Cake. Cake, cake, cake, cake, cake. I've had an unseemly craving for cake for a while, but for inexplicable reasons have resisted it. Then I had an epiphany. I like cake. I'm good at cake. I should make cake.
Iona and I have poured over baking books from the library but neither of us could narrow the options down to just one. Thus far, she has 5 separate flavours on her list for her upcoming birthday, and yes, she believes that all 5 at once would be ideal.
As for me, I finally just opened one of my books at random and bought the necessary ingredients for whichever cake I landed on. Tropical Ginger Cake, from 200 Cakes and Bakes by Sara Lewis (200!). The flavour's good, but it's a little dry, and probably more suited to autumn than it is to a muggy summer's afternoon. But still. Cake.
Here's the recipe. If you don't have golden syrup, you could try maple, or even honey. And I used crushed pineapple, for those who have access to that too, and low GI sugar in place of the muscovado. I know, I know, it's like having diet Coke with a Big Mac. Which I also do. Next time, I think I'd lessen the ginger and maybe soak the coconut in a bit of coconut milk, and I've changed the general method slightly because their way was too fussy. I've also included more lime juice, because I could. Look at me, I'm cake connoisseur.
Tropical Ginger Cake
150 g (5oz) butter
125g (4oz) muscovado sugar
3 tablespoons golden syrup
250g (8oz) self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
50g (2oz) desiccated coconut
3 eggs, beaten
200g (7oz) can pineapple rings, drained and chopped
For the Icing
100g (3.5oz) softened butter
200g (7oz) sifted icing sugar
1 tablespoon lime juice
Preheat oven to 180C (350F), and line the bottom of a 23cm round tin with baking paper. (I’m guessing. I haven’t a clue how wide the diameter of my cake tin is. It’s something along those lines). Melt butter, sugar and syrup gently in a saucepan, put aside to cool slightly. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, then add beaten eggs and pineapple to the sugar mix. Gently fold into the dry ingredients and pour into cake tin. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, until skewer inserted into centre comes out clean.
For icing, beat all three ingredients together, and ice cake when cool.
