Molasses Crumb Cakelets Rose's Alpha Bakers
Sunday, July 12, 2015 at 3:12PM 
molasses crumb cakelets 'The Baking Bible'
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Golden Syrup is treacle, black molasses is a treacle and yes, "treacle" is a umm "treacle'. For today's Molasses cakes I'm using treacle... confused? Lol, sometimes it's like that baking from country to country. Lets look to Wikipedia for 'Treacle is any uncrystallised syrup made during the refining of sugar.'
treacle and golden syrup are acidic and that acidity reacts with the bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) in the recipe resulting in your cakes rising.
treacle comes in different grades from a bitter black molasses to the usually charcoal filtered mellower and sweeter tasting golden syrup.
Today's molasses cakelets are the same type of cake that in Australia your Nana baked using recipes left over from "harder times" where you may not have had eggs, butter and the like but always seemed to have a supply of treacle for cakes and puddings. UK chefs still bake up a range of treacle baked treats, including treacle tart (golden syrup with loads of fresh lemon zest) to cocoa rich treacle cakes. Nut and date fruit loaves are still sold in supermarkets in Australia, egg and butter free they are vegan like today's cakes.
I still bake these for my Dad, spiced date fruit loaves made in the distinct round sealed end pipe pans.
And you know who else knew all about treacle? The dormouse of course in Alice in Wonderland speaking of the three girls young girls living in the treacle well----
`What did they live on?' said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.
`They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse
These cute molasses cakelets are quick to make and are perfect for an Alice in Wonderland themed afternoon tea, as part of a high tea or served warm smeared with butter and a strong cuppa on Sunday afternoon. They are quite sweet, so try serving with lemon tea to balance the flavour.
A quick batter to prepare, a sugar, oil, flour mixture has some removed and set aside to become the crumb topping. Treacle was added to remaining mix with bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and boiling water.
Into a jug for easy pouring into prepared mini muffin tins.
Reserved "crumb" mixture tops the cake batter, baked for eight minutes.
Slightly springy (usual for this type of cake) at first bite, gives way to soft and fluffy interior.
Happy Baking :)
Would I bake again? yes, can't have enough quick pantry recipes... bonus they are vegan.
Would I change anything? The sugar crumble, I wouldn't use it every time as it adds more sweetness than I prefer. I would freeze the topping mix to be added to oat fruit crumble topping and dip the tops of the small cakes into dark chocolate instead. Citrus zest and spices could also be added to the cake batter for a change or nut/choc chips/dried fruit would also work.
How it works... now I've joined the fabulous existing alpha bakers, once a month I will post about what I have baked from Rose Levy Beranbaum's 'The Baking Bible'. This won't include the recipe due to copyright and publisher restrictions however, I will be posting how it went and photos of making/baking the gorgeous baked goods.
The Baking Bible
You might also be interested in gingerbread custard icecream.