A Summery Ginger Cake

The recent warm weather, as glorious and much needed as it is, doesn't lend itself to baking. Even recently at dawn, whilst it may still be cool, the thought of cranking up the oven and creaming butter and sugar has not been appealing (I make sound like I stand over the ingredients with a wooden spoon laboriously mixing by hand - no way, not whan I have a thing of beauty). It's a shame really, there are few things in life that lend themselves to a sense of collective goodwill but, espeically here in the UK, a few days of consistent good weather, some positive sporting results (I type this on Saturday evening watching Murray beat Simon and before tomorrow's 'match') and a fresh, home baked cake are definately some of them. Whilst I didn't quite manage the trifecta, two of the three met wonderfully last weekend when I went to visit my brother and his family.

A ginger cake is not something that would be at the top of any summer baking recipe list, but last Saturday morning, with the sun already warming the day, I was in need of a cake that would do for a pudding, rather than a snack, and could be easily transported down the M5. I have David Lebowitz's 'Ready for Desert' on my shelf and have baked from it, but had spotted this recipe blogged recently which served as a reminder (I had also bookmarked it a few months ago on The Food Librarian but just hadn't got round to it yet). I had fresh ginger in the fridge, from my recent rhubarb compote fetish and the quick prep and baking time (not to mention the 'leave to cool in tin' instruction) made for a potentially perfect recipe.

To be honest I had no idea when I chose this recipe that this moist ginger creation wold be quite the light thing of delight it turned out to be. Married, by accident, with fresh strawberries and creme fraiche it made for the perfect end to the evening (and was damn fine for elevenses the next day too - apparently). I can imagine the original suggested accompaniment of whipped cream with lemon curd would also lift the cake wonderfully.

Fresh Ginger Cake

David Lebovitz

115g fesh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced

250 mild flavoured molasses (treacle)

200g sugar

250ml vegetable oil

250g plain flour

1 tsp ground cinamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

250ml water

2 tsp bicarbinate of soda

2 large eggs, at room temperature

Preheat oven to 175C

Butter bottom and sides of of a 9" 23cm tin and line the bottom with parchment

Chop the ginger very finely in a food processor or with a chefs knife (I went for the safer processor option)

Mix the treacle, sugar and oil in a large bowl

Whisk the flour and spices together in a medium sized bowl

In a small saucepan bring the water to the boil, then stir in the bicarb

Whisk the hot water into the treacle mixture, then add the ginger

Gradually sift the flour mixture over the treacle mixture, whisking all the time

Add the eggs and whisk until thoroughly combined

Scrape into the prepared pan and bake until top of cake springs back or a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean - approxamately 1 hour

Leave to cool completely in the tin before running a knife around the sides to loosed.

This will apparently keep for up to 5 days at room temperature, but I doubt you'll have the chance to test this theory.

Early O'Clock

The other week I took a couple of days off work, and with nothing much planned other than rest, relaxation and a lie in, I made sure that the eggs and butter were out of the fridge before I went to bed in order for them to be at that all important ‘room temperature’ so I could bake the next morning. I didn’t really anticipate the morning starting at 3am, but when I realised sleep was not going to return, and the lie in was definitely not going to happen, I got up, put apron on, and got started.

I had oranges and buttermilk to use which provided a guide for the recipe search and I’d spent a little time at the weekend looking through my books and converting recipes from cups and sticks to grams (the most important part of my prep recently as it’s always a little too much for my mathematically challenged brain first thing in the morning - or even the middle of the night). The Orange Ricotta Pound Cake from Cake Keeper Cakes caught my eye as a good showcase for the rose bundt tin. I swapped the ricotta for buttermilk, but increased the butter from 168g to 220g in order to compensate for the reduced fat. I used wholemeal flour and once again reduced the sugar content. I also added a bag of dried cranberries as I’d had my eye on a couple of orange and cranberry loaf cakes recently an they seem to be paired frequently. I think all of that messing around might have been a little too much. It needed more ... flavour. By using wholemeal flour and in reducing both the sugar and fat content there was too much taken away, wholemeal flour can also be quite bitter and a bit of additional sweetness might have balanced this. The texture was also affected it was a dense cake, again I’m not sure whether the culprit is the flour or fat - possibly both. I think using plain flour would’ve made a big difference, perhaps half and half? I would also add a touch more citrus, as I said previously the oranges I’ve been using recently haven’t had much of a zing to them. The cranberries were a nice touch, they hold their form so well and the little zing of sharpness when you bite into on is lovely.

