Spiced Ginger Cake

Spiced ginger cake is a moist dense cake full of flavour and rich spice. This cake will make the perfect celebration birthday cake or delightful winter festive cake. Topped with a smooth cream cheese icing. Absolutely delicious. As with all dense, rich ginger cakes, they mature well for 2-3 days when stored in a cool place in an airtight tin.

8 slices

15 minutes

30 minutes

175ºC

Ingredients

20cm round baking tin
Cake
280g plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon powder
Pinch ground nutmeg
Pinch of dried cloves
Pinch of salt

- optional
Wet
115g butter

- melted
100g brown sugar
2 tbsp black treacle
2 large eggs
250ml buttermilk
Cream Cheese Icing
227g cream cheese

- softened
200g icing sugar

- sifted
115g butter

- softened
1 tsp vanilla paste
Decoration
Fresh rosemary
Cinnamon sticks
Glace cherries
Birthday garland
Icing sugar dusting

Instructions

Prepare baking tin and oven:
01 Line a 20cm non stick round cake tin with baking paper. Preheat oven to 175°C.
Make cake - dry
02 Mix all dry ingredients ie sift into a bowl flour, rising agents, spices etc
Make cake - wet:
03 Mix all wet ingredients ie butter, sugar, black treacle, eggs and buttermilk.
Combine everything:
04 Add wet to dry and beat well until smooth.
Assemble and bake:
05 Pour cake batter into the prepared cake tin and bake 30-35 minutes until firm to finger touch or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow cake to cool in the tin until cold before removing lining etc.
Make icing:
06 Place all ingredients into a bowl and beat until smooth.
Decorate:
07 When cake is cold, remove from cake tin. Remove baking paper and place on a cake board or plate. Cover the top with large spoonfuls of cream cheese icing and decorate.

Notes

I highly recommend to use vanilla paste when making the icing, as vanilla extract will add liquid, and this will then thin the icing and can cause it to become too runny. If this happens ADD more icing sugar.