Wartime Farm - Gingerbread Cake

Eggless, Fatless Gingerbread - 90 calories a slice!

My copy of Wartime Farm arrived at the beginning of the week and I began reading it with relish, I'm fascinated by the herbs used during the wartime information in it, but more of that in a later post as I've been doing some research on the WWII herb gatherers, what they gathered and what it was used for.

Watching the Wartime Farm series has kindled in our household a desire to do more for ourselves. Mr C announced last night he wants to learn how to make furniture, in particular bookshelves, we've been coveting a pair that would cost us almost £1,000 they're oak and rustic looking, something Mr C reckons he could achieve himself for a lot less money. Don't get me wrong he's a dab hand at lots of things, he can fix plumbing and electrical problems and he's made me raised beds, potting benches and the like for the garden, but they are a little 'Heath Robinson', he wants to learn how they made furniture "in the old days", my comment that they probably took lessons from Heath Robinson met with Mr C's classic 'pickled onion' face lol!

So he's decided that as he doesn't know how to do dovetail joints and that kind of thing, and as there are no surviving family members to teach him, he's off to do a woodworking night class. He'll go for a 10 week course, downside is he's missed the start of the September course and has to wait until the next one starts in January! He's disapointed, shades of the allotment here, I said no allotment, until he proves he's willing and able to take it on, so a delay for his grand scheme there to. On the plus side if all goes to plan he'll be able to build a shed on the allotment when we get it lol!

Luckily not everything has to wait, well at least not very long anyway.... The picture of the Gingerbread Cake in Wartime Farm looked so yummy I just had to make it, the fact that it's a fatless and eggless recipe was an added bonus. I had to do a double take though, I thought there had been some cheating going on for the photo because in my mind, no way can a cake be that spongy without fat and eggs! I looked at the ingredients and I had everything in the store cupboard to make it, super thinks I, cake for Mr C's pack up tomorrow.

So I assembled the ingredients...

1/2lb Self-Raising Flour
6oz Golden Syrup
2 Tsps Ground Ginger
1 Tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1/4 Pint Tepid Water

I also added....

2 Tsps Milk Powder

Making the cake is simple, you put the flour and syrup in a bowl, mix the rest of the ingredients in a jug and then pour the jug contents into the flour and syrup mix until you have a nice creamy batter, you can see the effect of the bicarb almost immediately the batter starts to become foamy, that's the bicarb doing it's egg substitute thing, bicarb is a natural raising agent and that makes the cake light and airy or spongy.

The next step is to turn the batter into a greased tin they say 11" x 7" in the book, but I didn't have one so I used a 9" x 9" tin instead. Next bake the cake in a moderate oven (gas mark 4, 180 degrees Celsius, or approximately 350 degrees Fahrenheit) and leave it there for 45 mins to 1 hour, check it after 45 mins to see if it's done or not.

The final stage is very important to note when you want a cake for serving after tea or for the hubby's pack up the following day... Wrap in greaseproof paper and store in a tin and do NOT cut for 2 days!!! There's logic in that instruction, when the cake first comes out it's a bit dry looking, leaving it to stand for a couple of days lets the syrup work its magic and make the rest of the cake turn into the sweet sticky texture we know and love when we think of gingerbread.

Taste test.... Gingerbread when all said and done is supposed to be more bread like and less like a cake in texture, so don't expect a sponge cake. We couldn't wait and did cut some and eat some an hour or so after it came out of the oven, it tasted okay but a bit 'dry'. By the following morning it was moister and tasted a lot better! In all honesty I can 'taste' the bicarb of soda in the cake, but it isn't unpleasant so don't be put off.

As for the over all taste next time I think I'd add 5oz golden syrup and 1oz of treacle if the ration cupboard allows it, this gingerbread was a little 'pale' for my tastes. I think I'd also pop in a little cinnamon or mixed spice as well. But overall it's a hit especially when you take into account that you can save your precious egg and fat rations and still have cake! Mr C took a slice in his pack up today and we have gingerbread for the weekend with a nice cup of tea, bonus! Just need to remember to make it a few days before we want to eat it in future lol!

The cake cuts into 15 slices doing the maths on the calories in the syrup and flour it works out at just 90 calories a slice you can check the calorie values in other WWII recipes here.