Sticky Stem Ginger Cake With Lemon Icing

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 225g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tbsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground mixed spice
• 115g butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing
• 115g dark muscovado sugar
• 115g black treacle
• 115g golden syrup
• 250ml whole milk
• 85g drained stem ginger, finely grated
• 1 egg

For the icing:

• 50g icing sugar, sifted
• 1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180ºC. Butter and line an 18cm round, deep cake tin with greaseproof or parchment paper.
2. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and all the spices into a food processor. Add the butter and blend until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs.
3. Put the sugar, treacle, syrup and milk into a medium saucepan and heat, gently, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Turn up the heat and bring the mixture to just below boiling.
4. Add the stem ginger to the flour mixture, then boil in the treacle mix and blend. Break in the egg and blend again, until everything is combined. It should resemble a think pancake batter.
5. Pour this into the prepared tin and bake for 45-1 hour, until a skewer pushed into the centre of the cake comes out fairly clean.
6. Leave to cool completely in tin before turning out the cake.
7. To freeze, wrap in greaseproof paper, then in cling film. It will freeze for up to one month.
8. To make the icing, mix together icing sugar and the lemon zest, then gradually add the lemon juice, until you have a smooth, slightly runny icing. Drizzle the icing over the surface of the cake.
9. Keeps fresh for up to 2 weeks, stored in an airtight container.