Cherry and Ginger Cake

Inspired by my friend talking about making frangipani tarts, this cake combines all the classic flavours in a light and moist sponge. I baked the cake in a bundt tin for added interest and used one of my cake stands cause its fun to make everything look its best, I'm loving have access to all my baking goodies. I always struggle with cherries in cakes, no matter what I try, sometimes they are beautifully evenly distributed and others they sink like pebbles to the bottom - either way the cakes always taste epic so I'm not too worried but if you have and fail safe techniques please let me know. Enjoy the cake...

 Ingredients:
200g Glace Cherries
4 balls ginger in syrup
400g self raising flour
250g caster sugar
1 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 tbsp golden syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
400ml soy milk
115ml sunflower oil
4 tsbp icing sugar
3 tsbp syrup from the ginger in syrup

Method:
Preheat your oven to 160c and grease a bundt tin using a little oil on a piece of kitchen roll. If you don't have a bundt tin, use a deep cake tin. Chop the cherries into quarters and mince the ginger, keeping the pieces reasonably small. Set to one side and place the flour, sugar, bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl and whisk together. Fold in the cherries and ginger to coat with the flour mix - this is supposed to stop the cherries sinking in the mix but I find it has varied results.

Add the golden syrup, vanilla, almond, milk and oil and mix thoroughly until all of the flour is incorporated and the mix is a creamy consistency with the cherries evenly distributed. Carefully pour the mixture into the pre-prepared tin, trying to give an even spread of cherries. Place in the oven and bake for 35-45 minutes until the top is golden brown, the sides are pulling away from the tin and a skewer comes out clean.

Once the cake is baked, place on a cooling rack in the tin for 10 minutes before running a spatula around the sides and shaking gently to loosen the cake off - I would advise doing this without your other half standing watching as the added pressure makes flipping the tin over onto a cooling rack a million times harder!

Allow the cake to fully cool then place on a plate or cake stand, it should slid pretty easily from the rack to the plate. Mix together the icing sugar and the ginger syrup to create a reasonably thick but still pourable icing. Drizzle the icing over the top of the cake, allowing it to run down the sides.

I left the cake as is but it would look beautiful topped with edible flowers as more of a centre piece.

Please try making this as I know you'll love it as much as I do, take a picture and tag me using #diaryofadefectivehousewife.

Thank you!