Sticky Quince and Ginger cake

A moist cake studded with poached quince and stem ginger.

Any leftover poaching syrup will solidify into a jelly. Delicious on toast, or with roasted meat or cheese.

2 tsps Ground Ginger, organic
150g butter, softened, plus a little more for greasing
2 large quinces (about 600g)
160g caster or vanilla sugar
160g runny honey
Juice of ½ lemon
250g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
180g caster or vanilla sugar
Good pinch of salt
3 eggs, plus 1 egg yolk
100g creme fraiche
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 small thumb fresh ginger, peeled and finely diced
3 lumps chrystalized ginger (finely chopped) -optional

Heat the oven to 170C. Grease a 23cm x 5cm round, spring-form cake tin, line the base and sides with baking parchment, and butter the parchment.

Peel, quarter and core the quinces. Cut each quarter into 1cm slices. Put the quince into a large saucepan with 600ml water, the sugar, honey, ginger and lemon juice. Bring to a boil and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the quince is very tender and has turned a deep, rosy amber colour – about an hour and a half. Drain, reserving the liquor. Leave the quince to cool, and in a small pan reduce the liquor until thick and syrupy.

Sift the flour, ground ginger, baking powder and salt into a bowl. In a separate bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs and yolk one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in a few tablespoons of the flour, the creme fraiche and vanilla, fold in the rest of the flour, then the poached quince and chopped ginger. Spoon into the prepared tin and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake for about an hour and a quarter (check after an hour – if the cake is browning too quickly, cover with foil), until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

While the cake is cooking, whisk together the ginger syrup and poaching syrup to make a glaze. As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, pierce the top a few times with a skewer and brush on the glaze, letting it trickle into the holes. Sprinkle over the sugar and leave to cool in the tin for 20 minutes.

Remove from the tin and leave on a wire rack to cool completely.

Write a comment