Ultimate Treacle Gingerbread Loaf Cake Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Can I use treacle instead of golden syrup in gingerbread? ›

These gingerbread men can be made with golden syrup or treacle. When made with treacle, the gingerbread has a darker colour and stronger flavour than when made with golden syrup. Most of the photos below are of gingerbread made with golden syrup; the darker coloured dough and biscuits are treacle-based gingerbread.

Treacle is a generic British term for any syrup made during the refining of sugar cane. Later, refined sugar became more affordable and overtook treacle as a sweetener. However, colonial Americans often substituted molasses for treacle in their recipes.

If you don't have treacle then you can use molasses as an alternative. We would not use extra sugar instead of the treacle as treacle is an invert sugar, which particularly helps to keep the cake moist.

Most likely too much bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) was added. Bicarbonate of soda is an extremely active raising agent and if you add too much then the gingerbread will rise up a lot during baking, then sink back fairly dramatically.

Both have a deep, aromatic flavour that adds a unique finish to food and drink recipes, but they are subtly different, with treacle tending to be a sweeter product that has less of a bitter profile than molasses. Compared to treacle, molasses is thicker in consistency and darker in colour.

To most, black treacle is known as a slightly smoother version of molasses that some refer to as having a caramelised toffee taste. In industrial applications, black treacle is used as a liquid sweetener, natural colourant and flavouring for sauces, baked products, confectionery and desserts.

More commonly known as treacle or black treacle or, in the US as blackstrap molasses, molasses are essentially what is left over after cane sugar is boiled to produce sugar and most of the sugar has been extracted.

Molasses. Black treacle is often the British counterpart to North America's molasses. The two are similar in color and viscosity and used in the same way. Black treacle is a blend of cane molasses and invert sugar syrup.

Treacle is also used in some savory applications, like for curing bacon or glazing meats, much the way molasses is included in American barbecue sauces. As its name implies, black treacle ($10.99, amazon.com) is much darker in color than light (golden) treacle.

Can I use maple syrup instead of molasses in gingerbread? ›

Maple Syrup Cookies are very similar to gingerbread cookies, except I replace the molasses with maple syrup and honey. The result is a soft texture with a lighter ginger maple flavor. Honestly, I prefer a softer gingerbread to a crispier one. Eat them plain or decorate with white cookie icing and sprinkle with sugar.

Golden syrup, also known as "light treacle," is made from the evaporation of sugarcane, which creates a light, golden syrup very reminiscent of honey. Lyle's is a popular brand of golden syrup. Try using 1 cup golden syrup for every 1 cup molasses in a recipe.

If your gingerbread cake comes out dry, there could be a few reasons. Overbaking the cake, overmixing the cake, or the oven being too hot will lead to a dry cake.

Make sure that all of the ingredients are at room temperature so that they combine easily. Cold ingredients can lead to a dense and heavy cake.

Keep in mind that the longer the cookies bake, the harder and crunchier they'll be. For soft gingerbread cookies, follow my suggested bake times. Allow cookies to cool for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet.

Golden syrup - if you're unable to buy golden syrup then you can substitute it for corn syrup, honey or maple syrup. What is this? Egg yolk - use just the egg yolk (rather than the whole egg) to make the perfect gingerbread cookie mixture!

Corn syrup is slightly thinner than golden syrup though generally we have found that you can substitute corn syrup for golden syrup without having to change the quantities. If you are making gingerbread cake then you can also use dark corn syrup if you prefer.

Dark treacle (molasses)

Using it will darken the colour of your desserts a lot and it has a stronger flavour than golden syrup, meaning it's ok but isn't the best choice for a substitute.

You can use it to replace Golden Syrup in many recipes but it is often used alongside Golden Syrup in recipes such as in our Old English Gingerbread. If you are using a UK recipe you might find they refer to treacle or dark treacle.