Mini treacle loaves a scrumptious childhood memory

Treacle is a much loved flavour from my childhood, it was a favourite both with my father and my grandmother. These scrumptious little loaves were baked in pretty mini loaf cases. I recently made these for a gathering I attended, and they were very well received. 

Ingredients

The recipe is reprinted with permission from our friends at Chelsea.

½ cup (125g) butter

½ cup (100g) Chelsea soft brown sugar, firmly packed

½ cup (185g) Chelsea treacle

1¼ cups (190g) plain flour

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp baking soda

1 egg, lightly beaten

2/3 cup (160ml) milk 

Lemon Icing:

1 Tbsp (20g) butter
2 Tbsps lemon juice
2 Tsps boiling water
2 cups Chelsea icing sugar sifted

Method
Preheat oven to 170ºC conventional (150ºC fan forced). Grease and line bases of 10 x ½ cup (125ml) mini loaf pans or friand pans. 

Place butter soft brown sugar and treacle in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to the boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 2 mins. Remove from heat and cool.

Sift flour, ginger and baking soda into a large bowl. Make a well in the centre of dry ingredients and stir egg, milk and cooled treacle mixture until well combined.

Spoon batter into the prepared pans. Bake for 20-25 mins or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Allow the loaves to stand for 10 mins before turning out onto a wire rack. Drizzle with Lemon Icing and decorate with Candied Lemon Rind. 

Lemon Icing: 

Combine butter lemon juice and water in a small saucepan and heat until butter is melted or simply microwave in heatproof bowl. Add to sifted icing sugar and mix until well combined.

When I made my treacle cakes, lemon icing didn't appeal on the day, so I used Chelsea's recipe for caramel icing from their Halloween Treacle coffin cakes.

Caramel icing:

60g butter
1/2 cup firmly packed Chelsea soft brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 cup Chelsea icing sugar sifted

Stir butter and soft brown sugar in small saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves; bring to the boil then simmer, stirring, 2 mins. Remove from heat and add milk and icing sugar mix until well combined. Drizzle warm icing over cakes. Use licorice to create coffin shape and pipe dates with writing icing.

Treacle makes this an enchanting rich, moist cake with a subtle liquorice flavour. Decorate for the kids or simply serve warm with vanilla ice-cream for a special ‘treat’.