Sticky Ginger Bonfire Night Loaf
I wanted to make something sticky and sweet to have on bonfire night and I also wanted to make a cake for my gorgeous friend Maxine; so I ended up combining the two to create this ‘Maxine’s Bonfire Night Loaf Cake’. She loves all things meringue so it’s a sticky and sweet ginger loaf cake topped with an Italian meringue that’s blowtorched to look like little flames. I got the blowtorch as a birthday gift (I asked for it so it wasn’t the totally random present that it sounds like) and I’d been thinking for a while that I wanted to make something that I could use it on so this recipe ticked all the boxes.
The recipe is a really easy one - melt, sift and mix and you’re done. You start off by greasing and lining a loaf tin with butter and baking parchment and pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees.
Melt the butter, sugar and treacle in a saucepan until the sugar has dissolved and you have a deliciously dark shining liquid. Take it off the heat and then stir in the milk and leave to cool for a little while. I am really impatient so I pour the melted mixture from the pan to a jug and back again until it’s cool enough to mix in the eggs - it needs to be cool so you don’t end up with scrambled eggs! Meanwhile sift all of the dry ingredients together in a large bowel and make a well in the middle.
Pour all your lovely gooey mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well to make a glossy chocolate coloured goo. This can then go into you prepared loaf tin and into the centre of the oven for 50 minutes (until a toothpick should come out clean). Make sure you don’t get tempted to open the oven to check on it - it’ll end up collapsing in the middle.
When you take it out of the oven let it cool for a while in the tin and then turn it out to cool fully on a rack. When the cake is fully cooled you can either cut off a big slice to have with a cup of tea or move on to the bonfire topping. I follow this BBC food recipe to make the meringue which as long as you have an electric whisk and a sugar thermometer, is much easier thank it sounds.
INGREDIENTS
170g black treacle
170g light muscovado sugar
170g unsalted butter plus extra for greasing
200ml whole milk
2 large eggs, gently beaten
250g plain flour
1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp mixed spice
This recipe makes one loaf that will feed 8-10 which stores nicely in an airtight tin for a few days. Hope you enjoy this sticky and sweet spicy ginger loaf.