Rosie Makes: Sticky Triple Ginger Cake

If, like me, you’re still craving the comfort and spice of festive flavour then this is a great bake to transition into the new year. I had the joy of testing this recipe for Jess Elliott Dennison’s brilliant ‘Lazy Baking’: when I saw it on the list of options to try, I picked it out straight away! It’s so much more than a traditional ginger cake: this sticky triple ginger cake has the warmth of ground ginger but also stem and fresh ginger, alongside cloves, cinnamon and garam masala – it really packs a punch. It’s the kind of cake that gets even better with every passing day, somehow more complex and moist as time goes by. You can see I even made the cake back with my old table set up, but I’ve made it time and again since! To make it, you will need:

125ml vegetable oil
225g dark brown sugar
85g black treacle
150g golden syrup
1 1/2 tbsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp garam masala
20g fresh ginger
3 pieces of preserved ginger in syrup
1 egg
300g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
250ml full fat milk

Preheat the oven to 160C Fan. Grease and line a 23 cm tin. Gently heat the oil, sugar, black treacle, golden syrup and spices in a saucepan over a low heat. Stir with a wooden spoon occasionally until the sugar has dissolved completely, then remove from the heat and set aside to cool a little.

Meanwhile, finely grate the fresh ginger into the pan and add the stem ginger, then stir to combine. Crack in an egg with a little flour, then alternate adding the flour and the eggs, stirring to combine until you have a smooth mixture (always stir in the same direction to prevent lumps forming).

Add the milk a little at a time, stirring to combine. It might look too thin but trust the process! Pour the batter into the tin and bake for one hour, until firm to the touch. Allow to cool then slice and serve with custard – or as I have done here, a mascarpone cream.

Recipe via Jessica Elliott Dennison’s ‘Lazy Baking’.