This is not a marble. This is gingerbread cake. Spritely. Warm. Comforting. Dark and light, with a light lemon drizzle icing.  The best cake to eat in January.

You will need:

8oz (225g) self-raising flour
1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
4 oz (100g) soft brown sugar
4oz (100g) butter
4oz (100g) golden syrup (or 4 heaped tablespoons)
4oz (100g) treacle (or 4 heaped tablespoons)
1 free range egg, beaten
¼ pint of whole milk

Lemon drizzle icing (optional)
Juice of half a lemon
A few tablespoons of icing sugar
Grated lemon zest

A note in advance: you’ll be melting butter and sugar into a saucepan which will take about 20-30 mins to cool – not much waiting around time as you’ll be busy measuring out other ingredients then – but if you’re in a real hurry then save this cake for another day! 

Preheat the oven to 170C. Melt the butter in a medium sized saucepan on a low heat.

Add the golden syrup, soft brown sugar, and treacle, and stir until it’s all incorporated.

Remove the dark treacly mix from the heat and allow to cool on the side (this should take about 20 – 30 mins).

Meanwhile, grease out your cake tin with a little butter and measure out the dry ingredients.

Sift the flour, cinnamon and ginger into a large glass bowl.

Check the treacle mix has cooled before pouring over the dry ingredients. Whisk very slowly and gently together.

Add the beaten egg and the milk and whisk again.

Pour into your prepared cake tin (Or, use these large cake tin liners which mean you don’t have to grease out a cake tin – they are amazing! Like giant cupcake cases.)

It will be quite a liquidy mixture but don’t worry! Pop it into the oven and cook for about 35 minutes until it’s a nice, deep golden brown on top and a cake skewer (or a sharp knife) comes out clean when you put it into the middle.

Voila!

Allow the cake to cool completely before you do the icing.

Juice half a lemon into a bowl and sift in the icing sugar, a couple of tablespoons at a time, until it’s a nice, smooth – runny paste, enough when you pick it up with a tablespoon it looks like it will drizzle nicely over the cake. Pour over the ginger cake.

Grate the lemon into a small bowl and sprinkle the lemon zest over the top.

Cake perfection!

This also works extremely well as gingerbread muffins. Same quantity, just spoon the mixture into muffin cases, to make 12. 

Delicious with or without icing!