Sticky Ginger Cake with Lemon Icing

So I was sneaking a piece of this ginger cake from the kitchen when I realised that I hadn't written a blog for OVER A MONTH. 

There's a lot going on, of which more, I hope, in a few weeks when 'the lot' has concluded and I can tell you all about it (I expect you are intrigued now).

I don't know why I was sneaking the cake, because there was no one else in the house, and only my thighs will tell the tale but anyway, there I was taking a guilty bite of this delicious thing and realised that it just had to be shared with the world before, like everything else I've made, my culinary adventures, in the last few weeks, it's been eaten and forgotten, a blissful memory... The ramson pesto, in all its green, wild-garlicky glory, for example,

the crumpets I made (so chuffed), 

the brilliant burger, 

and, of course, THE LOBSTER will simply have to wait - may be even till next year - only immortalised in my Instagram feed until then...

It's not just 'the lot' either ('the lot' that I don't want to jinx by talking about it)  - generally life has been incredibly busy. We've also had the Easter holidays, visitors, and just the most beautiful run of weather. And because everyone says "Oh, yes, Wales, well it's bound to rain again soon", you just have to get out and make the most of it. Not, exactly, a hardship, when getting out and making the most of it involves lots of this

and plenty of that

and quite a bit more of the other, 

but I'm starting to think that this is part of a conspiracy to keep this most fantastic of places a secret. Sorry if I've just blown it, but, honestly, this is the most stunning place, and the weather is not nearly as bad as you might have been led to believe...

But back to the blogging, I am afraid I've been spending a lot of time on the beach, my floors are covered in a fine dusting of sand, and I've gone a little bit more native and taken up crochet. I won't, you'll be pleased to hear, start blogging about the crochet, but neverthless, it's eating in to time I'd otherwise have spent tapping away.

This cake however, fits perfectly with the season and the weather. It's ideal beach cake, I made a slab of it to take camping with friends last weekend on the Gower. A combination of Martin Dorey's The Campervan Cookbooks' sticky ginger treacle cake, and Nigella's fresh ginger bread from Domestic Goddess, it's old fashioned and delicious and just what you want to eat with a cup of tea after a day on the beach.




Sticky Ginger Cake with Lemon Icing

200 ml semi-skimmed milk
3 tbsp black treacle
100g butter
75g plain flour
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp cinammon
200g soft brown sugar
125g oats
A good chunk (maybe 3 inches or so) fresh ginger, peeled & finely grated

Juice of half a lemon (although you may not need all of it)
175g icing sugar

Grease & line a 20cm square cake tin, and pre-heat the oven to 150C (130C fan)

Tip the milk into a small pan. Add the treacle and butter and slowly bring to the boil so that everything melts into the milk.

Keeping an eye on the pan, sieve the flour, bicarb and cinammon into a large bowl, and mix in the sugar and oats. 

When the butter & treacle has melted into the milk, add the grated ginger, give it a quick stir and pour into the flour mixture, then stir to combine.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake in the pre-heated oven for about 50 minutes.

Leave to cool in the cake tin, then make the icing. Sieve the icing sugar then slowly mix in the lemon juice to make a thick, spreadable icing - not too runny, you want a layer on the top (preferably one you can leave teeth marks in) rather than dribbles down the side - and smear it over the cake. When the icing has hardened, cut the cake into 16 pieces, wrap in greaseproof paper and head out.

Ginger & Coconut Surprise Cake

I'll cut to the chase here - the 'surprise' in this cake is that it tasted quite as good as it did, given my penchant for adapting with impunity.

I managed to sneak in a baking session on Saturday afternoon, chores done, children delivered and recovered from various activities, dog walked. As the rest of the household settled for rugby induced over-excitement, I sidled into my happy place, emptied the cupboards and got a bake on. A lasagne for Sunday (ragu already made and defrosted, so a mere assembly job) - something easy to pop in the oven after our planned Mothers Day activity of a walk and picnic on the beach; some experimental gluten free brownies, of which more another day when I've sorted out the slight oiliness from slightly too much coconut oil; pizza for post-rugby match appetites (shouting at the TV can make people awfully hungry...) and this cake.

Getting my bake on...

Again adapting from Short & Sweet by Dan Lepard, this is my version of the ginger root cake, the adaptations mostly based on using up what was in the cupboard. You'll be pleased to hear that I now have less than half a bottle of pomegranate molasses in my possession, and although I have found several very good uses for it, I'm not sure I'll be rushing to purchase another bottle.

