Thanks for watching Everyone! *The recipe is in the description box.* After the tasting, Julie kept saying "I've had this before", and sure enough she found deep in a box of mementos from a trip to England with her Mom, a wrapper from Sarah Nelson's Grasmere Gingerbread shop. Julie had been there and thought they were so good she kept the wrapper!
For substitution with Baking Powder in place of the Soda + Tartar, would you recommend 1 tsp of powder? (The formulae I could find online would seem to call for ~3/4 tsp of powder + 1/4 tsp of soda - perhaps also with a touch of cornstarch. But that seems pretty fiddly and I wonder if just a straight 1 tsp of powder would do the job...)
Hi Glen. Great channel 👍🏻. Iv tried quite a few of your recipes these past few weeks and I was wondering... where did you get your green apron from (not the blue one) I’m vertically challenged and I like the fully adjustable neck strap 😊
I've actually been to the village of Grasmere some time ago that's situated in the Lake District, it has a full store dedicated to their Gingerbread still made to the old recipe dating back to 1854 :D
When I last bought some there it was rather different than the recipe shown today - much thinner, crumbly top and a rather hard base - very tasty though.
Every time I’m in that part of the Lake District I have to stop in and pick up a pack or two… it’s the best gingerbread I’ve ever had… it has multiple textures and a good ginger flavour without being overpowering.
Glen, I have a recipe from my great-grandmother Cora. It's a gingerbread cookie recipe, and it has been a family favorite. Soft and chewy, and always a family favorite during the holidays. May I send it to you?
I actually ordered some gingerbread from Grasmere online a week ago, waiting for it to arrive on my day off - can't wait. I was on holiday there just before the lockdown. I'm lucky enough to live 5 hours away from the beautiful Lake District. The missus and I are returning next year. Can't wait.
Thanks for putting in the extra effort on the video timeline segments! While they're a small touch, they're really nice - you're the first content creator I've seen that's using them consistently.
It's a fairly new feature, so I'm playing around with how it works and if people respond to it. I've been having trouble deciding what / where is the best spots to put them in.
Made this, this evening. It was great! I had all the ingredients in the pantry, even the cream of tartar, and "Lyle's" golden syrup. Thanks. It's a keeper!
Thank you. I made this this morning and added stem ginger. Somehow, I added twice the golden syrup (never a bad thing!) Really lovely, no doubt it will be made again!
I had Sarah Nelsons gingerbread as my wedding favours for my guests, many fond memories of walking around the lake district with my loved ones and it had a special place in our hearts. Lovely to see this pop up on your channel Glen, thank you.
This episode means a lot to me as the original shop is only a couple of hours away and i often used to visit as a child. The quaint little shop is very much worth a visit and still makes & sells a lot of ginger bread to this day, best eaten with their secret recipe rum butter!
Building on the end bit. It's a spice cookie /gingerbread which while a genrally loved food has like many old recipes in North america been sent to the "Christmas only" box, in which case alot of people most likely have this or something very similar as their family recipe where it would have lost its name. Though I would also say there's not a huge number of people making it as the family recipe simply because it's an odd dough as well. Though contracting that I think I have a scholastic order children's Christmas cookbook with this recipe labeled as "spice wedges" or similar. "Christmas recipes" and "Christmas dinner" are Imo fancisting because because there is so much tradition and individualism (family being an individual) worked into it and there's still very much a "you make this once a year" feeling alot of people have to it, now because of tradition and the abandonment of home baking and not because of foods being unavailable. My family still makes sevral jello salads at christmas and we all love them, like really love them, but you suggest making it in the summer and they look at you like you have two heads because "that's Christmas food. You don't make it now" and yea when greatgrandma who's recipe it was was growing up it made sense because it was the depression and you had to get fruit for it. In northern rual Ontario. But people, we can go to the store spend 10 bucks and make 2 whole pans of it right now, why not? Sorry for the rant. Just in the middle of making a family cookbook and a commercial one. And a history major.
Hi Glen, I live in whitehaven which is about an hour outside of grasmere. There is also something called kendal mint cake you should look up. They are both quite popular in cumbria
I'm intrigued, in Britain we have an american section in the bug supermarkets with sweets (candy) and the other food I would deem very stero typical. What kind of foods are in the UK section over the pond?
