Why Was My Fresh Gingerbread Light Brown And Not Black?

Our answer

Nigella's Fresh Gingerbread With Lemon Icing (from HOW TO BE A DOMESTIC GODDESS) is a sticky gingerbread that uses grated fresh ginger to give it a more sprightly ginger flavour. The cake is topped with a zesty lemon glacé icing.

Gingerbread cakes generally can vary in colour from light to dark brown. The colour depends on the ingredients, so the Chocolate Gingerbread will be darker, almost black, because of the addition of cocoa, while the Luscious Vegan Gingerbread is more of a medium brown. The Fresh Gingerbread uses dark brown sugar and treacle, so will be a similar colour to the Luscious Vegan Gingerbread. As the photo of the Fresh Gingerbread shows the cake on a white plate with white icing, we suspect there is a slight optical illusion and the cake is actually not quite as dark as it looks in the photo. In addition, some brands of treacle and molasses have a darker colour than others, so this will affect the colour of the baked gingerbread slightly. We suspect that your gingerbread is fine and should taste just as good as the one in the photograph.