Sticky ginger cake

The recipes for Amy Lane’s Bake It! club just seem to get tastier and tastier by the month. Just the name sticky ginger cake gets my mouth watering at the thought of a large slab of comforting cake that could easily be a winter pudding coupled with hot steaming custard.

It’s a pretty straightforward bake. My absolute favourite part of the process was melting together the milk, butter, stem ginger, treacle, syrup and sugar – what a delicious combo and so aromatic!!!

The most challenging part of the bake was keeping Arlo away from the oven. He repeatedly turned the oven down, onto grill mode, and then completely off which I didn’t notice for about 15 minutes so it’s a bloody miracle the cake baked at all!!!

Who me?

But it turned out a treat. The finishing touch of brushing the ginger syrup on the top of the cake gives it a beautiful glossy finish fit for a magazine cover!

Sticky ginger cake

Ingredients

125g unsalted butter
125g light muscovado sugar
85g golden syrup
85g black treacle
200ml milk
3 pieces stem ginger
1 tbsp ginger syrup from the stem ginger jar
250g self raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 ½ tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C and grease and line a 2lb loaf tin.

2. Place the butter, sugar, syrup, treacle and milk in a saucepan.

3. Finely chop the stem ginger and add to the saucepan with a tablespoon of the ginger syrup from the jar.

4. Place the saucepan over a gentle heat until the ingredients have combined, stirring occasionally.

5. Once the ingredients are all combined, remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes.

6. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ground ginger and cinnamon into a large bowl. It is important to use a large bowl as the mixture will swell when the wet ingredients are added.

7. Make a well in the centre of the flour and add the eggs. Gradually begin to combine the eggs and flour then start to add the contents of the saucepan slowly, stirring with a whisk as you go.

8. Once the ingredients have been mixed together pour the cake batter into the prepared loaf tin. Don’t worry if there are a few small lumps in the mixture, but there shouldn’t be any large lumps remaining.

9. Bake for approximately 40-45 minutes until the cake is risen and a dark golden brown colour. Test to see if the cake is cooked by inserting a skewer into the centre and checking if it comes out clean.

10. Remove from the oven and prick all over with a skewer. Brush the top with a little more ginger syrup from the stem ginger jar or some golden syrup if you aren’t using the stem ginger.

11. Leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

12. Slice and serve. Also delicious warm with custard or ice cream.

The ginger cake will keep well in an airtight container for several days, if not longer. In fact a ginger cake is often at its best a few days after baking!

This time though I don’t get to eat the fruits of my baking. We’re off to a housewarming party at my buddy Tara‘s swanky new pad and it makes the ideal gift. Along with some fun fairy cakes I made yesterday to alieviate my post-California blues…