Orange Buttermilk Pound Cake

Based very loosely on a recipe from Cake Keeper Cakes

Cake

450g flour (I used wholemeal)

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarb

1 tsp salt

220g butter

270g sugar

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

3 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

zest of two oranges

Glaze

1/2 cup orange marmalade

2 tsp water

Preheat oven 165C, grease bundt tin and dust with flour.

Beat butter and sugar for 5 minutes until light and fluffy, scraping side of bowl periodically

Add eggs one at a time, scrape bowl again

Add zest, juice and vanilla

Combine dry ingredients in separate bowl

Add one third of flour mixture to mixing bowl with mixer on low speed, followed by half the buttermilk, another third of the flour, buttermilk and last of flour mixing well after each addition and not forgetting to scrape the bowl

Fold in cranberries

Place batter into tin, bake until golden brown approx 1 hour 10 minutes

Cool in the pan for 15 minutes then turn out onto a rack to cool completely

Once cool make the glaze by stirring water and marmalade in a saucepan over a low heat until the marmalade melts then brush the glaze over the cake

Second on the list was a whole-wheat honey nut cake again from Cake Keeper Cakes (I really can’t recommend this book enough). I wanted to make another cake that has a layer of filling running through it, in a more suitable tin than the rose bundt that I used for the Cardamom Cake. I reduced the sugar again but the layer of honey running through with the nuts and the caramel glaze added plenty of additional sweetness. It was a favourite of a few of the tasters.

Whole-wheat and Honey Nut Bundt Cake

Cake Keeper Cakes

Filling

75g flour

28g softened butter

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 1/4 cups walnuts or pecans coarsely chopped (I used walnuts)

1/2 cup honey

Cake

1 cup buttermilk

2 large eggs

300g whole-wheat flour (original recipe 200g plain flour, 100g whole-wheat)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarb

1/2 tsp salt

112g butter

150g light brown sugar (reduced from 175g)

Glaze

56g granulated sugar

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup buttermilk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Grease bundt tin and dust with flour

Preheat oven to 180C

Make the filling by combining the flour, butter and cinnamon in a bowl until crumbly then add the nuts and honey.

Whist together buttermilk, vanilla, and eggs

Combine cake dry ingredients

Beat together butter and sugar in mixer or with electric whisk on medium high speed for 5 minutes

Lower the speed on the mixer, add one third of flour mixture to mixing bowl with mixer on low speed, followed by half the buttermilk mixture, another third of the flour, buttermilk and last of flour mixing well after each addition and not forgetting to scrape the bowl

Beat on high for one minute

Scrape half the batter into the prepared pan, spoon the filling as evenly as possibly over the base layer then add the rest of the batter, smoothing the top with a spatula.

Bake for 50 - 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for 5 minutes then turn out onto a rack to cool completely

Make the Glaze by bringing the sugar, honey and buttermilk to boil in a small pan, reduce the heat and cook for 7 - 9 minutes until caramel coloured, stirring occasionally

Remove from the heat, stir in vanilla and allow to cool for 10 minutes before pouring over the cake letting the glaze drip down the sides

Allow to cool for about half an hour before serving

Lest the sunflower tin feel left out I also made the Pumpkin Spice Cake that I’ve made previously, I wanted to play around a bit with the spices - basically by being more generous with them all which I think worked, it can take it - and it also took care of the last of the buttermilk.

My sister paid an impromptu visit later that day, so I knew that between her, my dad and various neighbours and colleagues I could easily offload todays output - so I carried on.

Finally I made a Pumpkin and Ginger Spice Cake from Katrina of She’s in the Kitchen. Now this is just lovely, I’ve had several requests for the recipe and will definitely make it again - the original is for ‘Texas’ muffins which I had to google and discovered that they’re just very large muffin tins, some of which I happened to have (probably the result of yet another compulsive Lakeland shopping trip). Katrina suggests that this recipe will make two 8” cakes or one 8” and six muffins. I used a bundt tin and also got six muffins.

