The last time I made this cake it occurred to me, for the first time ever, that maybe I should take a picture of it. I shared the pic on Facebook. A few friends said it looked great. That night I created Well Worn Whisk, with no real idea in mind of what the blog was going to be, only that it might be fun to cook stuff, take a picture of what I’d made, and write a few words to accompany the recipe.
So the cake has a special place in my heart. It is a picturesque cake; hence my taking a picture of it last time. However it’s deadly easy and never fails to impress. I think it’s the icing that people like.
I do love an iced cake; it feels so much more exciting to eat than a naked cake. I used to think it must be hard to ice a cake for some weird reason. It seriously isn’t. In this instance it takes all of 20 seconds to mix icing sugar and ginger syrup together and lollop it on, the messier the better really. If you really can’t be bothered with icing then dust with icing sugar for extra prettiness.
The icing on this one is reminiscent of a snowy landscape and the stem ginger pieces are like jewels! Because of this, and the spices too, it’s certainly appropriate for the festive season. It improves over time in a tin and freezes amazingly well (un-iced). Thus, it’s perfect for contributing to Christmas parties or to have in the tin during December for unexpected guests. I’m going to take some to a family gathering this weekend in fact. Dressed up with some ribbon it would even be nice as a gift.
This recipe is barely tweaked from the Mary Berry original. You could spice it up even more with a grating of real ginger or make a lighter cake by using golden syrup instead of treacle. Mine is simply more spicy and gingery than Mary’s with more mixed spice, and the addition of ground ginger and stem ginger syrup.
Serves: 15 – 20 pieces
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Total time: 40 minutes
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Total time: 40 minutes
Ingredients:
225g soft butter
175g brown sugar (I used dark muscavado)
200g black treacle
300g self-raising flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
2 teaspoons of mixed spice
1 teaspoon of ground ginger
4 eggs
4 tablespoons of milk
3 bulbs of stem ginger, chopped
1 tablespoon of stem ginger syrup
For the icing:
75 g icing sugar
3 tablespoons of stem ginger syrup
3 bulbs of chopped stem ginger
Instructions:
- Pre heat your oven to 180C.
- Mix all your ingredients (ideally with an electric whisk). That is it!
- Pour the cake batter into a greased (and lined with baking paper if you want it to come out easily!) cake tin / traybake / roasting tin roughly 30 x 23 cm.
- Mine was a bit smaller though and it worked fine. Bake for about 35 minutes. Let it cool a little in the tin then gently move onto a wire rack.
- Let it cool before icing with the syrup and sugar mixture, then sprinkle on the chopped ginger. Let the icing set before you cut it. If freezing, don’t ice.
>> Check out more cake recipes!
Hello 🙂 if we will be eating this on the saturday teatime, when is the best time to make it?
Make a few days ahead, it'll be fine. Sorry for late reply! X
Absolutely fabulous and light. Could have eaten two pieces in one go! Wish cafes and restaurants had such good cakes like this. I can see this being a firm favourite.
Ahh bless you, that’s a lovely comment. Thanks! R X