Veronica's Preserved Ginger Cake with Lemon Icing
I first tasted this when I was visiting my old school friend after the birth of her first baby and her lovely mum, Veronica, had made this. I cannot admit to how many pieces I demolished but, in my defence, I was breast-feeding a fat baby boy!
I've used some local Gilchester's Spelt flour instead of all self-raising flour. You can make it in a square or round 23cm spring-form tin but it looks oh, so pretty in a kugelhupf pan.
Ingredients:
250g unsalted butter, softened
250g golden caster sugar
pinch of sea salt
4 large eggs
3 tbsp. ginger syrup (from the jar)
1 tbsp. black treacle
225g self-raising flour
125g spelt flour plus 1tsp. baking powder
1tbsp. ground ginger
1 heaped tbsp ground almonds
3tbsp. milk
7 pieces of preserved ginger, chopped
Icing:
225g icing sugar
juice of 1 lemon
3 pieces of preserved ginger, chopped
Butter and flour the kugelhupf tin. Preheat the oven to 170 deg C.
Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar with the pinch of salt until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the ginger syrup and treacle slowly whilst still beating – if the mixture starts to curdle add a tabelspoon of the flour. Fold in the sifted flours, baking podwer and ground ginger carefully trying to keep as much air in the mix as possible. Finally stir in the ground almonds, milk and the chopped ginger. Spoon into the tin and level the top.
Bake for 45-55 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean. Place on a cooling rack and leave to cool for 10 minutes before turning out of the tin to cool fully.
Once cold, warm the juice of a lemon up then add gradually just enough to the icing sugar until you achieve a thick, glossy icing – you won’t need all the lemon juice. Pour over the cold cake.