Sticky ginger cake with lemon icing

This lovely, slightly damp and sticky ginger cake is fast becoming a staple in our house. I love how the sharp lemon icing cuts the sweetness of the sponge.

The cake keeps really well, and is even more delicious the following day. It could well be even better the day after that, but we’ve never had one last long enough to find out…;-)

The original recipe is from the BBC Good Food website.

Sticky ginger cake with lemon icing

For the cake:

• 225g plain flour
• 1 Tb baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 Tb ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground mixed spice
• 125g butter, cubed
• 115g brown sugar
• 115g treacle (or molasses)
• 115g golden syrup
• 250ml milk
• 85g stem ginger in syrup, drained and grated
• 1 egg

For the icing:

• 50g icing sugar, sifted
• 1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
• about 1 Tb lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Butter and line a deep, 18cm cake tin.
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon and mixed spice.
3. Rub the cubed butter into the flour by hand until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
4. In a small saucepan over a medium flame, heat the sugar, treacle, syrup and milk, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat and bring the mixture to just below boiling point. Remove from the heat.
5. Add the grated ginger to the flour mixture, then pour in the treacle mixture, stirring to combine. Add the egg and beat well.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the top is firm and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
7. Allow to cool completely in the tin.
8. In a small bowl, combine the icing sugar and lemon zest. Add enough lemon juice to make a slightly runny icing, then drizzle over the cake.

Tags: British food, ginger, vegetarian