Sponge Ginger Bread

I'm currently on holiday from work, which has been a lovely thing. However I don't get to see the lovely people I work with each day! (Disclaimer: it's but a simple coincidence that some of my colleagues read this blog...ahem...). I also have lost my steady stream of food tasters/guinea pigs for a short period.

This declaration of free time may lead one to believe that I have been able to cook lots and lots of my Nanna's recipes. Unfortunately not. I have been visiting all the sights of South East Queensland instead, and I have a million photos of koalas and kangaroos to yet sort through and share! Until I get myself organised, here is a photo of me shaking a kangaroo's hand/paw to get you through. LOOK HOW GIANT IT IS! And the koala! And I saw whales! Dolphins! and Other Assorted Wildlife while hanging out on a beach at Byron Bay. That was utterly blissful. 

I did manage to cook Sponge Ginger  Bread, quite possibly the sweetest cake yet made. It has sugar AND Golden Syrup in it. When eating this, I recommend you serve only the tiniest of tiny pieces, or have strong tea on hand to offset the sweetness. It's tasty though, with an excellent ginger kick, without being overpowering. 

With each recipe I become more and more impressed with the range of flavours one can wrest from a relatively small selection of ingredients. With minor tweaking of proportions and methods, we could possibly have enough material with which to write a blog! Eh? Eh? 

Sponge Ginger Bread

2 cups plain flour

230g butter

¾ cup sugar

½ cup golden syrup

1 cup milk

1 cup sultanas

1 tbsp. ground ginger

¼ tsp. mixed spice

1 tsp. bicarbonate of soda

Preheat oven to 150°C. Grease and paper a flat baking dish (such as a lasagne tray).

Warm the golden syrup slightly. Cream the butter and sugar, adding the warmed golden syrup. Sift the flour and ginger into the mix.

Add the bicarbonate of soda and mixed spice to milk, then with the sultanas, stir into the cake mixture.

Pour into prepared tray and cook for 50 minutes, checking from about 40-45 minutes with a skewer to see if it’s cooked. At the 50 minute mark, turn the oven off and let the Sponge Ginger Bread sit for 5 minutes before removing to rest and cool.

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For those of you who are not in Australia, please find here a selection of Measurement & Temperature Conversion Charts which should help with the accuracy of your own cooking. 

Spiced Apple Cake

I went around work today telling everyone I’d made sugar free Spiced Apple Cake. “The cake is naturally sweetened by the apples” is what I said; “it’s so healthy, it’s like muesli” I said. Dear everyone I work with, I offer my most abject apology for the sieve that is my short term memory. I am nothing but a liar. Liar. Liar. Pants. On fire. When talking about the cake today, I’d somehow forgotten that while I may not have added sugar, I had certainly included the ½ cup of golden syrup as listed in the recipe. Golden syrup is of course a delicious and sticky refined sugar product. And now I’ve given my workplace diabetes. Sorry…

You may wonder why I’ve included in the photo a couple of books, I had these out for reading at breakfast and they ended up in the background by accident. I liked that they were there so with a bit of arranging and primping to make them sit ‘just so’, here they are. Those of you who know me in person will not be surprised that I read at any possible moment. I read books while eating breakfast, while making dinner, while watching TV, while walking. If I had a bathtub I’d definitely be reading while having a bubbly soak. Reading in the toilet is the exception though, I very much draw the line there! Eww, sorry, yuck. So anyway, my breakfast reading at the moment is a favourite author of mine — Edgar Allan Poe — I’m halfway through ‘The Balloon Hoax’ which is mildly entertaining, but not terribly strongly written. Amusing it would have been at the time of publication, it’s not as entertaining as I’d find something written in this century, or even the last! My god how is it 2013 already? I’ll continue with it of course, but I’m not totally loving it. Of course, Poe is best known for his dark poem ‘The Raven’, first published in 1845. It’s wonderful and I urge you all to give it a go. It’s somewhat appropriate too for my breakfast reading, as there seem to be a family of crows that sit on my back fence each morning who caw quite horribly and loudly. I wish for them to all develop laryngitis seeing their birdsong lacks any elegance or melodic beauty.

Goodness, I really have digressed. Back to the cake! This recipe makes for a pretty giant cake. I cut it up into about 35 pieces, and I STILL have leftovers. Some of my colleagues helpfully had 3 pieces. You know who you are. I love you for loving my food! Thank you.

Spiced Apple Cake

2 large apples

115g butter

¾ cup brown sugar

1 egg

½ cup golden syrup

3 cups self-raising flour

1 tsp. bicarbonate soda

1 tsp. mixed spices

pinch salt

Preheat oven to 160°C.

Grease and paper a shallow baking dish.

Peel, core and chop the apples. Cook in a small amount of water on stovetop until tender (approx. 5-8 minutes).

Rub the butter and brown sugar until it's a bit crumbly (it may not get crumbly and I think that's OK). Add the beaten egg to mixture.

Add bicarbonate of soda to the cooked apple mixture and whisk until frothy (approx. 1 minute).

Add all the ingredients together, pour into prepared baking tray and cook for 30 minutes. 

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For those of you who are not in Australia, please find here a selection of Measurement & Temperature Conversion Charts which should help with the accuracy of your own cooking.