Gingerbread

December 11, 2012 7:26 AM

Gingerbread baking: I hope to make some gingerbread today. Yum. However, all of the recipes I've come across tell me to bake it in a square pan. But I really want to bake it in some bread pans - for a nice little loaf of gingerbread.

So, can I/should I just bake them in the bread pans? Or will the gingerbread be too cake-y and perhaps crumble apart? Or not cook well (ie be too gooey or too dry)?

Alternatively - do you have a gingerbread recipe that I could use that is meant for cooking in a loaf bread pan?

Even more alternatively - if making gingerbread in a loaf pan isn't going to work, do you have a recipe of any kind of holiday bread I could make? NOT pumpkin bread.

posted by Sassyfras to Food & Drink (11 answers total)

This is going to be a different kind of gingerbread, a gingerbread cookie, as you've surmised. All you'll get if you bake it in a loaf pan is a really thick and probably weirdly-cooked cookie, not a moist lovely delicious loaf.

Try searching on gingerbread loaf; it's a quick bread, so it'll be fairly forgiving. The recipes that come up on the front page of results all look reasonable to me.
posted by fiercecupcake at 7:32 AM on December 11, 2012

Gingerbread, no; ginger cake, yes.
posted by holgate at 7:34 AM on December 11, 2012

(But this is all about terminology here: I recognise both the biscuity human-shaped thing and the square-tin more cakey thing as different types of gingerbread, but I also regard the 'Jamaica ginger cake' loaf style as a separate thing.)
posted by holgate at 7:37 AM on December 11, 2012

I can highly recommend the BBC's gingerbread recipe as being pretty failsafe. I halve it and bake in a 2lb tin (the recipe makes 2x 2lb). I also use all "white" self-raising flour (no wholemeal) with good results.
posted by car01 at 7:39 AM on December 11, 2012

For clarity - what I want is something like this recipe but be able to cook it in a bread loaf pan.
posted by Sassyfras at 7:53 AM on December 11, 2012

I've always known it as ginger cake. All the information you'll every need (except perhaps measurements in cups) courtesy of the Guardian (on preview, seconding the other poster who provided this link, which I've used to make very good cake).
posted by pipeski at 7:58 AM on December 11, 2012

One of the recipe reviews (Jan 1, 2003) for the recipe you linked says, We loved this moist gingerbread. I put it in a loaf pan, which worked out great.

So maybe that's the one!
posted by mochapickle at 7:58 AM on December 11, 2012

I think the search term you want is "Gingerbread Loaf". There are a few recipes called that.
posted by FreezBoy at 8:07 AM on December 11, 2012

I've never had trouble baking my moist, cakey gingerbread* in a loaf pan. It is crumbly to slice, but letting it cool completely helps, as does slicing decisively instead of tentatively. I let it cook a bit longer --- just a few extra minutes to be sure it cooks through inside.

The loaf shape is handy. I love being able to cut it into slices; sometimes I toast them and spread 'em with marmalade or butter. YUM.

*For comparison to your recipe, I've made loaves out of Laurie Colwin's sticky gingerbread and M.F.K. Fisher's recipe for her mother's gingerbread --- which, HEY, LOOKIE! It's in a loaf shape right there in the accompanying photo!
posted by Elsa at 8:16 AM on December 11, 2012

I've altered the shape of lots of quickbreads (making banana bread in a square pan, pumpkin bread in a pie tin when I didn't have anything else, etc.). No weird results to date, though you'll want to keep an eye on the cooking time, and don't be surprised if it takes longer than the recipe states.
posted by rebekah at 8:18 AM on December 11, 2012

If you look at this pan equivalents pdf from Real Simple a 9x5x3 loaf pan can work as a substitute for a 9 inch square pan. So I don't see why the recipe you linked couldn't be baked in a loaf pan.
posted by ephemerista at 8:43 AM on December 11, 2012