Last weekend my Mum presented me with a new recipe book, ‘Jamie’s Monster Bake Sale’ a collection of recipes put together by Jamie Oliver for Red Nose Day, to raise money for Comic Relief and the Jamie Oliver Foundation, not only through it’s sale but by encouraging people to try the yummy recipes and raise money by holding….you got it…a Monster Bake Sale!
All of the 13 recipes sound amazing and the 2 I’ve tried so far have been super tasty. As she handed it over, my Mum raved about the delicious looking sticky rhubarb and ginger cake at the back of the book. So my choice of Mother’s Day present was pretty much a no brainer!
Here it is…sticky rhubarb and ginger cake for my Mum…
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line a 20cm round cake tin with greaseproof paper.
To make the rhubarb topping…
250g rhubarb
100g caster sugar
2 tbsp stem ginger syrup
Slice the rhubarb into 4cm lengths and put them in a pan with the caster sugar and 2 tbsp of syrup from the jar of stem ginger. Bring to the boil, and then turn down and cook on a low heat for 5 minutes until the rhubarb is cooked but hasn’t turned to slush.
For the cake…
200g butter
150g dark brown sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup
150ml milk
2 eggs
300g self raising flour
2 tsp ground ginger
3-4 balls stem ginger, finely chopped and 2 more tbsp of the syrup
Heat the butter in a pan with the dark brown sugar and golden syrup, once melted set aside to cool.
Whisk the eggs with the milk and mix them together with the cooled butter mixture and finally the remaining ingredients (flour, ground and chopped ginger). Stir well before pouring into the prepared cake tin.
Carefully arrange the strips of rhubarb on top of the cake mix but save the magic rhubarb syrup for later. Bake the cake for 1 hour 20 minutes until it’s risen and beautifully golden. After an hour you can sneak a peek and if it looks like the top of the cake is browning a bit too much, loosely cover it with some tin foil for the last few minutes of cooking. When you think it’s ready, insert a skewer into the middle of the cake. If it comes out clean…it’s ready!
Here comes the best bit…spoon the sticky rhubarb syrup over the hot cake. This produces a very pleasing sizzle and a sweet, spicy, fruity aroma to die for!
Fresh out of the oven…
Try to exercise some self restraint and leave it to cool in the tin, giving the syrup time to work its way into the cake, before serving…
It turns out that the women in my family are very well tuned into each other…I discovered that we came dangerously close to having 2 sticky rhubarb and ginger cakes to gorge on…it was so delicious, it wouldn’t have been much of a hardship to be honest with you! It had a great dense but moist texture with little juicy nuggets of stem ginger throughout and the slightly tart rhubarb to cut through it, taking away any sickly sweetness!
Why not serve with crème fraiche, cream, custard, ice cream or just simply on its own…in my book, anything goes and the possibilities are endless!
Afternoon Tease 
Pingback: Rhubarb and custard cake… | Afternoon Tease