In response to 'subtle' hints

From occasional comments along the lines of "So, Robyn... how's your Edmonds thing going..?" I gathered that I was about due to be feeding the "undeserving workmates" again. Friday's a good day to have something extra for morning tea, so last night I dug through my Edmonds book for a recipe.

My requirements in selecting a recipe were simple. I needed something that: a) does not take too much effort, and b) is comprised of ingredients I already had in the cupboard. Luckily, the Edmonds book is full of such recipes, and I soon selected gingerbread (p48), which also fitted requirement c): something that I personally wanted to eat.


As usual, it was quite straightforward: cream butter and sugar, warm golden syrup and add to creamed mixture. I found that I didn't quite have the full cup of golden syrup I needed, which was particularly annoying, since I'd actually wanted to add a little more than stated in the recipe.

You see, I was using Pams golden syrup. Normally, I'd be the first to argue that Pams, Home Brand or similar are just as good quality as the name brands - and sometimes better - but I don't think this is true for golden syrup: it just doesn't seem to have as much flavour. Never mind, I've finished the bottle now, and can replace it with good old Chelsea.

Still, for the time being, I had to make do with the slightly-less-than-one-cup of mediocre golden syrup I had. It didn't seem to matter, though - even just under one cup is a lot of golden syrup! I mixed this in with the creamed butter and sugar, then beat in an egg.

Next came the dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking soda, ginger and cinnamon to be sifted together. I didn't have enough cinnamon, so substituted the rest with a reduced quantity of cassia. Once the dry ingredients were sifted and thoroughly mixed in a bowl, I added them to the first bowl alternately with water.


There seemed to be a bit more water than I really needed - each time I stirred in the dry ingredients, the mixture looked quite good, then I'd add water and it'd go really runny. When I ran out of dry ingredients, I flagged the rest of the water. The mixture was runny enough as it was without another 1/4 cup of water in it!

I poured my mix into a lined cake tin and put it in the oven for 45-60 minutes. It was still quite gooey after 45, so I ended up taking it out at the 55-minute mark, at which point it was cooked through, but a little dark on top.


After resting it in the tin for 10 minutes, I took it out to cool on a wire rack. But of course I had to taste it while it was still warm, so I cut myself a chunk off the corner. It was pretty good gingerbread, really: a lovely soft, moist, spongy texture and a good gingery taste despite my misgivings about the golden syrup.

I cut the cake into generous chunks and took it to work today. On the whole, everyone agreed with my evaluation of the gingerbread: nice and moist, pretty good really. I did have to run around at the end of the day talking people into eating the last of it though - was this a matter of everyone being too polite to take the last piece, or did no one like it enough to eat second piece? What does it matter? I liked it, and I'm the one writing the blog!