cake on a sunday afternoon.

okay, so i'm back. i think my work schedule is both more conducive to spending hours in the kitchen, and spending hours writing about it, than ed's. just one of the many reasons i love my job. another being it's sociable nature, although having said that, i very rarely socialize in this town, because there is nothing to do that interests me, and it's full of too many people i went to school with. i tend to prefer one-on-one time with the people who matter. which is precisely what i was going to do sunday, with my friend laura-jayne (lj for short), who i hardly see these days due to conflicting work schedules and the fact she's glued to skype talking to richard, her boyfriend in the military. my kitchen reputation is starting to precede me at work, and as a result, i was going to make a cake, because really, what better accompaniment is there for wine, cigarettes, and gossip? and i knew it had to be a fairly robust cake, because my lj doesn't do white wine. so i got to flicking through my green and blacks chocolate cookbook and found something i thought would be dark and intense enough, and what happens? we realize we've messed up on organization again, and have to reschedule.

did that stop me making the cake, do you think? no, no it did not. there's always time for cake, and my mother is the biggest cake fiend going. to the point where she sulks if i make cake for anybody except her, you know like little kids do when something is being made for a party or whatever, and they don't get any, so you have to make them some flapjacks to shut them up? like that. hi mum. love you. basically, cake is never going to go to waste in my house. and what better time to make cake than a sunday afternoon? so i banged on fear of music by talking heads and got to work on:

chocolate ginger cake

for the cake:

150g caster sugar

150g unsalted butter

3 large eggs

3 tablespoons of syrup from a jar of stem ginger

150g self raising flour

35g cocoa powder

100g stem ginger, finely chopped



for the icing:

100g crystallized ginger

100g dark chocolate, minimum 60% cocoa solids, broken into pieces


to make the cake, preheat the oven to 180 degrees c/gas mark 4. line the base of an 18-20cm round cake tin with greaseproof paper.


cream the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then add the stem ginger syrup, and lightly beat again. sift the flour and cocoa, fold them into the mixture, then fold in the finely chopped stem ginger.


pour into the cake tin and bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. remove from the oven and leave in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack, leaving the paper on. allow to cool before making the icing.


to make the icing, finely chop the ginger. melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl suspended over a saucepan of barely simmering water. add the ginger and stir well. pour the icing over the cooled cake, using a palette knife to spread it.


so; mine looked a little something like this:

(pictured on my favourite teacup set, bought for me by a very old friend, for those who care about such things). so, i know my photographs aren't the greatest, but i think you can just about see the fact it's darker and denser in the middle? for some reason, even though i aimed for really even distribution, most of the stem ginger seemed to end up in the middle of the cake. this made it sink slightly in the oven, but by the time you pile the spiky, gingery icing on top, that sort of thing doesn't really matter. i can't say i'm precious about cakes like this anyway; i don't think they're supposed to be beauty contest winners, they're more about a dense flavour hit. and this cake was certainly that. i think if i made it again i might actually be tempted by a ganache icing, the ginger then chopped and scattered on top, just because i feel it would meld more effectively with the damp headiness of the cake itself, texturally speaking, but i liked it just fine the way it was. my little brother (i say little, he is 21 and dwarfs me) was a huge fan of this cake. normally he is indifferent to my kitchen potterings but he actually took the time to tell me this was 'good', and was seen shuffling around the house, piece in hand on the regular. this, in terms of food praise, and my brother, is tantamount to a page of liberally-adjectived enthusiasm from a tough-as-nails restaurant critic. i thought it was particularly apt since he was the person who bought me this cookbook (with no parental input, a fact which still shocks me to my core this very day). i also popped some into work for kayleigh, who usually enjoys the things i bake, but as yet i am still awaiting feedback from her; although she hit on the genius idea of serving it with cream. i think i'd be more inclined to go with creme fraiche myself, but given how dark and strong it is, i certainly think some kind of dairy would be a welcome addition.