Happy Monday!!!!  Hope you all had a wonderful weekend, mine was great, thanks.  Apologies for not giving you details from the previous weekend but it was a flop so I avoided the kitchen!!!!  I suppose every great Chef has a bad day in the kitchen and Sunday the 20th was no exception for me, ha ha.......  Yesterday however was different and I am pleased to say I am back on track with my baking.....

Decided not to throw the over-ripened bananas out, instead I made a banana loaf which always goes down well in with my Boys and I also made a Stem Ginger Cake with Lemon Icing, which was a huge success ~ eureka!!!!

It was pretty simple to make and smelt divine when it came out the oven.  I hope yours will too, enjoy......(and yes that is the banana loaf you can see in the background)......

Ingredients:

 225g self-raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tbsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground mixed spice

115g butter , cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing

115g dark muscovado sugar

115g black treacle

115g golden syrup

250ml whole milk

85g drained stem ginger , finely grated

1 egg

For the Icing

50g icing sugar, sifted

1 tsp finely grated lemon zest

1 tbsp lemon juice

 

 

Method

1. Preheat the oven to fan 160C/conventional 180C/gas 4. Butter and line an 18cm round, 7cm deep cake tin with greaseproof or parchment paper.
2. Put the flour, bicarbonate of soda and all the spices into a large mixing bowl. Add the butter and rub it into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Set aside.
3. Put the sugar, treacle, syrup and milk in a medium saucepan and heat, gently stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Turn up the heat and bring the mixture to just below boiling point (it may look like it is separating (black lumps) but this is okay).
4. Add the stem ginger to the flour mixture, then pour in the treacle mixture, stirring as you go with a wooden spoon. Break in the egg and beat until all the mixture is combined and it resembles a thick pancake batter. Pour this into prepared tin and bake for 50 minutes-1 hour, until a skewer pushed into the centre of the cake comes out fairly clean. Leave to cool completely in tin before turning cake out. (To freeze: wrap in greaseproof paper, then in cling film. Freeze for up to 1 month.)
5. To make the icing, mix together icing sugar and lemon zest, then gradually add lemon juice until you have a smooth, slightly runny icing, adding more juice, if needed. Drizzle icing in a zig-zag pattern over surface of cake, turn cake around and drizzle again to create the cross-hatched finish (see below). Cake keeps for up to 2 weeks stored in an airtight container.