Anyway, back to this cake. It's not a straightforward cake flavour-wise, but the molasses and ginger complement each other, with the addition of coconut rounding things off. It worked as cake on its own, and also as pudding, topped with some homegrown rhubarb, simply stewed.

And if you were interested, this cake also contains swede. Yes, the vegetable. Not Ulrika Johnsson. And unlike my last attempt to include swede in a cake, this appears to have gone undetected. That'll teach them for watching the rugby...


Ginger & Coconut Surprise Cake

2 large eggs
100g light soft brown sugar
100g pomegranate molasses
150 ml coconut oil
150g grated swede
2 nuggets of stem ginger, finely chopped
175g wholemeal flour
50g dessicated coconut
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarb of soda
2 tsp ground ginger

for the icing
100g icing sugar
lemon juice (probably about 1/4 lemon)

Line a 20cm round springform cake tin and pre-heat the oven to 180C.

Separate one of the eggs and set the white aside for later. Beat together the while egg and second yolk with the sugar until it becomes thick and lightens in colour - at least 5 minutes.

Beat in the molasses and coconut oil, then stir in the swede and chopped ginger.

Mix together the flour, coconut, raising agents and ground ginger, then add this into the mixture.

Take the remaining egg white and whist to the soft peak stage, then fold this evenly through the batter.

Scrape this into the tin and bake for around 40 minutes - it's OK if a few crumbs come out on the cake tester.

Once the cake has cooled, remove it from the tin and make up the icing. Sieve the icing sugar and combine with the lemon juice to make a thick-ish icing. Ice your cake as artfully as you like, and enjoy.

Slow Cooker Chicken Curry

My love affair with the slow cooker continues, although this is the first time I've had it out since Christmas. But I fancy a curry feast this evening - the Husband's been away all week and Pink has had a night away with school so this evening will feel celebratory, with all of us back in the fold. All of us except Fred the dog who is spending the weekend in kennels while we travel back to England early tomorrow morning for a wedding. But he wouldn't enjoy this Butter Chicken Curry, and anyway, he had a jolly good walk on the beach this morning so I feel my conscience is relatively clear. Honest.

But before I start feeling guilty again about the dog, let's get back to the feelings of warmth and satisfaction I derive from having all of us (well., nearly all of us... I'm so sorry Fred...) under one roof at the end of the week, sitting at the table and sharing a meal together. By getting the main event in the slow cooker earlier today, it means I can mess about with dahl and possibly even some flatbreads later on and turn a simple curry into a feast.

Some of you will notice that I managed to sneak some pomegranate molasses in here. I'm feeling dreadfully guilty (not only about the dog) that despite enthusiastic encouragement from some quarters, I still have most of a bottle of the stuff mouldering in the cupboard. I wondered if it would do anything to the flavour of this curry beyond adding the sweetness that the sugar I used it in place of was supposed to do, and indeed there is a very subtle and rather pleasant tang to the concoction. Nothing earthshattering, but, you know, nice.

You need to get this into the slow cooker on low at least 5-6 hours before you want to eat, but it'll happily do its thang all day if you're out of the house. This is based on a recipe from the 'Ultimate Slow Cooker' book which I totally love. As well as my general tinkering, the original recipe includes a large red chilli which you de-seed and chop up with the onions ginger and garlic. 

Slow Cooker Butter Chicken

2 onions, peeled and each cut into 4
3 cloves of garlic, peeled
4cm piece of root ginger, peeled and halved
1 tbsp sunflower oil
8 skinless, boneless chicken thighs, cut into 3-4 pieces
25g unsalted butter
1 tsp each of cumin seeds and fennel seeds, crushed
4 cardamom pods, bashed up
1 tsp each of ground turneric and smoked paprika
1/4 tsp ground cinammon
300ml chicken stock
2 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp pomegranate molasses (or you could use soft brown sugar)
sea salt

5 tbsp double cream or plain yoghurt depending how decadent you are feeling 
2 tbsp flaked almonds, toasted
a good handful of roughly chopped coriander leaves

Pre-heat the slow cooker as per instructions.

Start by finely chopping (I use a food processor) the onions, garlic and ginger.

Heat the sunflower oil in a large frying pan and brown off the chicken pieces in batches on quite a high heat. When each batch is browned, remove from the pan and set aside on a plate lined with kitchen towel.

Reduce the heat, add the butter to the pan and when it's melted, add the onion mixture to the pan.

Cook gently till it starts to colour, then tip in the crush seeds, cardamom pods and the ground spices and cook for a further minute, stirring.

Pour in the chicken stock and add the tomato puree, pomegranate molasses and a good pinch of sea salt, and bring to the boil.

Tip the chicken into the slow cooker and pour the sauce in on top of it, pressing the chicken down so it's covered.

