Skip to main content

Ginger and Treacle Spiced Traybake for the Weekly Bake Off


This week's challenge for the Weekly Bake Off, set by the lovely Amy, was the Ginger and Treacle Spiced Traybake. The Bake Off is Amy's idea to bake her way through the recipes contained in Mary Berry's 100 Cakes and Bakes. This is a fantastically handy little book, featuring many of the recipes drawn from her other books, such as the Ultimate Cake Book, or Baking Bible, which is also amazing value at under £4, so that's 4p per recipe!


I was really happy with this challenge, as I love ginger. This recipe uses stem ginger in syrup, and ingredient that I had not actually used before, but which was very easy to handle. Doses of allspice and mixed spice help to give a lovely warmth to the cake. The cake mix is  easy to put together, as it's a question of simply measuring out the ingredients into a bowl and then beating it so that it comes together into a smooth mix. I was a bit disappointed though, as I had a total senior moment and misread the oven temperature required, and so set mine at 180 degrees, when for a fan oven, I should have used 160 degrees. Consequently, my cake was a little overdone, particularly around the edges (see below). 


Once the cake had cooled though, I trimmed off the very outer edges, and revealed quite a moist sponge interior, with a lovely flavouring from the spices and ginger. The cake is topped off with an icing glaze, made using syrup from the jar of stem ginger and icing sugar, and then with a sprinkling of chopped stem ginger over the top. I really liked this, as I felt the sweetness of the glaze, with its ginger tang, balanced out the treacly spiciness of the cake. Just right with a cup of tea on a dark, rainy Sunday. 


Ingredients

225g softened unsalted butter
175g light muscovado sugar
200g black treacle
300g self-raising flour
2 level tbspns baking powder
1 level tspn mixed spice
1 level tspn allspice
4 large eggs
4 tbspns milk
3 bulbs of stem ginger from a jar, finely chopped.

For the icing
75g icing sugar
3 tbspn syrup from the jar of stem ginger

3 bulbs of stem ginger, finely chopped, to decorate

Preheat the oven to 160 fan / 180 conventional / Gas 4. Grease and base line a 30 x 23 cm (12 x 9 inch) traybake. Measure all the cake ingredients into a bowl and beat until mixed through. Pour into the prepared pan and level. Bake for 35-40 minutes until springy to the touch. Leave to cool slightly before turning out onto a wire rack. Leave to cool completely.

Mix the icing ingredients to form a smooth paste. Spread over the top of the cake, and then sprinkle the chopped ginger over the top. Allow to set and then slice into pieces.

The recipe for this is also featured on the BBC website here. 

Enjoy,

Susie
Labels:

Comments

  1. Baking Addict30 April, 2012 20:35

    Lovely looking cake! I'm not a fan of ginger and made this previously so opted out this week.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Susie @ Fold in the Flour01 May, 2012 12:10

      Thanks! I don't mind ginger, but the boys are hoping this week for something they can eat - luckily it's chocolate ripple cheesecake this week! :)

      Delete
  2. Terra19 December, 2012 14:44

    This traybake looks so delicious! I need to find treacle here in Charlotte, NC....that is my mission:-) I love all the flavors, the cake looks wonderful! Take care, Terra

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Susie @ Fold in the Flour19 December, 2012 20:10

      Hi Terra - thanks for stopping by!

      Glad you like the recipe - you could try using molasses as it's similar to treacle but is a bit 'lighter' in taste. Some of my US baking books suggest treacle as an alternative to molasses for us UK bakers. Hope you find something you can use.

      Best wishes, Susie :)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Your comments are very much appreciated.

Popular posts from this blog

Dark Indulgent Chocolate and Walnut Brownies for the Weekly Bake Off

It's been a great couple of weeks in the Bake Off , as Amy has chosen some fantastic chocolate recipes from Mary Berry's 100 Cakes and Bakes . Although I made last week's American Chocolate Ripple Cheesecake, I didn't enter it. Not because it was a disaster (it was incredibly delicious though very rich - Josh has been able to eek it out all week as he only needs a little piece to get his daily chocolate fix!), but I simply ran out of time. So this week, I decided to get my skates on and make the bake early. Particularly as it's brownies. Yes. Brownies. Those dark, fudgey, chocolatey little bites of heaven. But for me, this week was an experiment. You see, I already have a fantastic brownie recipe . It's been made countless times and been played around with to give an endless variety of treats. (Have I ever mentioned Maya Gold in brownies? Yes? Well I'll have to post about them someday soon because they are amazing - like some sort of out of body exp
18 comments
Read more

Limoncello Cake

I really love this cake. I mean really love it. So much so, it's my new best friend. It's like sunshine on a plate. The citrussy aroma tempts you while the sultry lemony pucker hits you full in the mouth. And who can resist anything with 'Limoncello' in the title? The mere mention of the word transports you to to the Sicilian sun. It's one more reason I have to thank Random Recipes for getting me to delve into my cookbooks. This month's challenge had a bit of a twist. Dom, of Belleau Kitchen (who runs the challenge) created a Randometer thingummy-bob to test us. You had to enter how many cookbooks you owned, and then it would generate a random number. You counted along your shelf to that book, and then entered the number of pages, to generate another number and so find your Random Recipe. The gods must have been looking favourably on me this month, as I ended up with this gorgeous lemon cake, from Peggy Porschen's 'Boutique Baking
31 comments
Read more

Pistachio and Lemon Cake (with a helping of news on the side)

Gosh, where has the time gone? So how've you been? Good I hope. Great stuff. And Me? Not so much. But getting there. I've been away a while, I know. Lots of things happening. Some not, but hey, that's life. Since we last spoke, I've left my job of 19 years (health reasons), and that seems scary. Mike's job was victim to a reorganisation, so that gave him the opportunity to take redundancy. That seems scary, too. As they say, timing is everything. So in a burst of mid-life shenanigans, we've decided to start our own business. A coffee shop. With a bakery - cakery attached. O. M. G. That seems very freakin' scary! But exciting, too. Hopefully soon, we'll be taking on the lease of a small shop near us. Fitting it out, and then opening our doors to entice hungry shoppers with the delicious smell of good coffee and freshly baked cakes. It's going to be a lot of hard work. I can't wait. But I have to. The legalities, yo
31 comments
Read more