Little Ginger Honey Loaf Cakes

Baking seems, for me at least, to be a rather emotionally driven hobby, or rather what I bake is completely dictated by what I fancy. I kept thinking about ginger cake all weekend, so when I finally had some time, I thought I'd go ahead and make some sort of sticky treacly spicy loaf.....with lemon too. I was really afraid that they'd end up tasting like Lemsip in cake form though (luckily they taste nothing like that foul brand of cold medicine) 

I decided smaller loaf tins were far more convenient, and I hate it when cakes take an hour or longer to bake, and inevitably the top of the cake begins to brown too much, whilst the middle still being completely liquid. Plus I bought these little cake tins in Ireland and I've been meaning to make use of them since I bought them....does anyone else have that problem that you buy something rather kitsch and wacky (like a snail shaped jelly mould or watermelon essence or a tagine pot) and you never get round to using it? You had dreams that you would and then....nothing, and it sits there gathering dust on the kitchen shelf. Anyway that was a rant and half.

So, these cakes. They are simply beautiful. Fresh, light and moist, but still spicy and with that wonderful molasses flavour from the treacle. They're studded with pieces of glace ginger and I swear, these cakes make you feel warmer on a cold winters afternoon. Perfect with a cup of tea....

Little Ginger Honey Loaf Cakes

Makes 10 very small loaf cakes (I used 8cm by 5cm sized). You can make larger ones, but they will take longer. 

Ingredients:

125g/5oz self raising flour
65g/2oz butter, cubed
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
50g/2oz treacle
50g/2oz golden syrup
2 balls of stem ginger in syrup
1 tbsp ginger syrup from the jar
1 large egg
120ml full fat milk 
Zest of a lemon
Quick grinding of black pepper

For the ginger honey syrup:

6 tbsp ginger syrup from the jar
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp runny honey

For the icing: 

3 tbsp icing sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice 

To finish:

Small handful of crystallized ginger, roughly chopped 

Method:

1. Set the oven to 180C/170C Fan/Gas Mark 3. Prepare the loaf tins by brushing with melted butter and sprinkling in some flour and tapping out the excess. 

To make the cakes, sieve the flour with the ginger, cinnamon, mixed spice, ground cloves and bicarbonate of soda. Put the golden syrup, treacle and ginger syrup and butter in a small saucepan and warm over a low heat. Dice the ginger finely and add to the pan with the brown sugar. Increase the heat and let the mixture bubble briefly, stirring all the while. 

2. Whisk the egg together with the milk. Remove the butter and sugar mixture from the heat and pour into flour, stirring smoothly and firmly with a large metal spoon. Mix in the milk and eggs. The mixture will be sloppy and the lumps will just be the ginger, so don't worry!

3. Carefully put the mixture into the tin (you may find it easiest transferring to a jug and pouring or using a small ladle). The tins will be about two thirds full of mixture. Put into the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, until the loaves feel springy and a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. 

4. While they are cooking, make the syrup by combining the ginger syrup from the jar, lemon juice and honey in a saucepan. Heat for a minute over a high heat to bring the ingredients together. 

5. As soon as the loaf cakes are out of the oven transfer them to a wire rack, poke all over with a skewer and brush on the syrup liberally all over whilst still in their tins. Once cooled, take out of their tins, and make the icing by mixing the icing sugar with the lemon juice. You may need a little more of icing sugar or lemon juice, what you want is an icing thin enough to drizzle over the cakes, but thick enough so that it sets fairly quickly. Drizzle this over using a fork or a piping bag, sprinkle over the crystallized ginger and leave to set.