Gingerbread cake recipe (no added sugar)

If you live in the Low Countries, you know for sure what gingerbread cake is. And whether you like it or not you can not ignore it, it is available in all kinds of flavours.

But what is actually gingerbread and where did it originally come from? If you ask Google what “gingerbread” is, you get stories about Egyptians, Greeks and Romans who were eating delicious honey cake with dried fruit and spices. Later on, it spread throught all Europe. Whether it really went like this nobody knows. 

In our times the gingerbread is considered to be a tasty and healthy snack. It’s tasty indeed, but healthy, uhm … with more than 30% added sugar? The cake that is for sale at the grocery store or at most bakeries, unfortunately, does not match the image of a “healthy snack”.

The good news is that if you do not want all the unnecessary added sugars and like baking, you can make a delicious gingerbread cake with this recipe.

You need these ingredients:

– 500 ml. Buttermilk

– 500 gr. wholemeal wheat flour (may also be 1/2 whole grain wheat and 1/2 whole grain rye flour)

– 100 ml. Honey

– 100 gr. unsalted and unroasted nuts (walnuts, pecans)

– 2 tsp. unsweetened apple syrup

– 2 tsp. baking powder

– pinch of salt

– 2 tsp. Mixed spice, also called pudding spice

– 75 gr. dried dates

– 75 gr. dried apricots (may also be other dried fruits)

This is how you proceed:

1. Heat the buttermilk in a pan. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the apple syrup and honey.

2. Put the dried fruit in warm water and let stand for a while.

3. Sift the flour and add the baking powder, salt and Mixed spice, (pudding spice).

4. Drain the fruit and grind to a smooth mass in a food processor. In the end, add the nuts and chop them roughly.

5. Stir in the warm buttermilk through the sifted flour, add the fruit and nuts.

6. Take a buttered cake tin and pour in the batter.

7. Put in the refrigerator for +/- 24 hours. In this way, the cake becomes smoother.

8. Preheat the oven at 170 C.

9. Bake the cake in the oven for about 80 minutes at 170 C.

10. Before you take it out of the oven try with a wooden stick in the middle of the cake to check if it’s well baked.

Enjoy!

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Tip! With a layer of butter on each slice of cake, this homemade gingerbread tastes even better.