ounces of ginger beat fine, a large nutmeg grated ; then take a pound of treacle, a quarter of a pint of cream, and make them warm together, and make up the bread ſtiff ; roll it out, and make it up into thin cakes, cut them out with a tea-cup, or ſmall glaſs, or roll them round like nuts, and bake them on tin plates in a ſlack oven.
Modern Redaction
Ingredients:
675g plain flour
225g golden caster sugar
225g butter, finely grated
2 tbsp ground ginger
1/2 large nutmeg, grated
225g black treacle
60ml cream
Method:
Combine the treacle and cream in a pan then heat gently until the treacle flows easily. Take off the heat and set aside.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, butter, ginger and nutmeg. Stir well together then pour over the cream and treacle mix. Bring all the ingredients together as a stiff dough then turn onto a lightly-floured work surface and roll out to about 6mm thick.
Cut into shapes with a pastry cutter or a knife and set on a baking tray. Transfer to an oven pre-heated to 150°C and bake for about 30 minutes, or until golden brown and cooked through.
Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool before cooling and serving.
