Zingy Lemon Crunch Ginger Cake!

A couple of weeks ago I posted a blog about childhood memories and I mentioned the ginger cake that my Mother made out of the recipe book that came with her shiny new cooker.  This is it albeit slightly quirked with the addition of lemon crystals and copious amounts of icing sugar!  I used to love to come home from school to the smell of this in the kitchen and maybe having a sneaky slice instead of my usual cup of bovril or oxo!! Yes I know oxo is a stock cube of sorts but I used to drink it by the gallon! Iron levels were never low and neither were the salt levels!

Ingredients

• 4oz butter
• 6oz black treacle
• 2oz golden syrup
• 125ml milk
• 2 eggs lightly beaten
• 8oz plain flour
• 2oz caster sugar
• 1tsp mixed spice
• 2tsp ground ginger
• 1tsp bicarb of soda

Place butter, treacle and syrup into saucepan and heat gently. Remove from heat and add milk.
Allow mixture to cool for 5 minutes then add the beaten eggs.
Sieve dry ingredients into a bowl, add the treacle mixture and beat well together.
Pour into prepared 8 inch square tin and bake at 160 degrees for around 45 minutes until skewer come out clean.
Allow to cool for ten minutes in tin before placing on a wire rack to cool completely.

The easiest way to measure the treacle and syrup is to place saucepan on your weighing scales and set it to zero.  Measure butter, treacle and syrup straight into saucepan.  Still mystifies me how not to get drips on the side of the can though!



Now at this point my Mother would have just sliced it up and served it with steaming cups of tea made the proper way with leaves in a teapot which was hurriedly covered with a tea cosy as soon as last cup was poured at the table.  I however like to pretty things up a little bit so I decided to decorate it with some icing sugar mixed into a pouring paste with a few teaspoons of hot water and some little lemon crunch crystals courtesy of the kids ice cream decorating tin sprinkled on top.  Allow icing sugar to set completely before slicing up. Delicious! Lovely memories of childhood in a slice, or two, or three.........