I don’t do much cake baking, I think it’s because it’s less forgiving if you make a little ‘change’ to the recipe by putting too much or little of something in. However this is one cake recipe I do make, it’s sticky, gingery and orangey at the same time which is good in my book.
Makes 12
Ingredients
For the cup cakes
- 125g unsalted butter
- 175g dark muscovado sugar
- 150g golden syrup
- 275g self-raising flour
- 1 1/2tsp ground ginger
- Zest of 1 clementine, finely grated
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 2 eggs
- 100ml butter milk
- 2 balls of stem ginger in syrup, chopped
For the icing
- 150g Cream Cheese
- 75g icing sugar
- Zest of 1 clementine, finely grated
- Juice of 1 clementine
- Slivers of clementine zest and stem ginger, to decorate
Method
- Preheat the oven to 170C\ 150C fan\Gas 3
- Line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases
- Melt butter, muscovado sugar and golden syrup in a pan over a low heat and set aside to cool slightly
- Sift flour into a bowl with the ground ginger and bicarbonate of soda then add the salt and clementine zest.
- Add the metled butter, sugar and syrup mixture, eggs, buttermilk and stem ginger to the flour and mix thoroughly.
- Pour into the cases, the mix will reach quite high up the sides.
- Bake for around 25 minutes until golden and springy, Don’t worry if they haven’t risen particularly well as the are meant to be a dense and sticky sponge.
- Allow to cool in the tin,this makes the sponge even more squidgy.
- Beat the cream cheese in a bowl until smooth
- sift the icing sugar over and gradually beat in
- Add the clementine juice and zest and mix until fully incorporated
- Smooth a generous amount over each cupcake and top with the slivers of stem ginger and clementine zest for decoration.
Eat and enjoy….
If you like your ginger sponge to have a stronger, richer flavour, wrap the tin of un-iced cakes tightly in foil or cling-film and leave for a day or two. The sponge will get darker and the flavour more intense. Ice, decorate and enjoy even more gingery sticky goodness…
