To celebrate the end of the school year, I made a ginger cake from a recipe given to me by one of my neighbours, it’s her Mum’s recipe (thanks Deirdre’s Mum!). We have made it a few times and found this to be one of the nicest cakes we have ever made, delicious and gingery and moist.

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My youngest daughter suggested we use lemon icing one of the times we made it and so we tried it and I have to say it made the cake even better. So here’s the recipe for the traditional Irish Ginger Cake but with a Modern Twist :)

Traditional Irish Ginger Cake With A Modern Twist

Ingredients

• 3 cups plain flour
• 3 teaspoons ground ginger
• Pinch of salt
• 2 teaspoons mixed spice
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup lukewarm water
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1 cup golden syrup
• 1 teaspoon baking/bread soda dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water
• 1 lemon
• Approx 200-225g icing sugar

Method

1. Put all the ingredients into a big mixing bowl in the order given.
2. Beat for 2-3 minutes medium speed.
3. Line 2 loaf tins or 1 cake tin and fill with mixture up to 3/4 full.
4. Bake at 180C / 350 F for 50-60 mins. Leave to cool on a cooling rack.
5. Sieve the icing sugar and then squeeze in 1/2 the lemon’s juice, mix and then squeeze some more from the 2nd half.
6. If you need a bit more liquid add a few drops of water until you get a nice thick but runny consistency.
7. Drizzle the icing over the top of the cake.

Here’s our finished cake!

If you have tried this Irish ginger cake recipe let us know what you thought of it in the comments below.