ginger cake

I have considered the possibility that Nigel Slater is the only man I will ever need in the kitchen.  I am gagging to be proven wrong, because I think boys are hot in the kitchen, but so far, no one has exercised such a perfectly flirtatious, pragmatic, and sensual balance of both culinary and textual sensibilities.  Also, he takes pictures. Well, I think he takes the pictures, because he talks about them without crediting anyone else with their existence.

I read Toast when I first started cooking seriously in 2004.  It’s a beautiful book, smart but still fluffy, and very sentimental.  He does the same sort of ‘I am very smart and practiced at my craft but I am also sensitive and sometimes make myself quite bare’ thing that makes de Botton appealing to me.  I’ve had The Kitchen Diaries (above) about six months now and it’s got some oil stains and smears of chocolate in its pages, and still I have many more messes to make.  He’s got the localvore / amateur gardener thing built in, and this particular book is a close look at how he eats, day to day, and that’s the stuff I want to know about.  It’s also just rich, and that’s how I like food to be.  His ‘value for simplicity’ is about really tasty, fresh ingredients, so I think miso is about the blandest he gets in the entire book.  I admire this.

It’s a very British cookbook, and I quite appreciate that.  It’s totally about what’s locally available, and it’s eager to appreciate traditionally British food items carefully.  I didn’t realise how much I appreciated spice cake until I made this for the first time.  It’s since become a staple.  So very crowd-pleasing, warm and comfortable and surprisingly light for the ingredients list, which is full of very heavy sugars.  The scent of it baking has a radiance to it that turns the whole house warm.

I repeat his recipe by the book, because he wrote this book so nicely, and the text is part of the experience.

Nigel Slater’s ‘Double ginger cake’

I am rather proud of this cake.  Lightly crisp on top and with a good, open texture, it is light, moist, and delicately gingery.  It will keep for a week or so wrapped in paper and foil.

self-raising flour – 250g
ground ginger – 2 level teaspoons
ground cinnamon – half a teaspoon
bicarbonate of soda – a level teaspoon
a pinch of salt
golden syrup – 200g
syrup from the ginger jar – 2 tablespoons
butter – 125g
stem ginger in syrup – 3 lumps, about 55g
sultanas – 2 heaped tablespoons
dark muscovado sugar – 125g
large eggs – 2
milk – 240 ml

You will need a square cake tin measuring approximately 20-22 cm, lined on the bottom with baking parchment or greaseproof paper.

Set the oven at 180 C/Gas 4.  Sift the flour with the ginger, cinnamon, bicarbonate of soda and salt.  Put the golden and ginger syrups and the butter into a small saucepan and warm over a low heat.  Dice the ginger finely, then add it to the pan with the sultanas and sugar. Let the mixture bubble gently for a minute, giving it the occasional stir to stop the fruit sticking on the bottom.

Break the eggs into a bowl, pour in the milk and beat gently to break up the egg and mix it into the milk.  Remove the butter and sugar mixture from the heat and pour into the flour, stirring smoothly and firmly with a large metal spoon.  Mix in the milk and eggs.  The mixture should be sloppy, with no trace of flour.

Scoop the mixture into the lined cake tin and bake for thirty-five or forty minutes, until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.  Unless you are serving it warm, leave the cake in its tin to cool, then tip it out on to a sheet of greaseproof paper.  Wrap it up in foil, and, if you can, leave it to mature for a day or two before eating.

I can’t.  Someday I’ll try though.

My only modifications to this include extra stem ginger – even half a bottle if you think the idea of many tiny chunks of ginger in a warm cake sounds really appealing.  I love it that way and I think that sentiment is shared by the friends I feed.  I also leave out the sultanas, which I try to keep out of most things. I have discovered that I like this more in a bundt pan because it does have a tendency to be unevenly baked if you have any problems with oven temperature.

It goes quickly, but if anyone is so bold as to allow it to mature, which is actually a very mature behaviour, I’d love to know about it.

Hopefully a certain someone (she’s in the upper right-hand corner, baking for that one in the middle) will offer a gluten-free version, and I’ll be able to provide it here.