This is an ever evolving recipe or so it seems!

Originally a Den Lepard one: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/apr/20/dan-lepard-ginger-honey-cake-recipe

then made by my lovely friend Stephanie, with necessary tweaks: http://procrastinationrecipes.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/honey-and-ginger-loaf/

and now by me, with MY necessary tweaks.

We all have times when we run out of stuff, or go to make a recipe and find that what is needed wasn’t there, and this was one of those times. Not enough honey? Make up the shortfall with ginger jam, or marmalade, or golden syrup. Black treacle maybe? (In my case I found a little clear honey and a block of comb honey, so melted the comb block and added that)

Not enough fresh grated ginger? Use the lazy, ready pulped stuff. Or perhaps add in a bit more powdered if it turns out your tube of ginger is only 75g not 100g…or again, if you haven’t enough ready pulped, just accept the fact it will have less of a ‘burn’ and add a teaspoon or two of mixed spice.

Oh, no sunflower oil? (I never have it, hate the stuff.) Use olive oil. 1000s of years of Greek baking can’t be wrong, right?

And here we are.

This may be the Granny Weatherwax’s broomstick* of baking, but that’s the FUN of it!

Ginger & Honey Loaf

180g honey (a mix of all the bits I had, in my case)

220g orange and ginger marmalade (Fortnum’s don’t you know)

75g melted butter

50 ml olive oil

3 eggs (I had large in the house)

75g freshly grated ginger OR ready grated ginger from a jar OR ready pulped ginger from a tube (I used a whole tube of Gourmet Garden pulped ginger, and it retains ALL the heat of fresh. Wow!)

225g plain flour

100g sultanas or currants (or raisins, or chopped dried apricots or ooh dates!)

3 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp baking powder

Extra butter and honey for glazing. (If you’ve got any left!) It softens the crust, apparently.

 

Put the honey, ginger preserves/jam/marmalade, melted butter and oil into a bowl. Whisk very well until smooth then take a grainy phone photo.

Whisk in the eggs, pulped/grated fresh ginger as well

Then mix in the flour, dried fruit, spices and the baking powder.

Pour into a greased and lined tin or, in my case, a buttered silicone loaf tin.

Lay a line of cold sliced butter along the top if you want it to crack. If you don’t want it to crack, then don’t do this bit!

Place in oven.

Wait patiently for 70-80 minutes while your kitchen smells divine. Test with a skewer. Mine took 90 minutes.

Let it cool in the tin, as it is quite fragile until it sets.

Slice when cool.

I didn’t brush the top with butter, and we rather like the crusty top.

It’s quite dense, very spicy and warming. Would be excellent with ice cream or custard too. My husband’s on his second slice now. I’m thinking of nabbing another bit as well.

*Granny Weatherwax is a Terry Pratchett character, a witch of the Discworld. (Although I suspect that she would be highly insulted if anyone told her that she was a character in a book.)

The only thing which repeatedly defeats Granny is her flying broomstick. It refuses to start smoothly, despite dwarfs replacing both handle and sticks many times. She maintains, however, that it “will be Right as Rain with a bit of work” [sic]. Wikipedia