This gingerbread is so heart-warming, and a lovely alternative to more common quickbreads like banana or lemon loaf.  It’s delicious served warm with a smear of butter, or you could ice it like a cake (cream cheese icing, perhaps?).  I think this loaf makes a good spicy, mollasses-y gift for a friend in need of a little comfort.

Here’s what you need:

1/4 cup margarine or butter

1 egg

1/4 cup orange marmalade

1/2 cup molasses

2/3 cup hot water

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

3/4 tsp ginger

Here’s what you do:

Okay, so this is one of these recipes that is scribbled on a torn half-sheet of paper in my recipe book in the days before I saw the value in describing how to assemble the ingredients, how warm the oven should be, and how long you should bake it for.  (you’ll likely note, as you read this blog, that though I love to bake, I bake like a cook:  with more instinct than precision and a relatively high acceptance of failure in the form of ugliness – less so in the form of gross-tasting-ness).  The thing is, you’re pretty safe here just throwing these ingredients into a bowl in the order you grab them out of the fridge/cupboard, just so long as your hot water isn’t hot enough to poach your egg (I may or may not be speaking from experience here:  see above comment regarding precision).  Pour combined ingredients into a greased loaf pan.  Bake at 350F until done, as my Gramma would say (or, okay, for you sticklers, until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the loaf comes out clean).

Recipe origin unknown.