Here's one I tried last year. Someone produced it at a meeting I went to, and she got the recipe from a very old Margerite Patten book. I googled it and got this: It's very popular with the family, and easy to do because the treacly ingredients can be measured in the saucepan.
STICKY GINGERBREAD
Cake:
3 oz butter/margarine
3 oz light soft brown sugar
4 oz black treacle
4 oz golden syrup
6 oz plain white flour
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
finely grated rind of a lemon
1 egg, beaten
5 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 oz preserved stem ginger in syrup, drained and chopped into small pieces (1 or 2 mm-ish cubes)
Topping:
2 oz icing sugar
1-2 tsp lemon juice
preserved stem ginger pieces, to decorate
preheat the oven to 170C/325F/gas mark 3. grease and base line a 2 pint loaf tin.
melt the butter, sugar, treacle and syrup in a saucepan over a low heat and stir until evenly blended. cool slightly.
sift together the flour and ground spices into a large bowl and make a well in the centre. add the lemon rind with the treacle mixture, egg and milk. beat well to mix, whisking if necessary, until smooth.
dissolve the bicarbonate in 1 tbsp hot water. add to the gingerbread mixture with the chopped ginger, stir well and pour into the prepared tin.
bake for an hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack and leave until cold.
for the topping, mix the icing sugar with enough lemon juice to form a smooth, thin glace icing. drizzle over the gingerbread and top with slices of ginger.
store in an airtight container for up to one week.
NB: With the second cake I made I increased slightly the quantities of spices and stem ginger and it greatly improved the flavour. But that’s a matter of individual taste.