Replace the lid on the crock pot and cook on a low setting for 5-7 hours. When ready to serve, stir in the cream and serve with the toasted almonds and coriander sprinkled over the top.

Pear & Ginger Loaf Cake

It's been an Autumn showers kind of day.

A "back from a week away with a ton of washing and no hope of it getting dry" type of day.

A "failing to get on top of the chaos" type of day.

A "dog with conjunctivitis and separation anxiety" day.

A day where I was frantically searching for the Wunderweb at 7.37 a.m. when Blue declared that his new school trousers were definitely too long and the look on his face suggested tears were in the offing.

A day where my work 'to do' list looked scary and intimidating and I  felt a little overwhelmed.

It was also cake club day - Clandestine Cake, and as you've guessed, being the kind of day it was, the planned cake was never going to happen.

So I made a loaf cake - a humble, no nonsense kind of cake. The theme of 'Fireworks' which suggested much in the way of fancy icing has had to be satisfied with flavours of the season - ginger and cinammon, pears and walnuts. Fancy icing can wait. But as it was a "wait around for an hour in town while Pink has orchestra" type of day, after school, I did manage to get my hands on one little trick...

Pear & Ginger Loaf Cake

200g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinammon
200g unsalted butter, diced and at room temperature
150g tinned caramel
50g caster sugar
2 large eggs, beaten together
1 tbsp milk
2 balls of stem ginger, quite finely chopped
2 large pears, peeled and roughly chopped
walnut halves to decorate (optional)

3 tbsp syrup from the stem ginger jar
3 tbsp granulated sugar

Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin and pre-heat the oven to 160C/140C fan

Combine the flour, baking powder and cinnammon

Beat together the butter and caramel, then add in the sugar and continue to beat till light coloured and smooth.

Slowly add the egg, beating well after each addition - of it looks like it's going to split, add a little of the flour mixture in.

Beat in the rest of the flour, then quickly stir through the pears and ginger.

Scrape into the prepared tin and bake for at least an hour until a skewer comes out clean - mine took 1 hr 15 mins but it will depend on your oven.

Leave to cool in the tin, then mix together the ginger syrup and sugar with a tablespoon of water, poke holes all over the cake with a skewer, then drizzle over the gingery sugary drizzle.

Sparklers optional

But lots of fun...

Pumpkin Ginger Cake with Lemon icing

So a couple of things have irked me this week.

Firstly, at the weekend, the Husband got stuck into the kitchen and produced a much, much better Pumpkin Soup than I did the previous weekend. He followed a Jamie Oliver recipe, right down to frying the sage leaves first in the oil which you then cook your 'base veg' (the carrot, celery, onions type veg, not the ones shouting obscenities as you chop them up). It was delicious. Grrr.

Secondly, I watched an episode of GBBO. 

I know. Shoot me for my hypocrisy.

In my defence, there wasn't even an old episode of CSI Miami (my least favourite of the CSIs) running on 5 USA, and I was too tired to resist I'm nothing if not open to having my ideas challenged. 

What would Messrs Hollywood & Berry say about my icing? On second thoughts, don't answer that...

So in the interests of testing whether I was right in my views about this sort of TV programme, I decided to endure it. You'll be pleased (or not) to know that I remain firm in my view that this is really car crash TV for the middle classes, and quite exploitative in the way that it plays on peoples' emotions and feelings. All that smarmy niceness and then killer comments basically telling the contestants that their cakes were rubbish. And I still don't really know what it's all FOR? I mean, for a start they weren't really rubbish - those cakes. And secondly, we all know that there are thousands of amazing bakers all over the country producing stunning cakes (both in looks and taste). So why do we need to allow some of those amazing bakers to sob into their fondant icing potagers in public? Hmm?

Anyway, rant about the premise of the programme aside, I have to say that I found the actual baking very compelling, and I liked the vegetable bakes a lot. I am a big fan of veg in cake, and when I was flicking through some books and trying to work out what to bake for a coffee morning this morning, I was mindful of the fact that despite my soup, the Husband's soup and the curry I made for the Harvest Festival Supper, we had still not got through even one of the great big enormous pumpkins from the veg patch.

Now, I know Dan Lepard doesn't take kindly to having his recipes repeated on anyone else's websites/blogs, but I made so many changes to his Ginger Root Cake that I really think this can be called an original cake. For a start, I used pumpkin, rather than root vegetables. But whatever, I was really REALLY pleased with how this turned out. Light and with a lovely ginger flavour in the cake. And of course, lemon and ginger are a match made in heaven, so the icing was a must - and who cares that my attempts at artful drizzling were less than beautiful...

