Happy Thanksgiving to All from Lulu's Girl

May you and your families by happy and well today.

Enjoy a day of sharing family & food.

Lulu's Gingerbread

Gingerbread
Originally uploaded by lasassone

It's pomegranate season! A friend gave me some and so I stuck them in my pot for color! We lack any Fall color here yet on our property because even the leaves on our Chinese Pistache tree have not started to turn. But, strangely, our paperwhite narcissus are up and blooming! Go Figure!

Around the corner in front of the home of my friend and fellow crazy quilter, Sandy, are two gorgeous maple trees that have turned every color of the Fall rainbow I think. They vary from a deep dark burgundy to a bright yellow. There will still be some leaves on those 2 trees at Thanksgiving. I know because when our girls were younger and we had Turkey Day here, they would go around the corner and pick leaves from those trees to decorate our table on Thanksgiving morning.

Fall is the time of the year that I love to bake Mum's Gingerbread. For as long as I can recall, she made this recipe of gingerbread, so it must have come from somewhere back in the 1940's or very early 1950's. I think also that this might be the 2nd thing I learned to make - the first being Brownies I think.

Mum would serve this to company warmed and topped with whipped cream and it's also good with a lemon sauce over the top. I would eat it as an after school snack split horizontally and spread with butter. It's also suitable to put plain in kids lunches. It's low in sugar and all 3 of my girls loved it.

So, let's get on with the gingerbread, a perfect Fall snack or dessert!

LULU'S GINGERBREAD

2 C. Flour

1-1/2 t. Baking Soda

1 t. ground Cinnamon

1 t. ground Ginger

1/2 t. ground Cloves

1/2 t. Salt

1/2 C. granulated sugar

1/2 C. Crisco or other shortening

1 Egg

1/2 C. light or milk Molasses

1 C. very hot Water

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Prepare an 8 inch square pan by spraying it with cooking spray or greasing.
• Sift the flour, soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and salt onto wax paper.
• In a medium size bowl, cream the sugar and shortening
• Add the egg and then the molasses.
• Add in the sifted dry ingredients and beat until smooth-it will be rather thick.
• Add in the hot water and carefully blend in. The batter will be thin!
• Pour batter into your prepared pan and bake for 35 min. or less. Use toothpick inserted in center to determine doneness. Be careful about not letting the edges burn!

NOTES:

-This recipe can be doubled for a 9" x 13" pan.

-When preparing baking pan, I usually shake a bit of sugar on sides and bottom after spraying.

-Next time I make this I am thinking of adding some blueberries in before baking. If I do that and we like it, I will add a note here to let you know. I really like the flavour combo of ginger and blueberries.