Mary Berry's Gingerbread Traybake - Recipe

A traybake can be made in any square or rectangular tin and you can increase or decrease the quantities to your hearts content. I love a traybake because of its versatility.  A traybake doesn't have to be a cake, it can be a pudding too, cut into squares and open freeze for a rainy day. It was Mary Berry who back in the day first introduced me to the wonders of a traybake bake, and true to say it lost favour for many, many years.

Iced and decorated gingerbread.

The batter waiting to go into the oven for baking.

When I first married I used to watch her on TV (I was a child bride!),  I then went on to purchase my first cookery book, which was The Hamlyn All Colour Cookery Book and I can remember they updated this quite a few years after it first came out.  When Mary contributed to Home & Freezer Digest I used to buy this from the newsagents and can remember saving every copy.

I bought a copy of Mary Berry's Complete Cookbook and gave my children a copy of this too, to use for reference, and hopefully cook a few recipes.  My daughters husband uses this cookery book and makes a fabulous Potato Dauphinoise, another favourite is Potato Lyonnaise, he has also turned out a few memorable starters using recipes from this book.

Some of my Mary Berry cookery books - do you have a collection too?

There are a few recipes on my site that I have cooked from Mary Berry cookbooks and they are all delicious.  One of my favourites is her Lamb Tagine and this is one of the best tagine recipes ever. A couple of her books on my wish list are Mary Berry's Family Sunday Lunches and her latest cookbook, Mary Berry at Home.

The following recipe is taken from Mary Berry's Ultimate Cake Book - I always halve this quantity and use a 18 x 28cm tin.  Freeze un-iced.

Slightly adapted recipe.  For this quantity of mixture you will need a 30 x 23cm tin lined with parchment paper.

275g golden syrup
275g black treacle
225g dark molasses sugar
225g unsalted butter
450g self-raising flour
2 teaspoons mixed spice
2 rounded teaspoons ground ginger
4 eggs, beaten
4 tablespoons milk

For the icing:
225g icing sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
50g crystallised ginger finely chopped.

1. Preheat the oven to 160ºC/325ºF/Gas 3.
2. Measure the syrup, treacle, sugar and butter into a large pan.  Heat very gently until the butter has melted.  Remove from the heat and stir in the flour and spices.  Add the beaten eggs and milk, beat until smooth.
3. Pour into the lined tin.
4. Bake for 45-50 minutes until beginning to shrink away from the sides of the tin.
5. Cool in the tin.
6. When cold lift out of the tin and remove the lining paper.
7. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl, add the lemon juice, drop by drop and mix until smooth.
8. Decorate with the chopped ginger and leave the icing to set.
9. Cut into squares.