This week’s Cakes & Bakes recipe is a low effort to high reward ginger loaf cake. There are quite a few ingredients, but its a simple case of combining the dry, the wet, then mixing them together – and popping it in the oven.
The aromas emanating from the kitchen as it baked were amazing.
And after less than an hour a moist, very flavoursome loaf cake emerged.
It’s a perfect afternoon cake. A cup of tea and slice of this will satisfy the most extreme 4 o’clock peckishness. And it keeps very well too, so there’ll be plenty of days to enjoy it – unless you actually let someone else have some too!
Ginger loaf
Ingredients
- 225 g/8oz self-raising flour
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tbsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp ground mixed spice
- 115 g/4oz butter chilled & diced
- 115 g/4oz black treacle
- 115 g/4oz golden syrup
- 115 g/4oz dark brown Muscovado sugar
- 275 ml/9½fl oz milk
- 1 egg
- 75 g/2½oz crystalised or stem ginger in syrup finely sliced
Instructions
- Pre heat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas mark 4 and line a 1kg/2lb loaf tin with baking parchment
- In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger, cinnamon and mixed spice
- Add the diced butter and lightly rub into the dry mixture
- Pour the treacle and golden syrup into a small saucepan and warm gently until melted and runny but not hot. Set aside until lukewarm
- In another larger saucepan, add the sugar and milk and heat gently, stirring well to dissolve the sugar. Set aside until lukewarm
- Whisk the milk into the flour mixture, quickly followed by the treacle mixture and the egg
- Add the ginger pieces and stir through before pouring the mixture into the prepared loaf tin
- Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean
- Allow to cool in the tin on a wire rack before turning out. Serve warm or cold within 1 week
