Ginger Looking Cake
I decided to publish the recipe for the latest cake I made today, now I've finetuned it.
17 September 2004 · Last updated: 11 December 2006
Ingredients · Baking Instructions
Click on the thumbnails to see what the baked cake looks like.
Ingredients
- Plain flour - 500g (1lb)
- Salt - 1 teaspoon
- Ground ginger - 2 tablespoons
- Ground mixed spice - 2 teaspoons
- Walnut halves - enough to spread on the top
- Baking powder - 1 tablespoon
- Bicarbonate of soda - 1 teaspoon
- Mixed peel - 50g (2oz)
- Demerara sugar - 250g (8oz)
- Butter - 175g (6oz)
- Golden syrup - 200g (7oz)
- Milk - 300ml (half a pint)
- Egg - 1 (Medium size)
A delicious alternative to Golden Syrup is Maple Syrup. If you haven't any Demerara sugar, you can use other sugars like Light Muscovado Cane. Don't be afraid to experiment - that's what I did! Try different ingredients, or miss out some of the flavours and see what happens.
Baking Instructions
- Mix the flour, salt, mixed peel, ginger, mixed spice, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda in a mixing bowl. Make sure you get the measurements accurate.
- Put the butter into a saucepan and heat gently until melted. Now add the sugar and syrup. Keep stirring until completely blended.
- Remove the saucepan from the heat and let it cool for about 5 minutes.
- Mix the egg and milk in a measuring jug using a whisk.
- Stir into the cooled saucepan and mix fully.
- Pour the contents into the mixing bowl and mix with the whisk. Pour slowly around the edges and keep mixing bit by bit. Aim for a solid mixture that can just about be stirred. Get plenty of air in and make sure the mixture is smooth - there should be no lumps. This is the hardest part as it's tough to stir it after a while but keep going.
- Prepare a greased cake tin of size 20cm (8in) deep. I use a round one with a removable base, greased with butter. The base makes it dead easy to remove the cake once it's baked. Pour in the cake mixture from the bowl. Now place a few walnut halves spaced evenly on top of the cake.
- Put it on a baking tray in the middle of a pre-heated oven set to 160°C (325°F).
- Cook for between 1:30 - 1:45 hours. Avoid checking it until at least an hour has passed, as this interferes with the rising process.
- Take the cake out of the oven when you're happy it looks done and leave it to cool for 5 minutes. Remove it from the cake tin and place it on a metal rack. Leave it to cool completely.
- Eat and enjoy!
