Maple Syrup Gingerbread

As I brought two tins of maple syrup back from Canada, bought for a fraction of the cost of maple syrup in the supermarkets in the UK, it seemed an ideal opportunity to find a recipe which used maple syrup in large quantities. I finally settled on this Maple Syrup Gingerbread recipe, although I made a few adjustments to fit in with the ingredients I had available - butter instead of shortening, and Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. I also left out the candied peel altogether.

My usual gingerbread recipe is dark, dense and moist - the sort that keeps well and gets stickier with time. This cake is lighter in both colour and texture, but moist and fragrant with a variety of spices. I'm not sure the maple syrup makes much of an impact on the flavour, as there are so many spices, but as it's not as thick and sticky as golden syrup or treacle(molasses), I'm sure it contributes towards the lighter texture.

Unfortunately a large part of the cake was stuck in my ring tin after I turned it out. You can see in the photo that the back of the cake looks a bit lumpy and misshapen, where I tried to reassemble the pieces. Next time, and there will be a next time while I still have the Canadian maple syrup to use up, I will bake it in a square tin lined with parchment.

Apart from that it was a simple recipe to follow - beat eggs until light and fluffy, beat in sugar and wet ingredients, then beat in the flour sifted with the spices and raising agents.

I topped the cake with a simple glacé icing made from roughly 150g icing sugar mixed with alternating dessertspoons of maple syrup and water until the correct thickness was achieved.

Here are the ingredients converted to metric weights and measures:

2 eggs

250mls maple syrup

100g light muscovado sugar

250g natural Greek yogurt

115 melted butter

280g plain flour

1 teaspoon each of baking powder and bicarbonate of soda

1 tablespoon ground ginger

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

goodly amount of freshly ground nutmeg (approx 1/2 teaspoon).

The cake had a really good moist, light texture and was strongly spiced. I found the amount of ground cloves used overwhelmed the other spices a little, so will cut that by half next time. This makes a really good alternative to the traditional dark sticky gingerbread.