Written by Annalisa

* 230g Self Raising Flour
* 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
* 1 tablespoon ground ginger
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1 teaspoon ground mixed spice
* 110g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
* 110g molasses
* 110g golden syrup
* 110g dark muscovado sugar
* 280ml milk
* 45g drained stem ginger
* 1 egg

You’ll also need a 900g loaf tin (23cm x 11cm x 6cm), greased and lined or do as I do and use loaf tin liners from www.lakelandlimited.co.uk. Preheat the oven to 180C/GM 4.

Sift the flour, bicarb and spices in one bowl and rub in the diced butter until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

In a small saucepan melt the molasses with the syrup, then leave to cool a little. In another pan dissolve the sugar in the milk, over a low heat, stirring occasionally.

To the flour mixture you now add the grated stem ginger. It isn’t easy to grate right down to the last bit so I do as much as I can, then cut the remainder into tiny pieces; this way you get little bites of ginger in the cake which can be quite nice.

Now mix in the milk mixture into the flour mixture, next whisk/mix in the molasses mixture, followed by the egg. Blend thoroughly - you should havea fairly thin mixture. Pour into your cake tin and bake for about an hour - but start checking from 45 mins. It’s done when a skewer comes out clean.

Let cool completely, then wrap in greaseproof paper and then foil and keep for 24 hours, although personally I like to eat it while it’s still warm…

Adapted from Nigella Lawson’s How to Eat, originally from The Baking Book by Linda Collister and Anthony Blake.