I had wanted to post this in time for Bonfire Night as the warming ginger in this cake seems to make it perfect for eating next to a bonfire, preferably with a mug of mulled wine in the other hand. Even though it’s a little late, it’s still perfect for perking you up in colder weather.

This started life as a Jamie Oliver recipe, but has since swayed quite a lot off course. Jamie’s recipe is here, for my version, I added a couple of bananas I had lying around (they were actually snuggled up to the last of our green tomatoes in the hope that they might turn red) and cut down on the vast quantities of sugar and golden syrup. However, the finished result is still sticky and sweet and full of gingery kick. It’s also firm enough to travel well as a little snack for the office, which is always good.

I also wanted to share a neat trick that I discovered recently. If you don’t have a cake tester (who does?) then a strand of spaghetti works really well. Instead of huge dents left by testing with a knife, and I usually end up testing a few times, you get a barely discernible hole. Genius!

Ingredients

8 pieces stem ginger
4 tbsp stem ginger syrup
150g butter, softened
100g golden syrup
50g dark muscavado sugar
2 eggs
2 very ripe bananas, mashed
200g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp soft brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 180C.
Put the stem ginger into a food processor and whizz until it’s a paste.
Add the syrup, softened butter, golden syrup and sugar and blend until thick and fluffy.
Add the eggs and bananas and blend again until well combined and smooth.
Sift in the flour, baking poweder, ground ginger and cinamon and blend until a thick better forms.
Pour into a greased and lined loaf tin, smooth the mixture with a spatula and sprinkle over the sugar.
Bake in the oven for 50 minutes, or until risend and golden and a cake tester comes out clean.

Tags: banana, ginger

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