Old Time Ginger Cake

If you like sticky, almost caramelised cakes to accompany your fragrant black tea, then this cake is for you. If you have tea with milk, then...well, fine, you also can have some. I personally don't understand why anyone would spoil the taste of their tea with milk, but... it takes all sorts I suppose. 

This is the second cake I cooked last night, along with Chocolate Cake, which I hope is a resounding success at the school fête on Sunday! This one I had intended to bring to work — I had a meeting at 3.30pm Friday afternoon and figured it would go a lot smoother if I brought in a cake. It is also concocted using much ginger and I am one of many ginger aficionados at my workplace. I even gave the spice jar an extra shake into the cake mix. 

It was quite runny and I wasn't sure I'd be able to fit it into the cake pan I had prepared without spilling over while cooking. It did get a bit of muffin top so I'd suggest using a larger cake tin for a more even and faster cooking time. I suspect mine would have cooked a lot quicker without the edges getting as brown as they did. The cooking time for me presented another issue which I think became a positive upon tasting. The sultanas in the cake mix sank to the bottom of the cake tin (not unexpected given the liquidity of the mixture), and they caramelised into quite a sticky chewy layer. You can see this in the photo below. Maybe this is a deliberate feature, however I suspect it's a happy accident.

Back to the cake-filled meeting. It really did help. As did the cup of Lady Grey tea which appeared in front of me as if by magic. The cake was left outside the meeting room, and sampled by quite a few people. I must say receiving quite a few emails from colleagues telling me how much they'd enjoyed the cake was really nice and made for an excellent Friday, thanks guys! I am constantly thinking you all tell me the cakes are tasty because it's the nice thing to do, but these really seem to be genuinely enjoyed by everyone who eats them, with the exception of course of the Scones of Horror. 

Old Time Ginger Cake

1 cup sugar

1 cup butter

2 eggs

1 cup treacle

2 level tsp. bicarbonate of soda

1 cup hot water

2½ tsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. mixed spice
1 cup sultanas

2½ cups plain flour

Preheat oven to 150-160°C

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs one at a time, beating well into the mixture. 

Dissolve treacle, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and spices in the hot water. 
Add sultanas and then add to creamed sugar. Finally, add sifted flour to mixture.

Pour into large greased cake tin, and bake for 50 minute, checking regularly from around 40 minutes.

Icing

I used a mixture of mascarpone cheese, with icing sugar, a little bit of lemon juice and some ground ginger.
You could ice with simple icing, or simply dust with icing sugar. 

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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.