MATTY'S TRAYBAKE TALES PART 3: GORGEOUS GINGER CAKE

A year ago I made a beautiful cake which I christened  my "Jamaican Me Crazy" cake. It went down a storm with my friends and family so when it came to thinking of my third tray bake tale it made sense to transform it into my next terrific all in one treat. Made with dark black treacle and muscovado sugar, this cake has a delightfully sticky sponge which is flavored with the warmth of all spice, mixed spice and little nuggets of finely chopped stem ginger, not just in the cake but scattered over the ginger syrup icing as well. It really is a simple but gorgeous bake.

Once again, as with my previous tray bake recipes, I advise that you don't change the quantities of anything in this recipe unless you want to scale up or down your bake. Basically if you're not a fan of the flavors of ginger, all spice and mixed spice then this probably isn't the cake for you. You may want to chill the ginger flavors out a bit by not adding the ginger syrup to your icing and just use cold water instead but in my eyes if you're going to have a ginger cake then you might as well go all out! Stem ginger is easier to find in supermarkets nowadays. It can be pricey but it is delicious and really worth it. If you can't find it, a smidge of ground ginger should do the trick, around a tsp or two.

Also like my other tray bakes, if you exclude the cooling times you can have this tray bake ready in under an hour as all you really need to do is just bung everything apart from the ingredients for the icing in a bowl and beat before transferring to a lined baking tray. Great if you don't want to spend all day baking but still have a need for some delicious homemade cake in your life. All you need is a knife to chop up the stem ginger, a wooden spoon, a couple of big bowls, baking paper and a baking tray and you're ready to go. No mad baking equipment needed here, only the basics required!

Ginger Tray Bake

225g Softened Butter

175g Dark Muscovado Sugar

200g Black Treacle

300 Self Raising Flour

2 Tsp Baking Powder

1 Tsp Mixed Spice

1 Tsp All Spice

4 Whole Eggs

4 Tbsp Milk

6 Pieces Stem Ginger, Finely Chopped

6 Tsp Stem Ginger Syrup

150g Icing Sugar

1. Begin by placing your oven on to 180 degrees (160 fan) and grease and line a large deep sided baking tray roughly 25cm squared with baking paper.
2. Add the butter, sugar, treacle, flour, baking powder, mixed spice, all spice, eggs, milk and half of the chopped stem ginger and beat until a smooth, well combined batter has formed.
3. Pour the batter into the baking tray and level the top with a spatula before placing in the oven to bake for 40-45 minutes until firm on top and an inserted skewer comes out clean.
4. Mix together the ginger syrup and icing sugar until a spreadable icing forms (you may not need all the syrup, add it in batches and see how you get on). When the cake is cool, turn the cake out onto a wire rack and spread the icing over the cake. Sprinkle over the remaining chopped stem ginger to finish.

Cut the tray bake up into roughly 25 equal sized squares and tuck in. You should have a fantastic smell in your kitchen now thanks to the tantalizing aroma of the baked ginger, all spice and mixed spice. It makes resisting shoving the whole cake in your mouth straight away very hard. Who can blame you though; that amazing ginger flavor in not just the cake but in the icing and with those little golden nuggets of stem ginger scattered on top is so irresistible and gets even better after a day or two. The cake will be so soft and moist that there really is only one word you could use to describe it; Gorgeous!

Not a Ginger fan? Why not try these tray bakes instead;

Strawberry Sponge

Lully Lemon Sponge
Triple Chocolate 
Apple And Cinnamon Mash Up
Coffee And Walnut