Pumpkin and Ginger Cake/Muffins

Adapted from Katrina’s recipe - She’s in the Kitchen

1 tin of pumpkin puree

275g soft brown sugar (reduced from 2 cups/350g)

225g melted butter

4 eggs

1/2 cup of freshly squeezed orange juice (Katrina suggests cider or apple juice)

525g flour (wholemeal)

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp bicarb

1 tsp salt

4 1/2 tsp cinnamon

4 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cloves

1 1/2 cups crystalised ginger, chopped

1 cup currants (optional, but I still have loads left from Christmas and so added them)

Mix together the melted butter, pumpkin and sugar

Add eggs and mix well

Add fruit juice

Sift together the dry ingredients and then and to wet mix

Fold in the ginger and currants

Fill the pans/muffin cases half full and bake the cake for 40 minutes for the cake and 25 for the muffins at 180C.

Gingerbread for an Autumnal Afternoon

I have just spent a lovely weekend with my brother, his family and their amazing new kitchen. I am still suffering from severe kitchen envy, the whole space was a thing of beauty, from the fridge that I'm sure I could fit inside to the cutlery drawer that would placate the most obsessive compulsive urges. Luckily he has yet to purchase a Kitchen Aid mixer or I may not have coped at all. After a long walk in the beech woods around Box he prepared a the most divine beef bourguignon and I, with help from my niece, nephew (and a perfect G&T or several) made the Apple and Date Cake from a few months ago this time with a handful of chopped pecans - a good addition should you wish to add a little crunch.

Anyway, an early shift at work today meant a few hours free this afternoon and I need to spread a little love and reconnect with my small, yet (almost) perfectly formed kitchen. I know Parkin is the order of the week, it being Bonfire Night on Thursday, but once again a tub of buttermilk dictated the recipe somewhat and I had bookmarked this Gingerbread recipe from Shauna at Bay Area Bites. I don't remember how or when I came across it, but the range of spices she uses appeals and led to it being put to one side for autumn and here we are. As I type it's cooling in the pan, I followed the recipe below with a few very minor changes which are in italics. Other than the grinding of the cardamon seeds (anyone know where to get ground cardamon? I can't seem to find it anywhere) this came together in no time and was baked in 40 minutes.

SHUNA'S FAMOUS GINGERBREAD

18 ounces All Purpose Flour (I used half wholemeal)
6 ounces Sugar (golden granulated but I wonder what a soft brown would be like)
1 1/2 teaspoons Kosher Salt
1 Tablespoon Baking Soda
3 Tablespoons + Ground Ginger
1/2 teaspoon Ground Cloves
1 1/2 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1 Tablespoon Ground Cardamon (I only had pods of which I ground a generous teaspoons worth of the seeds as I wasn't sure if the ground seeds would be stronger than the pre-ground stuff)
1 teaspoon + Freshly Ground Black Pepper
1 teaspoon *optional: Ground Coriander* (I didn't use)

8 ounces Unsalted Butter
3 1/2 ounces Blackstrap Molasses
6 ounces Simple Syrup **recipe in instructions** you may substitute Lyle's golden syrup or light corn syrup (I used golden syrup)

3 each Large Egg Yolks
2 each Large Eggs
8 ounces buttermilk you may substitute sour cream or use a mixture of them both to create the eight ounces

**To make simple syrup place equal parts sugar and cold water in saucepan and bring to a boil until mixture is clear. For a thicker syrup boil for at least 10 minutes or increase the amount of sugar. For this recipe 1/2 cup sugar to 1/2 cup water will be sufficient.**

