Best Squidgy Lemon Ginger Cake Recipes

SQUIDGY LEMON-GINGER CAKE

Steps:

• Heat oven to 160C/fan 140C/gas 3. Butter and line a 20cm round cake tin (about 8cm deep) with baking parchment. Put dates in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Heat the butter in a small pan until melted, and stir in the sugar. Allow to cool slightly.
• Beat in the eggs, ginger and lemon zest. Drain the dates and chop them finely. Scrape them into the pan too, and mix well. Stir in the flour, then apple. Spoon into the cake tin, put the tin on a baking sheet (this stops the base browning too much) then bake for about 1¼ hrs, until well risen. A skewer stuck into the cake should come out with a few moist crumbs sticking to it. Leave it to cool in the tin.
• Break the white chocolate into a non-metallic bowl. Heat in the microwave, on medium setting, in one minute bursts until melted (or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water). Remove the cake from the tin and peel off the paper. Trickle the chocolate over the cake, scatter with the crystallised lemon peel and coffee crystals and leave to set before serving. If well wrapped, the cake keeps for at least a week - it just gets better and better. Or, wrap the cooled cake in several layers of cling film before decorating, and freeze for up to two months.

LEMON GINGER POUND CAKE

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 325°F.
• Generously butter a 4 to 5 cup nonstick bundt, kugelhopf or loaf pan, and then flour it, knocking out excess.
• Chill 10 minutes.
• Finely grind together fresh ginger and 1/4 cup sugar in a food processor (mixture will be wet).
• Whisk together flour, baking powder, ground ginger, and salt.
• Stir together milk and vanilla in a small bowl.
• Beat together butter, remaining 1/2 cup plus 2 TBS sugar, and zest in a large bowl with an electric mixer until fluffy.
• Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
• Alternately add flour and milk mixtures to butter and eggs in 4 batches, beginning with flour and mixing at low speed until each batch is just incorporated.
• Mix in ginger sugar until just combined, then lemon juice.
• Spoon batter into pan, smoothing top, and bake in middle of the oven until golden brown on top and a tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 40 minutes (about 1 hour for loaf pan).
• Carefully loosen edges with a knife and immediately invert cake onto a rack to cool completely.
• Gradually add confectioners' sugar to 1 TBS lemon juice, whisking until smooth and adding more juice, 1 drop at a time, if glaze is too thick.
• Drizzle decoratively over top of cake.
• Serve to six very lucky friends or family members!

STICKY GINGER CAKE WITH LEMON ICING

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to fan 160C/conventional 180C/gas 4. Butter and line an 18cm round, 7cm deep cake tin with greaseproof or parchment paper.
• Put the flour, bicarbonate of soda and all the spices into a large mixing bowl. Add the butter and rub it into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
• Put the sugar, treacle, syrup and milk in a medium saucepan and heat, gently stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Turn up the heat and bring the mixture to just below boiling point.
• Add the stem ginger to the flour mixture, then pour in the treacle mixture, stirring as you go with a wooden spoon. Break in the egg and beat until all the mixture is combined and it resembles a thick pancake batter. Pour this into prepared tin and bake for 50 minutes-1 hour, until a skewer pushed into the centre of the cake comes out fairly clean. Leave to cool completely in tin before turning cake out. (To freeze: wrap in greaseproof paper, then in cling film. Freeze for up to 1 month.)
• To make the icing, mix together icing sugar and lemon zest, then gradually add lemon juice until you have a smooth, slightly runny icing, adding more juice, if needed. Drizzle icing in a zig-zag pattern over surface of cake, turn cake around and drizzle again to create the cross-hatched finish.
• Cake keeps for up to 2 weeks stored in an airtight container.