lime and ginger cake

Simple, delicious and very moist - this cake is a lovely treat to put together whenever you've got a little spare time and a sweet craving. It's inspired by the classic 'one-pot yogurt cake' and ciambella recipesand utilises the flavours I had in my kitchen.  There are endless variations for this recipe, it would make a great base cake for a citrus drizzle, or you could top it with a coconut frosting, a simple lemon and cream cheese topping or do as I did and add a layer of homemade lime curd.

Ingredients
1 cup milk soured with the juice of two limes
finely grated zest of two limes
1 cup vegetable oil (any other flavourless oil would work here too)
2 cups caster sugar
3 cups self-raising flour
OR
3 cups plain/all-purpose flour and 3 1/2 tsps baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup finely chopped, crystalised ginger
3 eggs

1. Preheat your oven to 180C and grease and line your cake tin.
2. Put all of the ingredients apart from the ginger into a large bowl and beat together with an electric or hand whisk until everything is smooth and thoroughly combined. 
3. Stir through the crystalised ginger then pour the whole mixture into your prepared cake tin.
4. Place in the oven and bake for around 1 hour or until it is golden brown on top and a skwere comes out clean when inserted. This may take up to 90 mins depending on your oven and tin size.
5. Leave to cool before topping or eat it just as it is.  

spicy quadruple ginger cupcakes with ginger cream cheese icing

This recipe is sticky, sweet and spicy and just what I like in a ginger cake. It is adapted from 'How to Cook Perfect Ginger Cake'. The ginger cream cheese is my own addition and I find it adds another spicy, creamy layer of flavour but you could experiment with citrus flavours instead, I have a suspicion that a banana flavoured frosting would be awesome too.

Cake Ingredients
100g butter
100g dark muscovado sugar

Pinch of salt
175g self-raising flour
4 tsp ground ginger
175g golden syrup or agave
1 tbsp ginger wine
2 free-range eggs, beaten
Walnut-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
150g candied/crystalised ginger, finely chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 160C and grease and place the paper cases in the cupcake/muffin tin. Cream together the butter and sugar with a pinch of salt until fluffy and the colour of milky coffee.
2. Pour in the syrup and ginger wine and mix to combine.
3. Beat in the eggs then gradually sift in the flour and ground ginger. Finally, stir in the fresh and candied ginger then spoon into the prepared paper cases.
4. Bake for about 25 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
5. Allow to cool in the tin before frosting.
6. They may sink back down a little on cooling but don't worry about this. They'll still be delicious.
7. Decorate with the ginger cream cheese and some crystalised or stem ginger slivers.

 

The frosting

200g cream cheese

100g butter

600g icing sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 tbsp ginger wine (use milk or ginger cordial if you don't want the alcohol or miss it out completely and have a thicker icing)

1. Make sure the cheese and butter are at room temperature then beat together for a couple of minutes using and electric whisk. You want the mixture to be light and fluffy.
2. Little by little sift in the icing sugar and ground ginger beating carefully after each addition. Take care with this stage to not go too fast otherwise your kitchen will be covered in clouds of icing sugar.
3. Finally beat in the ginger wine, you may not need all of it but adjust until you have your desired consistency. 
4. This made more than enough icing for a batch of the ginger cupcakes with plenty left over for another project.

I've entered this recipe into A Kick at the Pantry Door's 'Feel Good Food Challenge'. Why not take a look at all the other great recipes featured.