Month: June 2013

Ginger Spice Cake Recipe

Ginger Spice Cake

This is my favourite ginger cake recipe – I’ve made it at least three times now – and yet I don’t know where it came from. We have it as a photocopy, and it appears to be from a book called “easy baking” although, to be honest, it took me a number of goes to get the icing right so I didn’t find it *that* easy. Anyway, since clearly I like making this, I’m going to put it in a more accessible place: my blog. The original name of this recipe was “divine ginger cake with caramel icing”.

Ingredients – Cake

  • 125g unsalted butter
  • 3/4 cup (190mL) firmly packed brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup (190mL) plain flour
  • 1/2 cup (125mL) self-raising flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon (2.5mL) bicarbonate of soda
  • 2 teaspoons (10mL) ground ginger
  • 1 teaspoon (5mL) ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon (2.5mL) ground nutmeg
  • 2 eggs
  • 2/3 cup (170mL) buttermilk (although you can get away with using ordinary, full-cream milk)

Ingredients – Icing

  • 3/4 cup (190mL) icing sugar
  • 60g unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup (125mL) firmly packed brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons (40mL) milk

Method

  1. Heat oven to 170 degrees Celcius.
  2. Grease a 20cm ring tin and line with baking paper (or you can use a 20cm round cake tin like I did in the picture, but you’ll need to add at least 10 mins to the cooking time and it won’t rise up as much with the bigger volume tin).
  3. Melt the butter, e.g. in the microwave for 30s on HIGH, and set aside.
  4. Sift dry ingredients into a mixing bowl, then add the wet ingredients (melted butter, eggs and buttermilk). Beat on low until combined, then beat on medium for a minute or two until the mixture has combined and there are no visible lumps.
  5. Pour mix into cake tin, and bake for 35 mins in the oven.
  6. Remove from oven and stand for 10 mins before turning onto a wire rack to cool.
  7. Before the cake has cooled, crack on with the icing – it should be poured onto a slightly warm cake. First, sift the icing sugar into a small bowl and set aside.
  8. Place the butter, brown sugar and milk in a saucepan and cook over a low heat, stirring regularly, until the brown sugar has dissolved and it starts boiling.
  9. Remove the saucepan from the heat, then immediately mix in the icing sugar.
  10. Allow to cool slightly (if it starts to set, heat it up a little) then drizzle and spread over the cake.

Serves 6-8.