My husband is a big fan of ginger, so I made this cake with him in mind. Recipe from iVillage.com, and is copyrighted, so cannot be reproduced here unfortunately!
The Recipe
The key points of this recipe is that it contains a lot of ginger. A lot. Ground ginger, fresh ginger, crystallised ginger and ginger liqueur. I was dubious.
My Alterations
I ran into a few problems with this recipe, firstly because I couldn’t get molasses. Actually, I could get treacle, which is the same as molasses, but I forgot about it until it was too late. I ended up using extra dark brown sugar (instead of the light brown sugar I was going to use) and substituted the molasses/treacle for golden syrup. Corn syrup is a good substitute for golden syrup, if you can’t get it.
Crystallised ginger isn’t readily available in my local grocery store, or if it is, I don’t know where, so I replaced it with a jar of Chinese stem ginger in syrup. The advantage of this was that I could use the ginger syrup in place of the ginger liqueur in the glaze.
The Result
The cake was relatively easy to put together, but there was a lot of prep work. I had to grate the fresh ginger myself, and chop up quite a lot of syrupy ginger pieces for the cake. Otherwise, it was fine.
The cake came out a lovely dark golden/brown colour. It smelled great while baking, and even though I was afraid that there would be a ginger explosion in my mouth when I tasted it, I looked forward to trying it out.
I decided to make the glaze for the cake this time, because I figured the lemon juice in the recipe would cut the ginger a bit.
The Verdict
Surprisingly, the ginger taste wasn’t as strong as I expected. It was a very gingery cake, but pleasantly so and not burningly so! This is a really good cake, and aside from the prep work, is very easy to put together. I was pleased with the results.
The glaze is worth making, because the lemon flavouring really compliments the ginger.
The Rating
5/5
If you are a fan of ginger, this is definitely a cake you should try. Even if you aren’t a big fan, it’s worth giving it a try, because you might be surprised. I can take or leave ginger biscuits or cake, but I really liked this. The cake was moist and rich; it would make a great winter cake, I think.
