Ginger and Treacle Traybake

I am a HUGE fan of ginger, in any way shape or form. Chop it up, whack it in a biscuit, stir it into my tea, sticky, fragrant and delicious.

Treacle, on the other hand, does not appeal in the same way.

Together, however? YES

I made this simple traybake for Bonfire Night back in 2012 - every year my parents host a firework display for the village, and everybody brings along something for dinner, whether it be curry, lasagne, bread rolls, or where i'm concerned, cake! There's something really heartwarming about the rich taste of ginger and treacle whilst standing shivering outside.

Once again, I am indebted to Mary Berry for this wonderful recipe:

225g softened butter
175g light muscavado sugar
200g black treacle *TIP - Weigh the treacle on top of the sugar to stop it sticking*
300g self raising flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground mixed spice
1 tsp ground all spice
4 large eggs
4 tbsp milk
3 finely chopped bulbs stem ginger from the jar
75g icing sugar (for the icing)
3 tablespoons stem ginger syrup from the jar (for the icing)
3 finely chopped bulbs of stem ginger form the jar (for decoration)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius. (Fan 160) Grease a 30 x 23cm traybake tin then line the base with baking parchment.

Put all the ingredients for the traybake into a large bowl and beat until well blended. Turn the mixture into the prepared tin, scraping the bowl with a plastic spatula to remove all the mixture.

Bake in the preheated oven for 35-40 minutes or until the cake has shrunk away from the sides of the tin and springs back when pressed in the centre with your fingertips. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.

To make the icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl, and add the ginger syrup, mix until the icing is smooth and has a spreading consistency. Pour the icing over the cake, spreading it to the edges with a pallette knife, and sprinkle with ginger to decorate.

*I doubled the given icing recipe as I like lots and lots of topping, there's no point being mean! Also, a lemon icing would also work very well. Just replace the ginger syrup in the icing with the juice of half a lemon.*

Best served with a mug of hot mulled wine!