This Golden Syrup heart loaf cake is a cake within a cake… well, not quite. What you do is mix two different batters; in this recipe one is a beetroot cake and the other a golden syrup one. The finished product looks a lot trickier to do than is actually the case.
The uncooked beetroot cake mixture was such a vibrant pink – it was so beautiful! If only I’d remembered from when I used it on a previous occasion that it loses its colour once cooked, it turns to a golden brown.
As it happened, the two cake mixtures were virtually the same colour once they’d both been cooked. Epic “nailed it!” attempt on my part.
You can make the central shape anything you like – it doesn’t have to be a heart. It can be a plain circle or a square or any shape cookie cutter you have to hand. Similarly, the flavour and colour of your cakes can be something else of your choosing. Use a couple of tablespoonfuls of cocoa powder or fine-ground instant coffee and the inner colour will be dark brown. You could simply use a few drops of food colouring in one or both of the cake mixtures; yellow & green, pink & blue… or even lighter and darker shades of the same colour.
I’m going to have to try this recipe again – I won’t let it defeat me!
Click here or on the image below to save this Golden Syrup heart loaf cake recipe to Pinterest


- 100g/3½oz caster sugar
- 100g/3½oz butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 100g/3½oz self-raising flour
- 25g/1oz beetroot powder
- 100g/3½oz butter
- 50g/1¾oz caster sugar
- 50g/1¾oz light brown soft sugar
- 200g/7oz Golden Syrup
- 250g/9oz self-raising Flour
- 1 egg
- 135ml/4¾fl oz milk
- Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas mark 4
- Grease and line a 23cm/9" square cake tin
- Cream together the caster sugar and butter until light and fluffy
- Whisk the eggs and add to the sugar/butter mixture in 2 increments
- Sift in the self-raising flour and beetroot powder and fold into the batter
- Bake for about 30-35 minutes until fully cooked
- Leave to cool for 10 minutes, remove from the tin and allow to cool completely on a wire rack
- Once fully cooled, use a heart-shaped cutter to carefully cut out bat shapes from the cake. Set the shapes aside while you prepare the other cake mixture
- Grease and line a 1kg/2lb loaf tin
- In a small saucepan add the caster sugar, light brown soft sugar, golden syrup and butter and gently melt. Set aside and allow to cool
- Sieve the self-raising flour into a large mixing bowl
- Whisk together the milk and egg before adding them to the flour alongside the cooled sugar/syrup/butter mixture
- Combine until smooth and lump-free
- Spoon about ⅓ of the mixture into the loaf tin
- Get the heart shapes and carefully set them upright into the mixture. Place them tightly together so they hold each other up
- Carefully spoon the rest of the mixture into the loaf tin. Ensure you cover the hearts and that they stay in place
- Bake for about 45 minutes, until fully cooked
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the tin
- Slice and serve
Cakes & Bakes: Sultana loaf cake
I’ve made a fair few tea loaf cakes over the years, but Justin has voted this sultana loaf cake the best. I’d planned to cook a completely different cake, but at the last minute realised I didn’t have all the necessary ingredients. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise!
The sultana cake consists of 8 simple ingredients that you should already have in your fridge and kitchen cupboard.
It’s a doddle to prepare; simply cream the butter & sugar, add everything else except the milk, which you add at the end to thin the batter to just the right consistency. I’d imagine this cake would be equally fantastic if you used glacé cherries instead of sultanas… I just may try that next week.
Click here or on the image below to save this sultana loaf cake recipe


- 115g/4oz butter, softened
- 115g/4oz of caster sugar
- 3 eggs
- 2 tbsps golden syrup
- 285g/10oz of self-raising flour
- 170g/6oz sultanas
- Itsp almond essence
- 140ml/5fl oz/¼pint of milk
- Cream butter and sugar
- Add eggs and golden syrup and beat
- Stir in self-raising flour, sultanas and almond essence
- Add the milk and mix to a dropping consistency
- Top with a sprinkling of granulated sugar then bake for around 1 hour at 175ºC/350ºF/gas mark 4
Cakes & Bakes: Carrot loaf cake with ginger buttercream frosting
Here’s another baked item to add to my ever-growing ‘best loaf cake’ round up; carrot loaf cake with ginger buttercream frosting.
I decided to make this cake because I had a bag of carrots that I bought for half price, but I may make a version of it again soon. Even more of our courgettes are ripening and I’ll simply swap the ½ pound of carrots for grated courgettes.
Again, if you don’t have walnuts in your cupboard, simply substitute them for chopped pecans or another of your favourite nuts.
This simple frosting was delicious… and the best use I’ve found to date for the excess liquid from a jar of stem ginger in syrup.


