Lemongrass and Ginger Cake

Thought I'd share this recipe with you. It was recently entered in the UKTV Food's Market Kitchen 'Bake a Cake' competition, and I'm pleased to say has won. This lovely cake will be made on an episode of Market Kitchen to be aired soon.

LEMONGRASS AND GINGER CAKE

Lemongrass, although unusual in a cake gives a lovely perfume to the cake, and the ginger provides the necessary kick. Due to the amount of ginger, I'd suggest that this is more of an adult cake, as it may be a little strong for children.

The cake developed as I was making a lemon cake, and came across my lemongrass and ginger cordial and thought I'd give it a whirl. It works well

Ingredients
175g butter or margarine
3 eggs
175g self raising flour
half tsp baking powder
75g stem ginger in syrup finely chopped Reserve some of the syrup
1 tsp ground ginger
10 tbsp lemongrass and ginger cordial (I use Bottlegreen)
Zest of one lemon
125g sugar
1 stick lemongrass, bashed
50g caster sugar
2 tbsp water

Method
1 Preheat oven to 180oc. Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin. Add baking powder to self raising flour and sieve. Set aside
2 Make the cake by using the creaming method, beating butter and sugar together until creamy, then beat in the eggs one at a time, adding one third of sieved flour with each egg.
3 Stir in the ground ginger and stem ginger and mix well. Finally add approximately 4 tbs lemongrass and ginger cordial.
4 Pour into the lined cake tin and bake for approximately 45-55 minutes, if using a fan oven check after 35-40 minutes. If a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean then its done.
5 Whilst the cake is still warm make the syrup. Pour the remaining lemongrass and ginger cordial into a saucepan, add the bashed lemongrass, lemon zest and approx 1 tbsp syrup from the stem ginger and sugar. You may wish to add 2 tbsp water. Bring to the boil and allow to cool for a couple of minutes.
6 Whilst the cake is still in the cake tin pour over the flavoured syrup and allow to cool. Once cool and the cake has absorbed the syrup, remove from tin and enjoy.
This is more of an adult cake than one for children. Leave the cake for 24 hours and the flavour intensifies.


Feel free to send over some of your cake recipes - I love trying new flavours

Cath