Ultimate Treacle Gingerbread Loaf Cake Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What did Americans substitute for treacle as an ingredient? ›

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.

Treacle is dark and black whilst golden syrup is lighter and golden coloured. Treacle will colour your baking black and give it a tarry flavour, whilst golden syrup will give it a sweet and sickly flavour, and won't colour it much. Generally you want golden syrup, treacle should be used for only a few items.

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.

Honey, dark corn syrup, and maple syrup can also be used to replace molasses in recipes.

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.

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.

Why is my Victoria sponge not light and fluffy? ›

While the cake ingredients should be at room temperature, the butter or baking spread you are using needs to be even warmer but not hot. The butter should be soft but still holding together. If the butter or spread is too soft, it becomes oily and the resulting cake heavy and dense.

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.

In the U.S., golden syrup is usually sold under the name of light treacle, but it's not readily available in many grocery stores. In cooking recipes, molasses and light treacle are often used interchangeably because their textures and flavor profiles are similar.

Treacle (/ˈtriːkəl/) is any uncrystallised syrup made during the refining of sugar. The most common forms of treacle are golden syrup, a pale variety, and black treacle, a darker variety similar to molasses. Black treacle has a distinctively strong, slightly bitter flavor, and a richer color than golden 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.

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.

Golden syrup is another possible alternative, with its a honey-like colour and slightly caramelised flavour. Its properties are close enough to molasses or black treacle to use as a 1:1 replacement but expect differences in colour and flavour to your end product.