I haven't been for groceries in many weeks. But going from memory, HP sauce, Heinz beans, canned spotted dick, PG Tips and Typhoo tea, Flake and Aero chocolate bars, single serve shelf stable sticky toffee pud, digestive, McVities, salad cream, Bird's custard powder, and the afore mentioned golden syrup. Branston pickle can be hard to find.
Toby White here in south Florida, some supermarkets have a British section for Brits who spend the winters here. Heinz beans, squash and barley water concentrates, Aero and a few other chocolate bars, Typhoo and Yorkshire teas, Marmite (though sometimes that’s elsewhere)... definitely more but I can’t recall offhand.
Great video. I'm doing a video for my girlfriends channel and years ago while living in Canada I experimented making Grasmere ginger bread. To cut a long story story the most true to the original which is a closely guarded secret recipe was Jamie Olivers. Its on his web site and uses shortbread. Golden syrup is by far better than the syrup you used if you can get it then you only need a small amount.
Golden Syrup... I immediately think of the large tin in my cupboard. Living in New Zealand has its perks... Admittedly you have better access to maple syrup I believe. :)
I think for me, I would sub the syrup for molasses. The gingerbread I grew up with was always the darker, molasses rich kind, and I think it would fit well in this one too.
Hi Glen, I'm from Cumbria where this biscuit originates and we are very proud of it! I also liked the point about golden syrup being substituted for corn syrup. When I make my aunt's pecan pie recipe in the UK I use golden syrup as we can't get corn syrup at the grocery store.
Excellent to hear you know of Grasmere Gingerbread! I also happen to come from the town of Ormskirk, which was historically popular for its gingerbread - especially around the expansion of railways in the 1800s
I liked the recipe, but based on the description and comments, I’m not sure mine came out quite right. It seemed overly crunchy… To the point that it’s almost tooth-breaking. Did I cook it too long? I baked it for 45 minutes in a 9 inch cake pan. I substituted lemon juice for the cream of tartar, used 8 tablespoons butter (4 oz) +2 tablespoons oil, and used Karo syrup.
If I can’t get golden syrup or corn syrup, would honey or maple syrup work..? My son loves gingerbread, we will make it this week! We live in Czech Republic where they are famous for a specific gingerbread as well and we always have during Christmas time. But this looks great as well. Thank you for the recipe
Gingerbread is still a cultural tradition in Appalachia where it was brought over by Scottish, English, and Irish immigrants in the 18th and 19th centuries. My family uses a recipe passed down from my great grandmother. Who knows how old it really is...I'm sure she got it from her own mother.
I just bought golden syrup to make Anzac biscuits, so I am going to try this over the weekend! Glen btw if your interested in trying to make a golden syrup substitute at home for future recipes, Bigger Bolder Baking has a recipe for one on their channel and website along with a bunch of other substitutions for basic ingredients.
In the BBC 1 series The Secrets of the Castle, Ruth Goodman makes a recipe of gingerbread from 13th century France. I will try to find the recipe for you.
If you really want to go down the rabbithole of old (much older) English recipes, check out Rebecca Price's recipe book, written for her private household in 1681, but then rediscovered and published, unaltered, in the 1970s. It's really fascinating, with plenty of familiar recipes but also loads of surprising, even exotic-seeming recipes, that make you think, as you said here, "why didn't this catch on?!"
The Sarah Nelson shop in Grasmere is the only place to buy the original version, or so I believe. It is thinner and sold in stacked squares each one marked into 2 rectangles wrapped in blue printed greaseproof paper folded parcel like and held in place with a rubber band. I am pretty sure that it has finely chopped ginger in syrup in it. It's delicious and kind of hard, chewy with a nubbly surface. There is a similar Yorkshire version sold by Betty's of York, a group with six very popular tea shops in Yorkshire. Really enjoying your videos. Thank you.
I strongly encourage anyone to try the golden syrup at least once if you can get it (after the pandemic?) because it has a completely different flavour and will definitely change the result.
I've been to the original Grasmere gingerbread shop, it's kinda expensive but the shop is adorable, everyone working there is wearing traditional dress, they wrap up the biscuits in front of you and tie a little bow around it. Every time I've been it's had a huge queue outside to buy it. In the Lake district a lot of shops sell it, but it's MUCH harder to come by elsewhere in the UK, which is a shame. Thanks for the recipe, I'm definitely making this tonight!
What a timely suggestion; I wanted a little sweetness! Mine is cooling right now! :D Lips are burned, but it tastes great haha! I used golden corn syrup, as well. I think it worked well.
