Spring has arrived! Finally. I can barely recall a year that I’ve been more ready for spring than this year – and I think a lot of people will probably feel the same. Last week, I felt like baking something with fresh, spring-like flavours, and the first thing my mind always goes to in situations like this is lemon. I love lemon. I mean, is there anything better than a good, simple lemon cake? Few things are, I’m sure, so I decided to go for a variation on the classic lemon cake and add some ginger to it.
I know there are a lot of people who don’t enjoy the taste of ginger, and if you’re one of them, you can easily leave out the ginger in this recipe and use only the lemon – the cake will still come out delicious. If you do enjoy ginger, I definitely recommend giving this recipe a go. The ginger flavour is rather subtle, since the lemon packs quite a punch, but it’s definitely there and it adds another layer of flavour to this cake which I very much enjoyed!
You’ll need…
- 100 ml sunflower oil (or any other type of vegetable oil)
- 140 g sugar
- 3 eggs (medium)
- 200 g plain flour
- 40 g cornflour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- a pinch of salt
- 1 lemon (zest + juice)
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 2 or 3 teaspoons fresh ginger (grated)
- grater/zester
- loaf tin
- parchment paper (optional)
- and an oven, of course! This cake needs to be baked at 180 °C (don’t forget to preheat your oven!)
So, let’s get baking!
1. Mix sugar and oil together Put the cane sugar and the sunflower oil in a large bowl and mix them together using a whisk. You won’t get anything resembling something pale and fluffy like you would get with butter, but that’s fine! It actually makes things easier. Just whisk them together and that’s it.
2. Add the eggs Next, add the eggs one by one, mixing them through in between.
3. Add dry ingredients Sieve the flour, baking powder and ground ginger above the bowl with the wet mixture and also add a pinch of salt. Using a spatula, gently mix the dry ingredients with the wet ones until they’re just combined.
4. Add lemon and ginger Zest and juice/squeeze your lemon and add all of the zest and juice to the batter. Finely grate your fresh ginger and add this to the batter as well. Mix it all through using your spatula.
5. Bake! Grease your tin and line it with parchment paper, or flour it. Transfer the cake batter to the tin. Bake the cake in your preheated oven at 180 °C for at least 40 minutes. Insert a skewer to check whether the cake is done. If it comes out clean, it’s done – if there’s batter stuck to the skewer, it needs an extra couple of minutes. Once the cake is done, take it out of the oven and let it cool inside the tin for 10 to 15 minutes. Then, transfer it from the tin to a cooling rack to let it cool completely.
And that’s it! You’ve got your own, delicious lemon and ginger cake! Enjoy!
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