Pumpkin Ginger Cake 

2 large eggs
100g dark muscovado sugar
100g treacle (see top tip below for weighing)
150ml sunflower oil (plus a little extra for weighing out the treacle - see below)
160g grated pumpkin
4 balls of stem ginger, chopped fairly small
175g spelt flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp ground ginger
150g icing sugar
juice of half a lemon

Pre-heat the oven to 180C/160C fan and line a 20cm round cake tin with greaseproof paper.

Separate one of the eggs and put the white to one side, then beat together the whole egg and the separated yolk with the sugar till thick and foamy.

Add the oil and treacle. A top tip for weighing out the treacle is to grease the bowl you weigh it into very lightly with a little oil, also if you are spooning it out of the tin, wipe a little oil over the spoon too, then the treacle will slide out easily. Also works for syrup. 

Beat in the oil and treacle until smooth, then stir in the pumpkin and chopped ginger. 

Mix together the flour, baking powder, bicarb and ground ginger, then stir this into the mixture.

Whisk the reserved egg white to the soft peak stage, then fold it into the rest of the cake mixture with a metal spoon.

Scrape the batter into the tin and bake for 40-50 minutes.

Allow the cake to cool in the tin, then make up the icing by mixing together the lemon juice and icing sugar. You want a pretty runny icing to drizzle over the cake.

I also made Dan's Lemon Butter Cake - which if you own a copy of 'Short and Sweet' (and if you don't I thoroughly recommend that you get one immediately) is on the next page to the Ginger Root Cake - but I pretty much followed the recipe for that, and I'd recommend you do too...

Soup of the week ... Parsnip and Ginger

This is almost unheard of but I have nearly 2 hours to myself, and THEN a hair cut booked. On a Saturday. So I’ve walked the dog, and done the washing up from last night, sorted out the washing and completed (in case you were worried that I was being all efficient there, please understand that ‘completed’ has a fairly loose meaning) my menu planner for the next couple of weeks. I’ve started compiling the shopping list (first shop of the month – the BIG one) and retrieved some bread from the freezer (the last sourdough loaf) for lunch. So that took care of the first hour or so.

Fortunately, apart from making sure the bread was out of the freezer, lunch is pretty much sorted due to my new ‘soup of the week’ regime, which is proving very popular (well, it is for me anyway). I make a batch of proper soup on a Friday night which will feed us over the weekend and then provide enough to be frozen in portions for the Husband to take to work with him for lunch.

Take last week. Soup of the week was Mexican Tomato and Bean. Along with some portions left over from other weeks, he had a veritable feast of soups throughout the week. That, some left over roast root frittata (on Tuesday) and the game pie that he made a couple of weeks ago which also got frozen into portions, along with the beetroot variation of the Pumpkin and raisin tealoaf also out of Veg Everyday - I was really quite jealous assembling his lunches. To be honest, anything that reduces the amount of sandwich making to be done has to be a bonus, but the flaw is that he gets the good stuff, and I go fridge diving every day. Sometimes this is good – it all depends on what we ate at the weekend.

Last weekend was a Veg Everyday triumph (ish). So my lunches this week have mainly been fusion soup, which in this case involved left over ‘3 root boulangere’, left over ‘steamed greens with a hint of garlic’ whooshed (technical term for what my ‘stickblender’ does) and some extra stock, then some left over leeks added in on Tuesday – more whooshing. It was rather tasty.
Soup of the Week this week is another new one for me – back to Veg Everyday and the Hefty Soups section – Parsnip and ginger. I’m definitely liking this section of Veg Everyday, and this soup is looking good. I have used ginger with butternut squash before, but haven’t really thought of parsnip as anything other than something to roast, although I do recall a parsnip risotto somewhere in the dim and distant past.

I had to grind up some cardamom seeds for the ‘ground cardamom’ specified, but otherwise, the ingredients are fairly standard store-cupboard stuff. I do usually have root ginger in the freezer because I got fed up of being told that I should have once too often. My major breakthrough has been to peel it before freezing it in chunks, because trying to peel it when frozen is a recipe for losing fingers but once it’s defrosted it just goes to a mush, and it’s all I can do to chop it up/grate it (or whatever is required) without worrying about peeling it too.

Back to the soup. Very easy to make – just a chop fry and simmer job, and I will do the finishing off with milk at lunchtime today. I suspect that the addition of cayenne may make it slightly too spicy for Pink, but I have decided to give it a go. Hopefully, then this will feed us for lunch today and due to other activities this weekend will give us plenty for the week. Who knows, I might even get some this time!