FROSTED GINGER CAKE FOR A FREEZING DAY

                                                 Please remember to feed the birds, thank you.x

  

Good grief ,it was cold last night, enough to freeze the crenelations off a castle turret!Even the cat felt the chill and climbed in to bed with me. There was frost on the window panes too. Pa and I had breakfast this morning while refereeing our two cats both of whom had decided that they wanted to sit in the same place...neither would give ground and so a compromise was found....I took Twiggy upstairs with me and left Moth in Pa's company,it worked...and Pa did the dishes too!

We all felt that we needed a little sparkle today so I made an iced ginger cake,the recipe follows,have fun.

FROSTED GINGER CAKE

175g /6oz unsalted butter,softened and with a little extra for greasing

175g/6oz caster sugar

3 large eggs beaten

1 tablespoon of black treacle

2tablespoons of golden syrup

225g/8oz self raising flour

1 teaspoon of ground ginger

1 teaspoon of mixed spice

1 tablespoon of ground almonds

2 tablespoons of whole milk

2 tablespoons of ginger syrup

FOR THE TOPPING

225/8oz icing sugar

1teaspoon of ginger syrup (from a jar of preserved stem ginger)

Preheat the oven to 160o/325o F ?Gas mark 3

Grease and line a a 9” cake tin.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until pale and fluffy,Put the eggs and treacle in to a jug with the ginger syrup and mix together Sift the flour and spices on to a plate .Alternately, add a little of the egg and them a spoon full of the flour mixture until you have used up both.

Add the ground almonds and milk and stir together until you have a smooth mixture.

Spoon the cake mixture in to the prepared tin,smooth the top with a palette knife and bake in a preheated oven for 45-50 minutes until well risen and firm to the touch. Leave to cool in the tray for 10 minutes then turn out on to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

To make the icing. Put the icing sugar in to a large bowl. Beat in the ginger syrup and add just enough cold water to make a thick icing-be careful not to add too much water to quickly. Place the cake on a flat plate then spread the icing over the top letting it run down the sides. Decorate with edible silver balls.

This is the recipe as it appears in the book, I actually put extra ginger syrup in the icing and less water,it makes the icing more gooey.