Gluten Free Molasses Gingerbread

In these dark days of winter I found myself craving gingerbread.  It might be that I’d had a cold recently and was thinking of ginger’s medicinal properties but mostly I just wanted to sink my teeth in to a sticky, spiced, dark slab of cake in an attempt to find warmth and comfort from the cold.  I hunted around for a recipe that looked like it might work gluten free.  As ever, Heidi Swanson of 101 cookbooks delivered.

 

I followed Heidi’s recipe simply subbing gluten free all purpose flour (Doves Farm Gluten Free Plain Flour) for the flour in the recipe, weight for weight.  I also halved the recipe and made the cake using a loaf pan because I didn’t have the right size cake tin.  It satisfied my gingerbread cravings perfectly.  Warm out of the oven is was sticky, rich and delicious. The top of the cake turns to a slightly caramelised crumb which is superb.  Heidi recommends keeping the cake in the fridge which I did.  The cake certainly became more dense but not really more sticky as I hoped.  This was most likely due to the tendency of gluten free flour to dry things out a little.  Despite this, it tasted fantastic.  The intensity of the ginger, molasses and spices seemed to heighten by being kept in the fridge.  We happily ate it over a few days bringing it up to room temperature before serving it with plain yoghurt or ice cream.  

You can find the recipe here.