Who doesn’t love just a good old cake once in a while hey?

With the first snow of the year this week and the cold snap well and truly sinking into my bones, I decided to make yet another winter spiced cake. It’s cliche I know but ginger and cinnamon are two of my favourite things at this time of year and they make me feel so warm and toasty when combined with a hot chocolate and a massive slice of cake.

Not many of you will probably know that I am actually lactose intolerant, so quite often when baking for myself I won’t use dairy much, or I will take some lactase tablets so that I am able to eat my finished product. However, I’m currently running low on the tablets, so dairy free it was.

I often use Italian meringue as “icing” instead of buttercream or similar as it is just so light and fluffy and yummy, without any of the dairy content. It is just like eating a cloud really, only sweeter. And you can still pipe it and grill or blowtorch it to get that toasted marshmallow look. Dreamy!

Makes 1 cake, serves 8-12. Or one extremely hungry Sophie.

Ingredients

For the cake

6oz (170g) Margarine/Vegetable oil spread
6oz (170g) light brown sugar
6oz (170g) self-raising flour
3 eggs
2 tsp ginger
2 tsp cinnamon

For the Italian meringue

2 egg whites
4oz (110g) caster sugar
110ml water
Orange peel and vanilla pods (optional)

Method

If you want a flavoured Italian meringue, start with the sugar syrup. Put the water and sugar in a pan with your flavourings, such as orange peel and vanilla pods, and heat until all the sugar has dissolved. Leave on a gentle heat and allow the flavours to infuse your syrup. If you don’t want to have a flavoured Italian meringue, skip this step.
Preheat oven to 180C.
Cream together the light brown sugar and butter for the cake until light and fluffy.
Add in the eggs and mix well.
Add in the self-raising flour, cinnamon and ginger and then pour into a lined cake tin.
Bake for 35-40 minutes, until golden brown and springs back. Leave to cool.
If you have already made your sugar syrup, strain it into another pan to remove your orange peel/ vanilla pods.
If you haven’t made your sugar syrup, combine the water and sugar in a pan and heat it gently until all the sugar has dissolved.
Turn the heat up on your sugar syrup and leave to bubble away whilst you prepare your egg whites.
In a clean bowl beat your egg whites to soft - medium peaks. Potentially best to do in a stand mixer or with an electric beater if you have one.
Once your sugar syrup hits 114C (also called soft ball stage), pour this into your egg whites whilst mixing them slowly to disperse the syrup. The heat of the syrup will cook the egg whites. Keep mixing until it has cooled completely.
If you don’t have a blowtorch, turn the grill on high.
Put your meringue in a piping bag with a star shaped nozzle and pipe to your heart’s content on top of your now cool cake. Put on a baking tray and under the grill to brown off the meringue for a couple of minutes. KEEP AN EYE ON IT, or it will burn and go black. If you have a blowtorch, use that and do it by hand to get the exact effect you want.
ENJOY