Help deciphering Mum’s recipe for gingerbread cake

[StarlingsInSummer]

I recently found my deceased mum’s handwritten cake recipe book and want to bake her gingerbread cake, but there’s an ingredient I can’t work out. It’s the last in the list of ingredients:

1 tbsp b.w.

What on earth might b.w. stand for? Does anyone have an idea? I’m trying to make in into baking soda/baking powder - which seems more likely for a gingerbread cake? I’m not an experienced baker! Help please!

A tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda would make it taste horrible!

Gingerbread is a heavy mixture, with the treacle, but if it's SR flour in the recipe , and you've found a Mary Berry one that's similar, i'd give it a try. MB knows her stuff. Her recipes work.

I mean, does 1tbsp of bicarbonate look ok for the rest of the recipe or would it mess it up?

It sounds way too much, given that the flour is already SR. Something to bear in mind with raising agents is the amount of sodium they contain!

I can't see another w on that page, is that how your mum would write a w ie with that top flourish?

I wouldn’t add a tablespoon of bicarbonate.

You could try it with boiling water & see how it tastes. Then try it with a teaspoon of bicarbonate and see how you go.

Fun to experiment!

sometimes you put baking powder into boiled water to liven it/make it froth? it make baked item rise more???

There are several "old fashioned" recipes that have hot water/tea in them so I'd go with that.

If its an s, not a w, then maybe brown sugar?

Agree that a tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda would make the cake taste horrible. I think it would be boiling water.

I also don’t think you can read that anyway other than b.w., looking at the rest of the handwriting.

I think the only raising agent would be the self-raising flour if it’s not bicarb or baking soda. I just nipped to shop for ingredients and the bicarb says “often mixed with baking powder to lift parkin or gingerbread”... but a tablespoon does sound like a lot!

Would one tablespoon of boiling water really make much difference - wouldn’t I need more?

I remember it was a very sloppy mixture, very wet.

This is the only other “w” I could find, in date and walnut cake. It’s very similar so I think it must be a “w” in the parking recipe.

I think its boiling water to melt the treacle a bit and make it mix together.

@MustardScreams “bung together” is about my level of skill so I thought this was a good recipe to start out with!

I very vaguely remember her melting the butter and treacle in a saucepan first... not sure if that was for parkin or something else though.

Hmmm. A lot of old fashioned gingerbread recipes DO have boiling water, but have much more than 1 tbsp full. BUT they done have milk. I’m inclining towards it being water rather than baking powder though.

Thanks everyone! Never would have thought of water at all.

It says b s, so bicarbonate of soda.

Oh actually I am rethinking as it is a tablespoon, it must be bw and boiling water. I see that as an s, but it wouldn’t be a tablespoon of bicarb, far too much. So it must be as you think, a w.

I agree from your new pic that that is a Starlings DM w. And I would go with hot water.

I would never in a million years put a tablespoon of bicarb in a cake, jesus it would collapse in on itself!!

Definitely boiling water.

See, this is what is great about Mumsnet. I never bake so wouldn’t have a clue! I can cook but that’s because cooking has a much larger tolernence of freestyling recipes. Thanks again, people!

Now I just need to buy some caster sugar. I got the rest of the ingredients today but every single bag of caster sugar on the shelf at Waitrose had a tiny hole in it, like it had been pricked by a needle. Is that normal for caster sugar? The hole was in the same place at the back of every bag. I was worried someone had been messing with ithem, though I expect I was being paranoid.

I wouldn't think it's black molasses as there's already treacle.

Nor does an additional tbsp of baking powder seem likely, even if it was plain flour it'd be more like a tsp of baking powder and a tsp of bicarb.

If you added a tbsp of bicarb to that, given the quantities, it would taste of bicarb.

Another vote for brown sugar as my mils ginger cake had some and definitely not a tbsp of baking soda( can't remember if it was a tbsp though)

Sorry if somebody has already said this, I haven't RTFT.

I think it could it be lowercase b.s. in cursive handwriting for baking soda

Mind you, having not made gingerbread in about a decade, I don't know if you actually use that in the recipe!

Just coming back to this thread to say I baked this cake this weekend and it’s turned out perfectly! I decided to compromise, adding 1 tbsp of boiling water and a teaspoon of baking powder. I had to mess around with the quantities a bit, to translate from cups to grams and ml, but it turned out tasting just like my mum’s recipe. It was so nice to eat it again, made me think of my mum and her lovely cakes. Thanks everyone for your advice!