Cake!

I love baking but I've been trying to cut down on making cakes, mainly because cakes = fatsy Emma. But every now and again I get to make one that won't be sat around for me to eat. Today was one of those times. For the retirement of one of my husband's co-workers he needed a cake, and this one I'd seen recently on the cover of GoodFood. I like using this sort of occasion to try new stuff, last time I made cake for his office it was chocolate raspberry brownies. So this time it was sticky ginger lemon drizzle cake.

Cake

• 140g butter , cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing
• 300g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 4 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 140g dark muscovado sugar
• 140g black treacle
• 140g golden syrup
• 300ml whole milk
• 1 large egg 

 Rub flour, spices, and butter to bread crumbs. In a saucepan put the sugar, treacle, syrup and milk and slowly warm until everything is dissolved. When everything is dissolved heat it until nearly boiling. Beat into the flour mix (maybe do this slowly so it mixes properly) and then mix in the egg.

Pour into a greased and lined 20cm tin and cook for 50 minutes-1 hour at 160C/140C fan/gas 3.  Checked its done with a skewer and leave to cool completely in the tin. It's a good idea to leave it to mature for a few days in grease-proof paper wrapped in tin foil.

Lemony drizzle

• zest and juice 1 lemon
• 50g granulated sugar
• 50g preserving sugar or crushed sugar cubes

Lemon curd

• about ½ jar good lemon curd
• 2 balls stem ginger , diced

Ginger cream

• 4 tbsp syrup from the stem ginger jar
• 100g soft cheese
• 200ml double cream
• 3 tbsp icing sugar , sieved

When you're ready, cut the cake in half. For the drizzle, mix lemon juice, zest, and sugars and pour straight over the top half (I pierced it all over with the skewer first).

Mix the lemon curd and diced stem ginger and spread over the bottom half of the cake. To make the cream, whip the ginger syrup, cream, cheese and icing sugar until it holds its shape then put on top of the curd. Put the top layer on and then you have cake!

Mine was made in a 18cm tin because I don't seem to have a 20cm one, even though it seems to be the most common one used. I also only had one day to let it mature, I'd definitely do a couple of days next time, not that mine was bland, but I'd love to see how the flavour developed. As it was, it's like a really moist McVitie's Jamaican ginger cake. It seems quite dense (maybe because I used a smaller tin) but it didn't feel dense. And ginger and lemon, I'm sure it's a really common combination but I think this was the first time I'd tried it and it's *amazing*. I was stood eating some of the cream and curd I had spare in the kitchen (see, baking = fatsy Emma).  The sponge alone is freezable too, so this could be lurking ready made until you need it (although probably won't stay there for very long).

And, apart from my constant worry about heating sugar, it was really easy to put together, lemon and ginger well balanced (and I'm not a fan of too much ginger) and the drizzle makes it look really good without having to do too much work!