1. Preheat oven to 350F (180C)
2. Butter desired baking vessels. {Sometimes I coat with raw or white sugar inside as you would flour for a cake.}
3. Sift all dry ingredients except salt and pepper into a large bowl
4. Whisk in salt and pepper until mixture is uniform and create a "well" in center
5. In a medium non-reactive saucepan bring butter, molasses and simple syrup to a boil slowly {this mixture is feisty and will boil over if the heat is on too high or your saucepan is crowding it}
6. In another bowl whisk together egg yolks, eggs and dairy
7. When mixture on stove comes to a boil, shut off heat and let rest for a moment
8. Pour this hot mixture all at once into the center of your bowl of dry ingredients
9. Using a whisk, mix dry ingredients into liquid, from center out, carefully
10. When batter begins to seize, pour in second bowl of wet ingredients
11. Whisk batter until smooth and uniform. Batter is loose
12. Pour batter a little over halfway into buttered baking tins
13. I set my first timer for about 15 minutes, {unless you are making muffin-size or smaller}, so that I can turn the pan around for a more even bake (I used a Bundt tin and it was done at 40 mins)
14. Gingerbread is done when sides pull away from the pan, middle bounces back to the touch and/or a cake-tester inserted in the center comes out clean
15. Cool at least until warm before slicing.

Have Courgettes - Will Bake (and make breakfast)

I'm not a fan of courgettes, they were a staple of my student years, added to every stir fry, pasta sauce or bake that a limited student budget could conceive. There was also a scrumptuous courgette cake, sweet and moist from sultanas, filled with tart lemon curd and topped with cream cheese this was oft requested for special occaisions, but I'd stopped making it years ago.

A trip to the monthly Moseley Farmer's Market in late summer coincided with lots of inspiration from other blogs and I bought lots. Unfortunately having them in my fridge exerted some kind of pressure on my psyche and I couldn't bring myself to bake that weekend. However, I did discover a recipe for Zucchini Bread Oatmeal from Diet Dessert and Dogs and gave that a try the next morning - what a revelation! I have porridge every morning, I make up my own mix using Rude Health fruity date porridge as a base and adding my own mix of seeds, a bit of extra oat bran and germ , a little more cinnamon with a mixture of water and semi-skimmed milk. I didn't think some grated courgettes would add much to the flavour, but it really is delicious - go on, try it.

The addition of a bit of grated courgette in my breakfast wasn't going to make much of a dent in the enormous specimens occupying the drawer at the bottom of my fridge so I went through the recipes I'd flagged and came up with two that I thought would put them to good use.

The Chocolate Zucchini cake from Simply Recipes is one Elise adapted from the appropriately named Chocolate and Zucchini and I toggled between the two recipes and mine is an amalgam of the two. It's not the prettiest and is predominately a chocolate cake but with a lovely moistness that comes from all that veg. No one at work believed that there were courgettes in there, but all enjoyed it.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Adapted from Simply Recipes and Chocolate and Zucchini

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups of plain flour
• 1 cup wholemeal flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 2 1/2 Tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 Tsp bicarbinate of soda
• 1 Tsp salt
• 1 Tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 cup soft butter
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1 cup soft brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 Tsp vanilla extract
• Grated zest of one orange
• 2 cups coarsely grated courgettes
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 100g chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate)

I didn't bother with a glaze but there's one should you wish to add it.

Method

• Heat Oven to 350F
• Mix the flours, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb, salt and cinnamon
• Beat the butter and sugars until smooth
• Add eggs to butter and sugar beating well
• Stir in vanilla, orange zest and courgettes
• Add the flour mixture and the buttermilk in three batches
• Spoon into a greased and flour coated bundt pan and bake for 45 minutes until a skewer comes out clean - if you don't have a bundt tin, firstly get one because they are great, secondly this mixture should make two loaf tins, check after 30 mins.
• Cool for about 15 mins in the tin before turning out to cool completely on a rack

To contrast the safe, hidden (but delicious) use of the courgettes in chocolate cake recipe enough I also made Special Zucchini Bread from 101 Cookbooks. I adored this, the combination of spices, citrus, nuts and ginger was just delicious, the texture too was so moreish, a little something different in each mouthful. I used soft brown sugar I left out the poppy seeds as I didn't have any but I did have a jar of Raz el Hanout so used that, as suggested, in place of the curry powder. The smells from the oven while this was baking were amazing, and whilst it was cooling I spent a fair amount of time picking off bits of toasted walnut to eat - just to check you inderstand. Pop over to the site for the recipe - you won't regret it.