Marmalade Gingerbread

Ready to cut

A couple of years ago I made Seville orange marmalade with crushed coriander seeds, but neither of us really likes the bits of seed in it, so I decided to try using it in a cake. Hilaire Walden in her book "Sensational Preserves" claims that, having once made Marmalade Gingerbread, she no longer uses black treacle or golden syrup, just marmalade. I substituted a few items, and it still worked very well. Instead of preserved ginger, I had some rather elderly crystallized ginger from Julian Graves, bought before we moved over here. It had gone a bit dry, so I soaked 14 pieces of it overnight and then chopped it. I also substituted a mixture of currants and sultanas for raisins, as all the raisins had been snacked!

Ingredients:
225g/8oz butter, cut in bits
225g/8oz dark brown sugar
300ml/10floz milk
225g/8oz marmalade
350g/12oz self raising flour (if you only have plain flour, add 2 teaspoons baking powder / 1 sachet levure chimique)
1½-2 tablespoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
2 eggs, beaten
7 pieces preserved ginger, chopped
115g/4oz raisins

Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 160°C/310°F/gas mark 2. Butter a 20-22.5cm/8-9inch round cake tin and line the base with greaseproof paper or baking parchment.
In a saucepan (not a small saucepan....), gently heat together the butter, sugar, milk and marmalade stirring occasionally, until the sugar and marmalade have all dissolved. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the mixture to cool. Sift together the flour, bicarb, baking powder (if using), and ground spices. Make a well in the middle and pour in the liquid a bit at a time, stirring to make a smooth batter, and adding the eggs towards the end. Stir in the ginger and raisins. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for about 1½ hours until the cake is firm to the touch and a kebab skewer inserted into the middle comes out dry. Leave to cool in the tin. Store in an airtight container. Leave for a day before eating, if you can bear it!

The first slice...

My 9-inch springform tin looked ideal, but the cooked cake turned out not to fit my storage tin! Somewhere in a box is my Tupperware cake box... Hilaire Walden suggests Tangerine Marmalade and Peach Marmalade work as well as orange. I wonder whether cherry jam would work?

A succulent texture