Mendenhall Sourdough Gingerbread

Julesong's Note:

Last summer I enjoyed an Alaskan cruise, and we had a fabulous time at the Mendenhall Glacier. :) Alaska is also well-known for its sourdough... and brought together here is a delicious combination of sourdough and gingerbread. Enjoy!

• Total Time: 0 mins
• Prep Time: 0 mins
• Cook Time: 0 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 6

• 1 cup sourdough starter
• ½ cup hot water
• ½ cup molasses
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ cup brown sugar , firmly packed
• 1 large egg
• 1 ½ cups unbleached flour
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ cup butter , or shortening

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Cream together the brown sugar and shortening.
3. Then add molasses and egg, beating continuously; set aside
4. In a separate bowl, sift dry ingredients together and blend into hot water.
5. Then beat this mixture into creamed mixture.
6. As the last step, add the sourdough starter slowly, mixing carefully to maintain a bubbly batter.
7. Pour into lightly buttered and floured 8"x8" baking pan and bake at 375 degrees F for about 30 minutes or until done.
8. Best served with ice cream or whipped cream while still hot.

Reviews

[SaraFish]

This is very good. It's moist and it's mild. Not a peppy spicy gingerbread but a sweet cakey one. The sourdough flavor doesn't really come through, it tastes mostly like molasses. Next time I might double the ginger and add a pinch of cloves to try and get a bit more flavor from it. Also, the pan size wasn't specified. I used my 8X8 pyrex pan that I had Pam'ed and it was a perfect size. The recipe makes way more than 4 servings like it says, I would say it's more like 8-10. I'm uploading a picture, as you can see we topped it with cool whip and it was very yummy!

[Tea Jenny]

I almost lost my starter due to neglect, so when building it up again I decided to make this rather than bread, and I was not disappointed it was very nice. I did add an extra teaspoon of ginger, and used black treacle for molasses, and my sugar was the very dark muscovado sugar. I also had some stem ginger in syrup so I chopped that up and sprinkled that on the top. I really wanted it to be as dark and rich as possible, and it was I served it with whipped cream, but it would be just as good with custard. It is a bit different from ginger bread I have made before but we enjoyed it a lot. The sourdough flavour didn't come though, but I think that was just my starter and if it was to mature a bit it I am sure you would be able to taste it.

[newtocookingm&m]

I was very excited about this recipe, I had a ginerbread friendship bread once and I have been on a hunt to try and find it. It was okay I liked it with the cool whip the flavors are good. My husband would give 3 stars. He said well its nothing to write home about. I did 2 tsp ginger and 1.5 tsp cinnamon. I only did a little more than 1/4 cup of molasses since I was afraid it may be too strong with only 1/2 cup brown sugar to sweeten it. Plus the sugar in the sourdough starter so didn't want to add more sugar just in case. Next time I will do more brown sugar but about the same on molasses. We felt it needed the cool whip!