There are many occasions in my baking life when I’ve pulled from the oven, a cake only a baker could love. It is usually something dull and unrelentingly brown all over. Something that makes me feel slightly crestfallen because only brownies and celebrities on private yachts are permitted to be this brown.

When faced with such a cake, it is hard to resist the temptation to add a bit of glamour to it. Enter three tiers of chocolate ganache and artfully scattered silver nonpareils or that classic dribble of lemon icing.

But in the case of this gingerbread, simple is beautiful and even the tiniest dusting of icing sugar over its dimpled crust should be rejected. For all those times when a cup of tea and nothing overly sugary is called for, this cake is just the ticket with its gentle warmth and spices that form a slow release flavour dance on your tongue.

Brown it seems, may just be the new black.

Gingerbread cake :
(based on a recipe from Good to the Grain by Kim Boyce)

1 1/4 cups wholemeal flour
1 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon espresso powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
56g (2 ounces or 1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup plain full-fat yogurt
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce (or pumpkin puree)
1/4 cup unsulphured blackstrap molasses (or treacle)
1 egg
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger

Preheat the oven to 175’C (350F).

In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients, stirring gently with a whisk to ensure the spices are well mixed.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted butter, yogurt, brown sugar, apple sauce, molasses, egg and grated ginger. Add this to the dry ingredients and fold to combine. Pour the batter into a greased and lined 9-inch round cake pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

There were some days last week when I would wake up and feel relieved that yesterday was over. It was hard not to feel a bit mopey since the boy had been away for so long. One upside was that it gave me plenty of time to tick things off my to-do list, and subsequently to come up with a few new and silly ones.

Like my Top 5 desert island ice-creams list, which after much consideration reads as follows. In no particular order :

1) Rum ‘n’ Raisin
(A inexplicable regular feature of any of my imaginary ice-cream lists. Maybe I was abducted by pirates as a child.)

2) Bitter chocolate
(Good chocolate ice-cream is a miracle in itself.)

3) Beer sorbet
(Because after an exhausting day trying to get rescued from a deserted island, everyone deserves an ice cold refreshing beer.)

4) Raspberry vanilla ripple
(I’m obsessed with things that ripple and swirl. Also, it’s almost like cheating and having two flavours in one. One bite and it’s vanilla! Now it’s raspberry!)

5) David Lebovitz’s lemon speculoos ice-cream
(I never was a fan of cookies ‘n’ cream ice-creams, but this I could definitely get behind.)

To the uninitiated, speculoos is a spiced cookie. It is truly wonderful folded through ice-cream, or even eaten on its own. I had to make two batches of speculoos for this recipe because I accidentally ate all of the first batch! You can find the recipes in David Lebovitz’s book.

To accompany the ice-cream, I poached some peaches in ale, after buying a bag of peaches at the market. If you can’t get peaches, try preserved cherries, but really, the ice-cream is already spectacular on its own. Amazing what a little refrigeration can do for you on a desert island. Or would that be dessert island?

Ale poached peaches :

4 ripe yellow peaches, blanched, refreshed and peeled
1 x 330ml bottle pale ale
750ml (3 cups) water
1/4-1/2 cup sugar
2 cloves
1 long pepper, crushed

In a pot, bring the ale, water, sugar and spices to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Taste the liquid and add more sugar if you wish. I prefer mine to be less sweet. Lower the peaches into the liquid and simmer until just tender. This should take no more than 5-10 minutes. Remove the peaches and reduce the poaching liquid to a light syrup. Cool, then pour the syrup over the peaches and keep chilled until you’re ready to use.

I am guest posting today on Michael’s blog, Herbivoracious and I made something very special and delicious for the occasion. Can you guess what it is? Click here to find out!