Ginger and Orange cake

As I was getting the ingredients out of the cupboard ready to start baking, I realised that the wholemeal flour that I have is milled at Lode Mill which is at Anglesey Abbey a National Trust property in Cambridge near my parents. So this is very much a National Trust cake. 

I my option any cake recipe that starts melt the butter, brown sugar and treacle in a saucepan is a winner. This has to be one of the easiest cakes I have made, it took no time at all and the batter was ready for the oven 

I spent the hour it took to bake potting seeds with Nathan in the beautiful spring sunshine. The smells coming out of my kitchen were amazing, really deep and treacly. 

I had to create my own buttercream recipe as I wanted to add the orange to it, I added the zest of one orange and the juiced half of it and added it to the buttercream a small bit at a time to make sure it was not too runny. The piping is always fun for me as it do enjoy it. 

Here is the recipe for you if you want to try it, the main cake recipe came from The National Trust's Complete Traditional Recipe Book by Sarah Eddington. I did make an adjustment as I removed the mixed fruit from the recipe.

110g butter

110g brown sugar

125ml black treacle

1 egg, beaten 

150ml warm milk

110g plain flour

110g wholemeal flour

2 teaspoons ginger

2 teaspoons cinnamon 

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

50g dried fruit (I did not include these) 

Melt the butter, sugar and treacle in a saucepan, cool and add egg and warm milk. 

Sift flours, spices and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl, make a well in the middle and pour in the treacle mixture (add the dried fruit here if you are using it) beat very throughly and pour into a greased 8 inch (20 cm) cake tin. Place in oven preheated to 150C (300F or gas mark 2) and bake for about an hour. Cool in tin for a few minuets then transfer to cooling rack. 

I baked mine for 55 minuets and that was just right in my fan oven. 

For the buttercream 

80g butter

300g icing sugar

zest of 1 orange 

1 tablespoon of orange juice. 

Cream butter and icing sugar until they are starting to come together, add zest and then add the juice a small bit at a time until the buttercream comes together. Place in piping bag, cut cake in half and pipe half the buttercream onto the bottom section and place the top half on top and pipe the rest of the buttercream on top.  

Having now tasted it, it is a lovely moist cake a little bit on yhe heavy side but the buttercreambreaks it up. The over riding flavour is treacle so if I was to bake it again I think I would use less treacle and maybe a bit mire ginger. 

There are lots of other National Trust recipes here

I have to start looking at what I will do next as I fight off certain people to make sure I get more than one piece of cake!