Gingerbread Loaf
This loaf recipe can be used all year long, but the spices used, and the simplicity of the recipe makes
it a great gift to make over the holiday months. It could be a thank you to a teacher, mentor, staff member, your boss, a good friend or a family member. Alternatively it could be a quick, easy dessert to make for Christmas Day. Simply serve warm with ice cream or cream, or a sprinkle of icing sugar.
Ingredients
- ½ cup (250ml) buttermilk (alternatively use 1 cup of milk and 2 Tbsp of apple cider vinegar or white vinegar and set aside until the milk appears chunky)
- 115g butter, softened
- ½ cup brown sugar (100g)
- 1 tsp vanilla
- ½ cup molasses (or golden syrup)
- 1 egg
- 2 cups plain flour (300g)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3 tsp ginger
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- ½ tsp salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 175˚C.
- Prepare your loaf tin (9” x 5” or 23cm x 13cm).
- Prepare the buttermilk/sour milk, and set aside.
- Sift the flour, baking soda, ginger, nutmeg and salt into a large mixing bowl, and set aside.
- Cream the butter and brown sugar until smooth and pale, add vanilla.
- Pour in the molasses and beat until rich in colour.
- Add the egg and beat again.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, alternating between the creamed molasses and buttermilk.
- Use your dough whisk to bring it all together into a wet mixture.
- Once the mixture comes together, pour into your prepared loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes.
- Let the loaf cool for 10 minutes in the loaf tin before tipping onto a cooling rack.
- Allow the loaf to cool completely before cutting. Serve sliced spread with butter or warm up and serve with cream or ice cream as a dessert.
Philippa Cameron is the station cook on her husband’s family farm, Ōtemātātā Station in the Waitaki Valley; and the mother to two beautiful daughters who will be the sixth generation to treasure this sparse and beautiful high country environment. Alongside cooking and running her successful social media business What’s For Smoko she has published two books, A High Country Life and Winter Warmers.
