The best of the best. Gingerbread

I’ve decide a while ago. Christmas time confirmed it and last week place a dot on ‘i’: the gingerbread is my – without any doubts- favourite cake! For last two weeks I’ve been eating a big amounts of it (surprisingly!) I still don’t have enough. I’m not talking about just another regular gingerbread. Mine has to be heavy, walnuts and day after day become more delicious. Such a gingerbread is not the best straight from the oven. It has to rest, than it is perfect!

The recipe is from ‘Polish Kitchen’ ( book edited in 1982, belongs to my Mum).
Seeing all those dirty pages you can tell it has been used many times J

Ingredients
50og (18 oz) wheat or wholemeal flour
250g (9 oz) powder sugar
250g (9 oz) honey (liquid one)
150g (5,3 oz) walnuts ( optional other nuts or dried fruit)
5 eggs
2 tbsp caramel
1 teaspoon gingerbread spice mixture
1 teaspoon baking soda
100g (3,5 oz) butter (+ some butter to grease the pan)

Method
Grease and flour the loaf pan. Chop walnuts. Prepare caramel: heat 2 tbsp sugar in a pan until golden, whisk it with 3 tbsp water. Sift flour and spices. Mix butter, gradually add egg yolks, powder sugar and honey, caramel, baking soda and spices and ½ flour. Whisk egg whites, gently stir them in the butter mixture, add walnuts. Bake in preheated oven to 200 oC (400 F), for about 1 hour. Cold cake you can store covered in a parchment or an aluminium foil even for a month!