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This recipe for Welsh Gingerbread is an old one. I picked it up duringmy culinary tour of Wales, and as you can see from the picture, it comes from an old book. You know, the kind your grandmother has stashed on the shelf.There’s no reference to what year this book was made, but there is a little note at the top of the recipe that says it was the original gingerbread sold at old Welsh Fairs. In the spirit of the holiday season, I couldn’t wait to try it out!
Translating Measurements
Now, I confess, it took me a couple of tries. Here in the United States, we don’t measure things by the “gill,” and I had to do a bit of googling to discover ourequivalent of demerara sugar (it’s brown sugar) and black treacle (it’s molasses). We also don’t have an Oven Control, Mark 3. So this was a fun experiment. But the results were worth it.
Testing An Old Gingerbread Recipe
Thankfully, most of the measurements were by weight/ounces, so I only had one that was a bit tricky — a gill. According to Wikipedia, “Agill or teacup is a unit of measurement for volume equal to a quarter of a pint. It is no longer in common use, except in regard to the volume of alcoholic spirits measures.” I also found a few references that said it was equivalent to a half cup, or five fluid ounces. So, I started with that measurement, but it ended up being a bit too moist. Then I cut it down to a third, and it was still a bit moist. Finally, I cut both the milk ANDthe molasses down to 1/3 cup and that ended up being about right.
Now, something you’ll notice about the original Welsh gingerbread recipe pictured — there are no eggs. And no ginger, either! The recipe did mention candied peel, and I assumed that was ginger. I added a bit of ground ginger to the recipe to give it more a ginger flavor andmadea glaze sprinkled some candied ginger on top to make it more like a festive dessert. Enjoy!
Welsh Gingerbread With Orange Glaze & Candied Ginger
Add the flour, baking soda, cream of tarter, and ground ginger to a large bowl and whisk together.
Next, add the butter and press into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter or fork until the butter is blended into the flour and it looks a little lumpy.
Add the brown sugar and to the flour mixture and stir together. Once it is well blended, add 1/4 cup of candied ginger and mix.
Heat the milk on the stove or in the microwave until it's warm, but not boiling. Pour the molasses into the milk and stir until the molasses is dissolved. Then pour the molasses milk into the flour and gently stir together until it's the consistency of a soft cookie dough.
Transfer dough into greased bread pan and bake for one hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (You may need a little longer depending on your oven)
While the gingerbread is baking, you can prepare the glaze.
Whisk the confectioners sugar with the orange juice until the sugar is completely dissolved and it is the consistency of a syrup.
Once the bread is done baking, let it cool for 1 hour. Drizzle with glaze and the rest of the candied ginger.
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About Rachelle Lucas
Rachelle is the founder of TheTravelBite.com and was named one of USA Today's 10Best Food and Travel Bloggers. She believes the best way to learn about a destination is through its flavors and collects recipes from her trips to recreate them here on The Travel Bite. In her spare time she enjoys running and yoga to balance out her food obsession.
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Comments
Gaylesays
Candied peel is orange peel that has been cooked with sugar in a saucepan, sort of like peanut brittle. You also buy it ready made in grocery stores. It’s really good in breads and muffins
Reply
Annsays
In our neck of the woods, mixed peel is a mixture of orange, lemon and sometimes grapefruit peel, candied and chopped finely. It remains moist, not brittle. Added to Christmas cakes is usual here amongst other baked good where dried fruit may be used. Hot cross buns aren’t the same without it!
Chilling the dough before it goes into a hot oven gives the butter a chance to firm up and reduces how much it spreads when baking. “You should chill the dough both before rolling and cutting and after,” she said.
Chill the dough: The dough is sticky once it's all beaten together in your mixing bowl and therefore, it absolutely MUST be chilled for at least 3 hours. Give yourself enough time in the kitchen or make the cookie dough and chill it overnight.
It will stay fresh at room temperature for up to five days and you can freeze it too, so you can make it ahead of time. Preheat oven to 180°C / 160°C fan-forced. Line two baking trays with baking paper. Once cooled, decorate your gingerbread with icing, lollies and Christmas decorations.
Factor in two days when making the gingerbread dough as it needs to chill overnight. To get ahead though, the dough can be made up to two weeks in advance and kept in the fridge, just remember to take it out of the fridge half an hour or so before rolling out!
Divide the dough into two thick disks and wrap each disk in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until chilled, about 3 hours. (The dough can be prepared up to 2 days ahead.) To roll out the cookies, work with one disk at a time, keeping the other disk refrigerated.
Step 3: Turn the mixture out onto some cling film and pat into a flat ball, wrap tightly and chill for 30 minutes then place in the freezer until you are ready to use it. You can keep unbaked biscuit/cookie dough in your fridge for up to 3 days before baking or freeze for a month.
The deep, caramel-like sweetness of molasses pairs perfectly with the warm spices of ginger, cinnamon, and cloves, creating the iconic flavor profile of these classic treats. The choice of molasses over other sweeteners adds a depth and complexity that elevates gingerbread to a cherished holiday tradition.
Chilling it for at least two hours or overnight gives the ingredients a chance to absorb one another, making it a whole lot easier to roll out the dough without it cracking. Follow this tip: Let the dough chill in the refrigerator, well-wrapped, for at least two hours or overnight before rolling it out.
An excessive amount of butter makes it where the flour is unable to absorb the combined fat, which causes the cookie to spread too widely and the sugar to carbonize more easily because it's surrounded by too buttery a dough.
The general rule of thumb is a couple of weeks. It depends how its prepared and if you used a lot of icing. Also, gingerbread like any other bread turns stale quite fast.
“Edible” is a loose term, apparently. A gingerbread house is about as edible as play-dough—you can eat it, but should you? These houses are usually left out for days (more on that later), drying out and crusting over.
As was expected because of the extra brown sugar, this cookie looked dark in color and took on the texture of molasses. I thought I was going to chip my tooth when I bit into this finished, extra-sugary cookie. It was hard and dense throughout.
Should gingerbread cookies be hard or soft? Soft gingerbread biscuits are ideal. They ought to be flexible. However, they should still be somewhat elastic, and if you hold them too firmly because you're so excited to eat them, you might even be able to leave your fingerprints on the cookie!
The safest method is to take the too-firm dough out of the refrigerator and simply wait until it's soft enough. If you want to speed the process up a bit, choose a warm spot.
Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool. As a result, the cookies will expand more slowly, holding onto their texture. If you skip the chilling step, you're more likely to wind up with flat, sad disks instead of lovely, chewy cookies.
Chilling firms up the fat (usually butter) in the dough, ensuring that the dough doesn't spread too quickly in the oven. For cookies that are high in butter content, this step is crucial and prevents them from melting into thin disks while baking.
To make sticky gingerbread dough easier to work with, chill it for at least 1 hour before rolling it out. Roll out the dough on a surface that's lightly dusted with flour or a mixture of flour and confectioners' sugar (aka powdered sugar).
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Gayle says
