Ultimate Treacle Gingerbread Loaf Cake Recipe (2024)

FAQs

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

Treacle has a richer colour and a stronger flavour to Golden Syrup and is not quite so sweet. 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.

Many American recipes with treacle in the title, such as this Treacle Brown Bread, call for molasses in place of the traditional British sweetener, which can be hard to track down in the States. But if you do find yourself with a tin of Tate & Lyle's treacle, try substituting it in your favorite sweets.

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.

Do you need black treacle in a Christmas cake? While black treacle does add a deep, rich flavour and slightly sticky texture to traditional Christmas cake recipes, our recipe uses Lyle's Golden Syrup.

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.

Molasses is the same as treacle just sometimes a bit denser and stickier. While treacle is considered to be a product of the UK, molasses can be made everywhere. Golden syrup can be poured easily but treacle and molasses benefit from standing the tin in a bowl of hot water to loosen the texture out a bit.

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.

Dark Molasses Gingerbread Cake

In place of the 1 ½ cups molasses, you can swap in ½ cup dark brown sugar, mixed with 1 cup honey, sorghum, or golden syrup.

If no liquid sweeteners are available, brown sugar can be a suitable replacement for molasses or black treacle. Because it is a crystalline sugar with molasses added to it, the darker the brown sugar, the more molasses it has, so the closer the flavour is.

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.

The hole in the center is usually filled with a variety of dried fruits and nuts. In Portugal, it is a popular tradition to include a fava bean in the cake. Whoever finds the fava bean in their slice is considered to have good luck for the coming year.

A coin was hidden inside a small cake, whoever found it was crowned as mock king. Hiding small tokens in a cake is another tradition that has existed throughout the ages. The Christmas Sixpence, which is hidden inside a Christmas pudding or cake as a token of good fortune, being a recent example of this tradition.

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

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.

Black treacle has a more rounded and softer taste than molasses, making it perfect for a diverse range of sweet goods like Christmas puddings, fruit cakes and gingerbread, as well as liquorice and treacle toffee.

For that deep colour and warming flavour to your Gingerbread, treacle is a must! For those outside the UK struggling to get treacle, molasses can be used as a substitute, although you may need to experiment with the quantities to get the perfect flavour.