Ginger cake
“But baby it’s cold outside” – indulge me for a moment and imagine that I am actually Cerys Matthews and I have the rather lovely Tom Jones serenading me. Oh well, maybe not. Still it is cold outside.
On a day like this the only decent place to be is in front of a fire, wrapped in a blanket eating something comforting. What could be more comforting than a sticky piece of ginger cake? Well, very little actually.
This cake is good on the day it is baked but it is even better wrapped in foil and left for a couple of days until it reaches its sticky peak.
I am submitting this entry to A Slice of Cherry Pie’s Snowy Day Bake Off because we could all do with a little comfort when the weather is so bitingly cold. If you are reading this on the other side of the hemisphere – you lucky, lucky folk!
This time I have added pieces of stem ginger into the mix, which gives a lovely zingy bite to the cake, but if you don’t happen to have any in the cupboard, feel free to leave it out. You can also use all plain flour if you don’t have any spelt flour, or use wholemeal flour in the place of the spelt.
This recipe is adapted from Mary Berry’s Gingerbread in The Aga Book, So I always use my small Aga roasting tin which measure 30cm x 20cm. I line it with foil and grease the foil lightly.
100g (4oz) butter
100g (4oz) soft brown sugar
100g (4oz) golden syrup
100g (4oz) treacle
100g (4oz) plain flour
100g (4oz) spelt flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp mixed spice
150ml milk
1 egg
50g stem ginger, diced
Method
Place the butter, sugar, syrup and treacle into a pan and heat gently until the butter is melted and the sugar is dissolved. Take the pan off the heat. Sift in the flours, baking powder and spices. Measure the milk in a jug and break in the egg and whisk lightly to combine and pour this over the treacly mixture and flour and stir to combine well. Add the stem ginger if you are using it and mix in well. Pour into the prepared tin and tip gently to level the mixture.
Place in a preheated oven at 170°c, gas mark 3, or the fourth set of runners of the baking oven of the Aga for 25-30 minutes until springy to the touch. Place the tin on a wire rack and leave the cake to cool completely.
Sit yourself down with a cup of tea and enjoy a large square and think yourself very lucky that you aren’t a chicken. BBRRRRR!
