Honey & Ginger

It's my beautiful and wonderful best friend's birthday on Sunday; amazingly the weather will be great and she has decided that it will be diaquiri's and a picnic in the park - that's why we're BF's!

I asked her what did she want me to bring along and she asked me to make 'your strawberry cake'...I grinned, knowing that she would make such a request.


But it reminded me that I wanted to share a great recipe that I recently 'invented'...I didn't do the hours of testing; I simply wanted to bake and opened the cupboards thinking what could I use out?

My thoughts ran to Parkin but fancied doing something else; so I picked up the ground ginger (a key ingredient in Parkin) and as I moved things around, randomly thinking that I really should tidy things up in here [the cupboard] my hand fell on to some honey that Hubby and I had bought to drizzle over something!


And from that was born my Honey & Ginger cake:


For a 8" round cake tin - non stick is best, buttered and slightly floured

• Cream 10oz of 'cake butter' (e.g. stork) and 10oz sugar until the butter is a lot lighter
• Add one at a time 4 large (room temp) eggs - beating in each one well
• Add in two batches 10oz of cake flour until just combined - do not over mix
• Add 11/2 teaspoons of ground ginger and mix - again do not over mix
• Put half the mixture in the tin
• 8-10 teaspoons of honey randomly placed on the batter
• Put remaining batter on top, smooth/swirl on top
• Bake at about 180 degrees for about 40mins - but cook according to your oven!
  
• You'll have some batter left over - so make some cupcakes!

As you cut into the cake, you'll find that the honey has melted and almost caramalised - its tastes divine - even if I do say so myself! Haven't done it as yet but experiment with different flavour honey's but bear in mind that it needs to complement the spicy-ness of ginger.

Enjoy!

(By the way - 'your strawberry cake' is a vanilla sponge, filled with a cream cheese icing and fresh strawberries or for a less sweet version, a mascapone & fresh strawberries filling).

(image: Microsoft Clipart)