The farmer’s wife’s gingerbread

This recipe is one of many delicious options from the pages of Helen Rebank’s Sunday Times bestseller, The Farmer’s Wife, which paints a picture of life at her busy Lake District farmhouse in the middle of Matterdale.

Ingredients

• 225g butter
• 225g soft dark brown sugar
• 100g treacle
• 100g golden syrup
• 340g plain flour
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 280ml whole milk
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 eggs (beaten)

Method

Heat the oven to 180degrees/fan, and grease and line a deep 20x30cm tin

Melt the butter, sugar, treacle, and syrup in a pan without boiling them, and then set aside to cool

Sift the flour with the ginger and cinnamon into a large bowl

Gently warm the milk in a second pan and stir in the bicarbonate of soda

Pour the cooled mixture from the first pan into the dry mix, then add the beaten eggs and the warm milk, combining to form a loose batter

Pour the batter into your lined tin and bake in the centre of the oven for about one hour, covering the top with greaseproof paper after about 40 minutes

It is ready when a skewer comes out clean

Leave to cool then turn out and cut into squares