Gingerbread cookies take time and are tons of fun to make. But. If you are pressed for time this holiday season, maybe make this loaf of gingerbread bread instead. It tastes great – plus it is moist and easy for great grandma Maude to eat without breaking her dentures.

Lavender

You don’t have to include desert lavender. English, French, or Spanish lavender will do. Of course it gives it a nice Southwestern touch to use some of the desert lavender that you grow or forage.

No lavender at home? You only need 4 ounces (a quarter cup), so it would not be too expensive to purchase at your local herb and spice store, or at many markets that offer bulk herbs and spices.

Why Gingerbread at the Holidays?

There are all manner of stories out there about why anything made from ginger at the holidays. They all have facts to back them up.

Expensive

In Europe, ginger came from China and thus was very costly. It is said that it thus signified the costly gifts of the Magi, the Wise Men. Some of the first recorded recipes for ‘Gingerbread’ were for ginger, and other exotic spices like nutmeg and cloves, to be mixed with honey and thickened with breadcrumbs, or sometimes parsnips. The bread in the mix is why we call it “gingerbread.” This mixture was more like a sticky cake and not like the gingerbread we make today in America.

Soothing

Some say ginger became popular because in China ginger was commonly used for upset stomach and nausea, thus a little serving of ginger would help your stomach recover from any holiday excesses. In the 1400s there are records from a convent in Sweden saying that nuns baked gingerbread because eating it helped ease indigestion. In the 1500s in England gingerbread was “a kinde of cake or paste made to comfort the stomacke.”   personally, I think ginger is even more “comforting to the stomacke” when made into a hot toddy.  

So which ever reason you decide to make gingerbread for the season, here’s a tasty one to try.

Desert Lavender Ginger Bread

Ingredients (in order of inclusion) Substitutions at the end.

  1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
  2/3 cup brown sugar
  3/4 cup dark molasses
  1/4 teaspoon salt
  1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
  1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
  1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
  1/4 cup dried desert lavender, lightly ground
  3/4 cup hot water
  1 large egg
  2 cups all-purpose flour
  1 teaspoon baking soda

Step 1: Get Ready

Preheat oven to 350 F degrees.
Grease and flour a 9 X 5 inch loaf pan. You can also make this in two mini loaf pans. This is not good as a muffin recipe.

Step 2: Wet Ingredients

In a large bowl, cream the butter until smooth. This is best done with a mixer.
Add the brown sugar and cream until mostly combined.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure all the sugar is incorporated.
Add the molasses and beat lightly until combined.
Put the spices including the lavender into the bowl and combine. Don’t neglect the salt. This will help activate the leavening, so you do need it.

The oils in the spices will start to release into the oils of the butter and be very flavorful.

Slowly add the hot water while lightly beating and continue to scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure everything is incorporated.

Add the egg and mix it in.

Step 3: Dry Ingredients

Sift together the dry ingredients. Don’t have a sifter? Place the ingredients in a bowl and whisk them – or use your fingers. You just want to make sure the baking soda is not in a clump somewhere.

Step 4: Stir

Put away the mixer. Use a spoon or spatula for this next step.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet mix in four or five increments. Stir each increment in. Continue to mix until the large lumps are gone. Some small lumps are fine. Avoid over-mixing. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure everything is incorporated.  The batter will be thin – not at all like banana bread.

Step 5: Pour

Pour batter into your prepared pan.

Step 6: Bake

Remember that 350F oven? Not all ovens bake the same, and different loaf pans will finish your gingerbread in different times, not to mention different flour. So the best I can say is 50 to 60 minutes. Bake until a knife inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Step 7: Cool

I need to stress this. If you want the loaf out of the pan, first allow the gingerbread loaf to cool for 10 minutes in the pan on the rack. Then turn out onto a cooling rack to finish cooling.   If you are gifting in the pan, just cool on the rack.

Once cool you can dust the top of your gingerbread loaf with powdered sugar.

Some Substitutions

Honey? Sure. Just lower the oven to 325F because honey burns easily at 350F.

Acorn or Mesquite Flour? Sure. I use one quarter to one half a cup of either acorn meal or mesquite meal substituted for the wheat flour. It’s one way to personalize your baking.  I have just made some date seed meal too, and will be using that this holiday season.

Entirely Gluten Free? Sure. I used store bought GF baking flour. It has things like tapioca and xanthan gum to help it be fluffy. (More about xanthan.)  It is commonly used in GF produts and you can buy it in bulk.

Vegan? Sure. I have made this with pure olive oil. The high quality extra virgin olive oil has a flavor to it, so maybe not the expensive stuff. Maybe you could use a refined coconut oil.

No Egg? That goes with the vegan thing. I use one tablespoon of milled flaxseed (flax seed meal) mixed with 3 tablespoons of warm water. Warm is best. This creates what some refer to as the “flax egg.”

Which reminds me. We have to do a post on egg alternatives to go with our kitchen basics – buttermilk alternatives. Alternatives are valuable for remote homes and off grid living.

More about Cooking with Honey

And Enjoy More Honey Recipes

May we suggest our dandy little cookbook?   Using Honey in New and Savory Ways offers 36 pages of tips for using honey in your cooking, as well as in all manner of dishes.

We hope you will help support some local Southwest folks!
From the review:
“Honey is for more than desserts and this book can help! Using honey in cooking savory dishes helps engage all your taste buds and adds a layer of added flavor to everyday dishes – plus holiday fare.”

Beekeeper?  We offer volume discounts – because if you sell honey in local markets you might want to offer some of these books as well.

Legal Notes

© Article copyright Savor the Southwest // Jacqueline A. Soule. All rights reserved. You must ask permission to republish an entire blog post or article. Okay to use a short excerpt but you must give proper credit. You must include a link back to the original post on our site. No stealing photos.

Disclaimer

The authors of this website have researched the edibility of the materials we discuss, however, humans vary in their ability to tolerate different foods, drinks, and herbs. Individuals consuming flowers, plants, animals or derivatives mentioned in this blog do so entirely at their own risk. The authors on this site cannot be held responsible for any adverse reaction. In case of doubt please consult your medical practitioner.