- 200g/7oz plain flour
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 150g/5oz dark muscovado sugar
- 200ml/7 fl oz vegetable oil
- 3 medium eggs
- 225g/8oz carrots, peeled and roughly grated
- 50g/2oz chopped walnuts
- 100g/3½oz butter, softened
- 200g/7oz icing (powdered) sugar
- 2tbsp ginger syrup
- Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F/Gas Mark 2
- Grease & line the base and sides of a 500g/1lb loaf tin with parchment paper
- Sift the flour, spices, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda together into a large bowl
- Stir in the dark muscovado sugar and mix together
- Lightly whisk the oil and eggs together, then gradually stir into the flour & sugar mixture. Stir well
- Add the carrots and walnuts. Mix thoroughly, then pour into the prepared cake tin
- Bake in the preheated oven for an hour, or until browned on the top and a skewer inserted into the centre of the loaf comes away clean
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out on to a wire rack. Reserve until cold
- Beat the butter and ginger syrup together until smooth, then gradually stir in the icing sugar until the frosting is completely smooth
- Once the loaf cake is completely cool, spread the frosting evenly over the top
- You could sprinkle a little of the stem ginger from the jar, chopped finely, over the top for an extra kick
Cakes & Bakes: Courgette loaf cake
We’ve begun to harvest a couple of nice crops from our little veg patch now (apart from the strawberries, which provided a running fruit buffet for the local mice). We had some lovely new potatoes this week, and the courgettes are doing very well indeed.
So, what to do with them? They’ll be perfect in all manner of stir-fries and other savoury dishes, but we decided to start with a courgette loaf cake.
They’re incorporated into the batter as you would with carrots in the better known carrot cake. In this recipe they’re combined with walnuts, sultanas, nutmeg and cinnamon.
The resulting cake was a great success and has proved very popular here at H is for Home headquarters. We’ve had it for the past few days with our afternoon brew. It’s very moist as it is, but we’ve found that a scrape of butter works fantastically well. There’s not a huge amount of sugar in the recipe – but I think it works. It’s well worth giving this cake a try… with either shop-bought or home-grown courgettes.
Gardeners and allotment-holders often say that they have a glut of courgettes, so this is a perfect use for some of them. Also, if you have trouble getting vegetables into your kids, they’re wonderfully well hidden – they’ll never know!
You can be very versatile with this recipe. Substitute pecans for the walnuts. Swap raisins and/or prunes for the sultanas. Add a couple tablespoons of orange juice instead of the vanilla extract. Use honey or maple syrup as an alternative to the brown sugar… or you can sprinkle golden granulated over the top just before it goes into the oven, if you’d like it sweeter. Similarly, for additional sweetness, you could top it with a cream cheese frosting.
Click here or on the image below to save the recipe to Pinterest

Courgette cake
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs
- 125 ml/4fl oz vegetable oil
- 85 g/3oz soft brown sugar
- 350 g/12oz courgette coarsely grated
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 300 g/10½oz plain flour
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 85 g/3oz walnuts roughly chopped
- 140 g/5oz sultanas
Instructions
- Heat your oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas mark 4
- Grease and line a 1kg/2lb loaf tin with baking parchment or paper liner
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, oil and sugar
- Add the grated courgette and vanilla extract
- In another bowl, combine the remaining (dry) ingredients with a pinch of salt
- Stir the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, then pour into the loaf tin.
- Bake for an hour or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes away clean
- Allow to cool in its tin for a few minutes before removing it and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack
