If you’re ever looking for a pick me up I find reaching for some ginger has the desired effect.  Home made hot lemon and with a spoon of ginger paste is my standard way to regain my brain after a few coaching calls back to back.  It has a reinvigorating effect that a cup of tea or cup of coffee which tends to dull my brain rather than wake it up.  So when the temperatures started plummeting here it was of course a ginger cake recipe that I looked for.

Ginger has been a common theme for my baking.  I’ve baked ginger muffins, ginger cookies, ginger cake and best of all ginger biscuits so I thought it was only right to try and new ginger baking variation in the form of a ginger loaf.

After living for years in fear of baking a decent cake I’m starting to wonder what all the fuss in my head was about.  It’s true that I still haven’t mastered a decent Victoria Sandwich Cake but I’m not letting that get in my way of rustling up a cake with confidence without too much fuss and nonsense.  I have come to realise though that food blogging cake making can be a pretty dull after a while as the ingredients and techniques are pretty similar so I’m going to have to make much more of an effort to bring the baking experience alive.  That would of course require me to plan ahead rather than be dashing for the camera as the baking process is already under way. Just in the nick of time before the butter and sugar were mixed into a luscious creamy mix.

The thing I love about baking with ginger is there is invariably a dose of treacle or molasses which will almost always guarantee much cursing and muttering as the darn stuff gets stuck to everything and refuses to stop trickling from the jar or spoon.  But it’s worth doing battle with it to get that sticky goo of ginger cake mixes.

The loaf is also a wondrous mix of goodies – ginger (dried and crystallised) sultanas and mixed peel.  Plenty of earthy goodness to enjoy and it gives the cake a nice rich texture.

There is no doubt that you can’t beat a ginger cake for a winter’s afternoon.  Served of course with a steaming hot mug of tea for that final warming effect.

I don’t think you need to wait for winter to make this cake.  In fact I recommend eating ginger cake as often as you can.  For me it brings back some of the happiest memories with my mum as we went shopping on a Saturday morning to get the bread and my treat was always a square of ginger cake with lashings of icing on top. Comfort food at it’s best.

Gingerbread loaf

By Tui Flower from the New Zealand Treasury of Baking

125g butter

3/4 cup soft brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten

3/4 cup treacle

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 3/4 tsp ground ginger

1/4 cup each of crystallised ginger, sultanas and chopped candied peel

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 tblsp milk

1) Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Line base of 19×7 cm loaf tin with baking paper.

2) Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.  Add beaten eggs and treacle, mix well.

3) Sift flour, baking powder and ginger together and mix into creamed mixture.  Stir in the ginger and fruits.

4) Dissolve the baking powder in milk and then add to mixture and stir well.  Pour mix into loaf tin.

5) Bake for 1-1.25 hours.  Test the cake with a skewer – it should come out clean when fully baked.

6) Cool the cake in the loaf tin for 10-15 minutes before finishing the cooling on a wire rack.

Eat on it’s own or with lashes of butter.