Winter cake
“Lay out your fine china, cover up the piano legs and invite the vicar over for a genteel afternoon tea of these jaunty English cakes and biscuits.”
- 500g plain flour
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 250g brown sugar
- 4 tbsp mixed peel
- 250g butter, chopped
- 300ml milk
- 4 eggs
- 500g treacle
- blanched almonds (optional)
Lady Jekyll suggests putting whole almonds on top of the cake but I had none. Instead, I reconstituted some dried pears in a mix of orange juice and white wine with a small amount of candied ginger and served a spoonful of this compote with a generous dollop of cream.
Method
Preheat oven to 160C.
Butter a 22cm x 7cm deep square tin and line the base
with paper.
Sieve all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Stir in the mixed
peel and mix through the dry ingredients.
Place the butter in a saucepan with
the milk and warm just until the butter has dissolved.
Whisk the eggs just
until well-combined.
Warm the treacle in the microwave for a minute or stand
the jug of treacle in a pot of boiling water. Stir warmed treacle into eggs and
whisk well together.
Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the
egg-treacle mixture.
Pour into the tin, arrange almonds on top if using, and
bake for 1 1/2 hours to 1¾ hours or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the
cake comes out clean.
Cool completely. Cut into squares and dust with icing
sugar.