I live in Oshawa and have found Golden Syrup at my local Sobeys and Freshco. Also, you can find it at any British specialty shop (there is one in Whitby). It's nowhere near as expensive as it is on Amazon.
I had the Sarah Nelson variant recently, and it had a very distinct oaty taste, rather like the taste of a flapjack. The texture was also slightly coarser than regular gingerbread. I'm fairly sure they use either 100% oat flour or a mix of oat and plain flour. I may be misremembering, but I have a feeling it also had tiny chunks of chopped candied ginger as you suggested. The thickness was about 1/4" - 3/8" (6-9mm) or thereabouts.
What a great recipe - looks delish! Even better are Sarah & Julie's stories! Thank you for sharing the recipe and the lore! You always have such great content!
Lyle's Golden Syrup: £1.35 for a 454g tin in the UK (Tesco) or roughly £9 (CD$15.95) in Canada (Amazon). Yikes. If I were Canadian, I'd go with the substitute.
Great video as always and so glad to hear Sarah Nelson's gingerbread brought up as it is amazing , especially the crumb topping they add and the pieces of real stem ginger!!! If you ask they sometimes have bags of the crumb topping to buy which makes the most amazing apple crumble topping.
Looks really great. I could definitely make that keto, with almond flour, erythritol and a sugar free syrup. Most of your videos u watch, because I love your presentation, but this could easily be something I try. Thanks Glenn.
Love your channel, you’ve inspired me to make so many things when the lockdown is over and I can go back to cooking for my family at the weekends as a much loved pass time. I am from the UK and live about an hour away from Grasmere. We go walking often in the Lake District and always pop into the shop and bring home the gingerbread for our family (only if it survives the ride home!). It has been a much talked about topic in our house and definitely a recipe I would love to be able to replicate. I will try your recipe when things get back to normal for sure. There is stem ginger in the recipe and I’ve heard of it also uses possibly Rye flour, but that is much debated in the family. Thank you for all the inspiration.
I was surprised to hear you say that it had a good ginger flavor because it did not look as if you put a lot of ginger in it. I guess it doesn't take much.
Nice new old video as always........... For general info, 'Grasmere is a village and tourist destination in Cumbria, England, in the centre of the Lake District. It takes its name from the adjacent lake. It has associations with the Lake Poets, one of whom, William Wordsworth, lived in Grasmere for 14 years and called it as "the loveliest spot that man hath ever found." Wikipedia'............ Very pretty place, visited on several occasions.
For those in the US, World Market carries golden syrup for a reasonable price. I have two of those "sandwich" pans that belonged to my Grandma. I was puzzled when she gave them to me why all cake pans didn't have a slicing knife. I've been to the church where they still sell this gingerbread behind it near the cemetery (sold nowhere else). It keeps very well. We were two weeks in England and brought some home for our daughters and it was still phenomenally delicious. Thanks so much for this. (I know I'm a bit late to the party but better late than never.)
That's the first time I've heard anyone say golden syrup is expensive, and also kind of hilarious from someone who uses maple syrup so liberally. Here it's half the price of cheap honey and a quarter the price of maple. Just goes to show 1 persons 'cheap' doesn't translate internationally.
Would it be 1 tsp baking powder to substitute? Also... we are not huge fans of ginger... was thinking to substitute cinnamon and some some vanilla... because the texture of these looks amazing??? Do you have any suggestions?
Looks in cupboard... out of baking powder, loads of Soda Bicarb and Cream of Tartar. What can I say? Never trust a fat man who can't cook. (Nero Wolfe)
My Father in Law brings it home from Grassmere when he is there and has had a bunch shipped from the bakery in the most lovely little blue and silver tin boxes. Mmmmm! His birthday is this weekend. Guess what I am making?!?
Treacle is as good, if not better than syrup. Tastes better for sure. Grasmere is in Cumbria. I'm Cumbrian btw. I recognise this recipe from my childhood. It didn't disappear as such, it fell out of fashion is all.
The butter that was cut into it melted along with all of the brown sugar and syrup. The temperature is also pretty low and time is short. You could create a 'shortbread' texture with this if you baked at 350F instead of 325F.
There is actually a shop in Grassmere where there is always a line to bye this gingerbread. We actually stood in line for 30 minutes to purchase a tin.
My southern grandma made a gingerbread like this and layered it with applesauce between the layers. The longer it sat the better it was, because the applause soaked in the gingerbread.
