Gingerbread with Lemon Icing

You just have to have gingerbread at this time of year, don't you? Now I'm talking about gingerbread cake here rather than gingerbread biscuits.

The cake is very easy to make, although I will admit that it does leave a few more dirty dishes than my usual cakes (ie one bowl and a cake tin), for this one you will also need a good heavy pot, you can do it with a lighter one too, but you will have to stand over it and stir constantly to avoid it catching on the bottom.

For this cake you will need;

150g butter
125g dark brown sugar
200g golden syrup
200g treacle (don't worry if these two aren't exact, its near impossible to weigh while pouring it from the tin)
1tsp grated fresh ginger
1tsp ground ginger (dried)
2tsp ground cinnamon
250ml milk
2 eggs, beaten
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
300g plain flour

Preheat your oven to 170C (150C for fan assisted).

Sieve the plain flour and bicarb into a large bowl;


Put the butter, sugar, syrup, treacle and spices into your heaviest pot and melt over a low/medium heat, stirring to make sure the sugars don't catch on the bottom of the pot, if they do catch dump it and start again because the finished cake will just taste burnt even from the smallest catch.



Once melted, remove from the heat for a minute or two. It should look thick and glossy, like melted chocolate;



Add the milk to the sugar mixture first to cool it and then add the beaten eggs, while stirring.




Then just pour this mixture into the bowl along with the flour and bicarb and mix well to combine. Pour the mixture into a well greased (and lined if you prefer) large cake tin. The one pictured below is a 12 inch tin.



Put the cake immediately into the preheated oven and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Test the cake after 45 minutes. It will be ready when moist crumbs stick to the skewer when testing. It is a very moist cake. Invert the cake out onto a wire rack to cool.



I always use wooden skewers, so you may have less sticking to a metal skewer but the crumbs should look something like this.



Once the cake has completely cooled, mix up a quick batch of lemon icing using;

200g icing sugar
1-2tbls lemon juice

make an incredibly light and free flowing icing sugar which accepts a little more liquid than other brands like McKinney's or Tate & Lyle which are a often a lot more compacted (and in my mind already contain a little moisture because they're packed in paper rather than plastic). Start off by adding just 1 tablespoon, you want the icing quite thick but still spreadable, add as much as another tablespoon of lemon juice if needed. I find it depends on the brand, SilverspoonSilverspoon is always my very first choice when it comes to baking for all sugars.

Spread the lemon icing across the top of the cake and (if you can contain yourself) although to set somewhat before serving.



**Update - Since baking this cake I have baked it again, except this time I divided the batter into two 1 pound loaf tins and baked them for 35-40 minutes. I didn't ice the cakes and instead served them thickly sliced and spread with good butter. I really enjoyed the gingerbread loaves as did the rest of the family and I'll be making them this way a lot more often, perhaps with a little less milk and a little bit of grated raw apples added to the batter. I'll let you know how that one works out.

Strawberry Pavlova

Because when you think about it you can always whip this up, pull the curtains, turn on the travel channel and pretend the sun is shining.

Pavlova is pretty easy to make. If you've tried before without success though chances are you need to up the amount of sugar in the recipe and always remember to leave the pavlova in the oven to cool, yes it takes ages, but it just isn't the same otherwise.

Start off by preheating your oven to 180C and lining a baking sheet with either parchment paper or a sheet of silpat, whichever you have handy. Foil, greaseproof paper or just greasing the tray don't work very well for pavlova. I use a large round pizza sheet for mine, but nobody ever said pavlova had to be round so if all you have is a regular square or rectangular sheet, go with that.

Next gather your ingredients together. You will need;

4 large egg whites
250g caster sugar (you can use unrefined caster which adds a slight caramel taste)
2 tsp cornflour
1 tsp white vinegar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
a carton of double or whipping cream (I know that's a bit obscure but whatever happens to be available in roughly a half pint carton will do the trick)
fruit to top (in this case strawberry)

Now, I haven't taken photos of every step because it would just look like a load of photos of a bowl of white fluff...

Start off with just the egg white in a clean bowl. It really needs to be clean and free of any oil, to be sure pour a little lemon juice or white vinegar onto a clean cloth or paper towel and wipe the inside of the bowl.

Beat the egg white on high speed until they are stiff, you can test them by tipping the bowl upside down over your head if you like.

Next, with the egg whites still beating, add the sugar about a quarter at a time.

This is where it's handy to have a big mixer. Walk away. Yep, that's right walk away and leave it beating. Its quite easy to assume that once the sugar is incorporated into the egg white that it's finished, but you need to leave it beating until you can take a pinch of the mixture between your fingers, rub it and not feel any sugar. Trust me if you try to stand there and watch the machine, you'll get bored, impatient and end up moving on too quickly.

Once all the sugar has dissolved into the egg whites, add the cornflour, vinegar and vanilla and beat it again for another minute.

Once you've done all that, the mixture will look soft and shiny.




Next take your lined tray and pile the pavlova mixture into the centre then spread it out into a rough circle. You don't have to be particularly delicate with pavlova in the way that you do with a souffle, just make sure to leave a couple of inches around the outside of the pavlova because these things can grow a fair bit in the oven.

Place the pavlova in the preheated oven and as soon as you close the door, turn the temperature down to 150C. Bake the pavlova at 150c for 1 hour 15 minutes. Once the pavlova is baked, turn the oven on, leave the door closed and walk away.




See what I mean about growing. After a couple of hours the pavlova should be cool (or very nearly at least) and you can remove it from the oven.




To serve invert the pavlova onto a plate. This way you have the light crispy shell on the bottom and outside edges, a bit like a pie shell, but the soft, chewy, mallow bit is in the middle. You can see from the photo below that once you have inverted the pavlova there is usually a crater in what is now the top.




Which is perfect for filling with whipped cream and strawberries.




I usually don't bother to sweeten the cream, but you can do so easily enough by adding a teaspoon or two of icing sugar when you're whipping the cream.



A couple of good variations for pavlova are;

Mashed bananas beaten into the whipped cream, pile it in the centre and top with chopped nuts and finally drizzle with melted dark chocolate. The good thing about this one is that it will cost you about the same amount of money to make all year round whereas a punnet of (crap, spongy, tasteless) strawberries in winter can set you back as much as £10.

You can also replace the caster sugar with golden caster and add 2 tbls of treacle to the pavlova mixture before baking. Once cooled, top the pavlova with hot chopped apples sauteed in a little butter, brown sugar and cinnamon before drizzling with cold cream for another gorgeous winter dessert that tastes a little bit like the toffee apples your granny used to make, but you haven't quite managed the knack of yet.