Sticky Stem Ginger Cake

Ooops!

I borrowed this recipe from the Good Food Magazine but having looked at the ingredients I made a couple of changes and substituted the black treacle with golden syrup. If you feel that there just aren't enough calories in this cake you can add lemon icing for a bit of zesty enjoyment. Having just started a strict diet I thought I would leave the topping out. 

 

The original recipe suggests that you grate the stem ginger but I decide to chop mine into fine chunks. However, these do tend to sink to the bottom of the cake but I prefer chunky pieces of stem ginger.

Ingredients

225g self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground mixed spice
115g butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing the tin
115g dark Muscovado sugar
230g golden syrup
250ml semi-skimmed milk
85g drained stem ginger, finely chopped
1 egg

Method

1. Preheat the oven to fan 160C/conventional 180C/gas 4. Butter and line a 2 lb loaf tin, with grease-proof or parchment paper.
2. Put the flour, bicarbonate of soda and all the spices into a large mixing bowl. Add the butter and rub it into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Put the sugar, syrup and milk in a medium saucepan and heat, gently stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Turn up the heat and bring the mixture to just below boiling point.
4. Add the stem ginger to the flour mixture, then pour in the treacle mixture, stirring as you go with a wooden spoon. Break in the egg and beat until the mixture is combined and it resembles a thick pancake batter. Pour this into prepared tin and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until a skewer pushed into the centre of the cake comes out fairly clean. Leave to cool completely in the tin before turning cake out.

The finished cake is very light and moist and it will improve with age.