xmas week 2024 - sticky gingerbread bundt cake

xmas week 2024 - sticky gingerbread bundt cake

• 17 Dec 2024

Is it even Christmas if you don't make gingerbread in some form? This year rather than gingerbread men or a gingerbread tree, I made a gingerbread bundt cake, because I really wanted to test out the cake goop I had stored in the fridge.

Gingerbread usually contains some form of sugar syrup that when baked welds the cake firmly to the cake pan. Trust me I know because I've had any number of baking disasters in the past. For the recipe I turned to Belinda Jeffery and a recipe that I found in a Delicious magazine many years ago. It's a triple ginger cake because it contains both ground ginger, fresh ginger as well as crystallised ginger. I'm not a huge fan of molasses so I diluted it's flavour by the addition of some golden syrup to the mix. 

Thankfully the cake goop worked a charm and the cake unmoulded pretty easily however if you're not in the mood for a bundt cake, this makes a 17cm square cake.

Here's the recipe for you which makes either a 5 cup bundt cake or a 17cm square cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. If you'd like to make an 8 inch cake, you can find the recipe here.

Sticky Gingerbread Bundt Cake - Belinda Jeffery

Ingredients

150g plain flour, plus extra to dust
Pinch sea salt flakes
scant ½ tsp bicarb of soda

1¼ tsp ground ginger (as fresh as possible)
¾ tsp ground cinnamon
pinch ground cloves
pinch ground nutmeg
5 small lumps crystallised ginger, chopped, plus extra chopped to serve
85g room temperature unsalted butter

105g brown sugar
105g molasses/treacle or golden syrup
1½ (75g) eggs
2½ tsp finely grated fresh ginger
1¼ tsp finely grated lemon zest
60ml buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Lemon-Butter Glaze
80g icing sugar
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
15 g unsalted butter, melted and warm
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp warm water

To decorate

Crystallised ginger, chopped, to serve

Method
Preheat the oven to 170°C, conventional. Grease and flour a bundt pan then place in the fridge until needed. If using a square tin, grease then line with baking paper.

Sift flour, soda and ground spices into a large bowl. Stir in the crystallised ginger, then set aside. Place butter and brown sugar in another bowl and beat with an electric beater on medium speed for 3-4 minutes until fluffy. Add molasses/treacle and beat until well combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition – don’t worry if the batter looks curdled, it will smooth out when you add the flour. Mix in fresh ginger and zest, then gently beat in the flour mixture. Add buttermilk and vanilla and beat on low speed until just combined.

Scrape into the prepared pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the top feels springy and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then carefully loosen around the sides and invert onto the rack to cool completely.

Lemon butter glaze

Sift the icing sugar and cinnamon into a small bowl. Add the melted butter, lemon juice and water and mix with a spoon until smooth and the consistency of  honey. Ice the cake and allow the glaze to set before serving. If liked, you can top the cake with the extra crystallised ginger. 

Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days, or in the fridge for up to 10 days, if you prefer it stickier.

This is one of those cakes that tastes better as it matures and it's a recipe I will certainly be adding to my repertoire. It was, as Belinda described it, a really good gingerbread.

See you all again tomorrow with another bake for Xmas week 2024.

Bye for now,

Jillian