Day 210: Grasmere Gingerbread

Nestled amongst the lakes and dales of northeastern England lies the quaint village of Grasmere. William Wordsworth, the famous poet, lived here for many years and wrote oft of the area's beauty.

Grasmere (this is not the picture of the day - I took it several years ago)

Even more importantly, however, the best gingerbread in the world is made here, at the Grasmere Gingerbread shop (I'm a food traveler, so local foods are important). It's something in between the Christmas cookies we all think of and the cake-like bread that we often have in America.

And it's amazing.

The recipe is, of course, secret. My mom and I have tried to recreate it before and today, finally, we found a recipe that come pretty close. We still need to change a couple of things because the consistency isn't quite right. Nevertheless, this gingerbread is delicious!!

You can find the recipe we used on Jamie Oliver's website. Here's what we changed:

• We didn't use mixed peel - you can't get that in Abilene year-round
• Abilene stores also don't carry treacle or golden syrup (both British), so we substituted molasses for both ingredients
• We used oat flour instead of plain flour, but we might try it the other way next time.
• Half a pinch of baking powder, because in England they don't use double-acting
• We doubled the amount of candied ginger
• Finally, candied ginger is super, super expensive. So, we candied our own!

Got it? Great. Believe me, this stuff is worth it (if you like ginger, that is).

And that concludes my longest P365 post yet!