English Gingerbread Cake

 Heavenly Cake Baker Submission #39

For this week’s free choice, I skimmed the recipes looking for something that would make an appropriate dessert for my St. Patrick’s Day dinner (the Irish make gingerbread too), and that wouldn’t be too difficult to take on in our little apartment kitchen.  It will be a while before I’m comfortable enough to tackle something like the Saint-Honore Trifle here.

It was thrilling to find golden syrup.  It took three stores, but it was worth it to add that treacly flavor.  I’m learning to start gathering my ingredients early because I can’t make a two minute drive to the market at 11PM for something I’ve forgotten at the last minute.  I think the stores are open until 10 PM, but if it can’t be found at Chata Polksa (our convenience store, which means Cottage Poland), it involves a 10 – 15 minute walk or  two or three mile tram ride.

The cake was a hit with our dinner guests.  I actually made a double recipe and have one in the freezer to share with my ladies group next week.  I can’t put two cakes on the same rack in this oven, and the lower one took much longer to bake.  It’s the one in the freezer, but it appears that the texture may have suffered a bit because of the slow baking.  Advice – fellow bakers? Is it better to let it sit and bake on its own, or bake slower?  Maybe I just need to be brave and try the convection feature.  That might help with more even heating.

My pan selection is limited, but my brother did hook me up with a bunch of silicon pans at Christmas, thinking, rightly so, that they would be easy to squeeze into my suitcase.   They we’re quite tall enough, so I added a parchment collar as well as covering the bottoms of the pans.

The liquid (minus eggs and milk) ingredients are combined over medium-low heat.  After cooling, the eggs and milk are whisked in.

The dry ingredients, including the aromatic ginger and cinnamon, are whisked together, and then, combined with the liquid ingredients.  If you take risks in the kitchen with raw eggs, like I do, the batter is delicious!

The cake should sit for a day before eating to let the flavors mellow.  This suited my agenda perfectly.  I was able to prepare almost all of my St. Paddy’s meal in advance because on the actual day, I was attending a luncheon hosted by two Irish ladies who live in Poznan.  They put out a wonderful spread – smoked salmon, shrimp, cheeses, brown bread, cottage pie, sausages, scones, but not a green beer in sight.

Unlike my other blog posts, as part of the Heavenly Cake Bakers, I don’t post recipes from this book on the Internet. One of the reasons for this baking group is to encourage readers to purchase the cookbook. That strategy worked on me! After follow the group’s baking adventures for a couple of months, I ordered a copy from Amazon because I wanted join in.

Lois Britton

An accountant by trade and a food blogger since 2009, Lois Britton fell in love with Polish cuisine during the years she lived in Poznań, Poland. As the creator of PolishHousewife.com,  she loves connecting readers with traditional Polish recipes. Lois has a graduate certificate in Food Writing and Photography from the University of South Florida. She is the author of The Polish Housewife Cookbook, available on Amazon and on her website.