Ginger Loaf Cake

This recipe is like your favourite gingerbread loaf with a crunchy, crumble topping and it’s totally irresistible. While it’s perfect for the holiday season, it doesn’t matter for me. I’m all about cosy food right now, just like every year at this time when I’m desperately trying to hold onto the cooler weather here in Aus before it gets too hot.

Ingredients

With all the regular cake ingredients – flour, baking powder, eggs – there’s a few that have very important roles in this cake.

• Dark brown sugar – adds a caramelly hint and moisture too.
  • You can substitute regular brown sugar or even muscovado sugar
• Treacle – used especially for it’s flavour, it also adds richness and moisture.
  • You can use molasses if you prefer or even golden or maple syrup.
• Buttermilk – keeps this cake tender
• Oil – instead of butter in this one, keeps this cake moist
• Spices – a cosy combination of ginger, cinnamon and allspice for cosy perfection

How to make it – step by step

This cake just needs a few bowls and is all mixed by hand. There’s no need for any fancy equipment.

1. The streusel: Start by combining oats, flour, sugar and butter in a bowl then put it aside. This will get sprinkled over the top at the end.
2. The dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and dark brown sugar all mixed up so there are no lumps.
3. The wet ingredients: oil, eggs, treacle and buttermilk, beaten together.
4. Combine: the wet and dry ingredients, stirring it just enough to be combined. Make sure not to overmix it.
5. Into the tin: Straight into a tin (image 1 above) and sprinkle the streusel over the top (image 2 above), then bake.

It really is such a simple and quick cake to make, you’ll love serving this one up for afternoon tea. I love to slice it while it’s still just warm and spread a little butter over – so, so good.

Tips and tricks

All my best tips so you get a perfect ginger cake every time.

• Don’t overmix: Make sure you don’t mix the batter past the point of everything being just combined. Mixing too much will result in a tough cake or one that doesn’t rise properly.
• Weigh the ingredients if you can: Baking is a science and if measurements are out it will affect the result. If you don’t have kitchen scales, just spoon the ingredients into cup measures, then level them off with the back of a knife.
• The tin: I use a 6 cup capacity loaf cake tin. It will also work an 8 inch round cake tin but will require a shorter cooking time, so keep an eye on it.
• The streusel: when you make the streusel, you want it to be starting to clump with no big pieces of butter left, but not clumping to the point of turning into a dough.
• Slice: Be gentle when you start slicing so you don’t crumble off all that lovely crunchy streusel. I use a very sharp straight edge knife for this one, gently cut through the streusel a the edges first, then you can press down and slice as normal.

How long will it keep

Ginger loaf cake will keep well in an airtight container at room temperature for 3-4 days. You can keep it in the fridge or even freeze it too.

If freezing, I would slice it first, and place the slice in an airtight container or bag with baking paper between each slice. This way you can take out just as many slices as you want.