I’m not the biggest fan of ginger, though I know it’s good for me, especially for my stomach. But I do quite like ground ginger in sweet things. I’d been meaning to make this Gingerbread Cake recipe for a while, but it has an intimidatingly long ingredient list. Finally, I got organised enough to make it.

The recipe is from “Good to the Grain” and uses Kamut flour, among many other things.

One thing I didn’t bring with me from home was a spice grinder or coffee grinder. Luckily, I was able to pick up a manual version with ceramic burrs, for the bargain price of €4. All the spices go in there — aniseed, allspice, black pepper, cinnamon, coffee, nutmeg.

The spices are then sifted together with the flours (Kamut and wheat) and raising agents.

The moisture, sweetness and flavour come from dark muscovado sugar (unrefined), unsweetened applesauce, blackstrap molasses, as seen below. As well as sour cream, melted butter, an egg, and an extra kick from grated fresh ginger.

Gently combine the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients.

Spread into a buttered tin and bake until dark brown and the centre springs back when pressed.

Unmould.

It had a soft, light crumb, and a crisp crust (on the first day). It was a rather sharp, spicy gingerbread cake with the added heat from the fresh ginger really evident, particularly on the first day or two.

The gingerbread had a deep flavour and kept quite well, the flavours balancing and mellowing with each passing day. Though the method is relatively simple, there was a lot of prep work so it’s definitely not a quick cake to make.