Ginger and treacle spiced traybake

Tea Time Treats is a new monthly blogging event hosted by Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Kate from  What Kate Baked. This month's theme hosted by Karen is Ginger and Bonfire Treats. I love joining in these blogging challenges and was really excited to bake something that would fit this theme. However I don't like ginger but I was pretty sure I could find some other bonfire treats to fit the bill. In the end, I actually picked a ginger recipe as I made this for a team that I was visiting as part of my induction to my new job. I thought it would be nice to bring some cakes along and most people love ginger. Plus I wanted to try some new recipes from 1 of my many new cookbooks that I purchased recently. This recipe is from Mary Berry's 100 Cakes and Bakes. It's a really simple mix everything in one type of recipe - my favourite kind! The longest time taken was to finely chop the stem ginger. 

I do apologise for the lack of photos as it was a gift so I couldn't get a cross section of the cake. I was told that it tasted good but I didn't try any myself. It certainly smelled good - gingery and spicy.  

I am also submitting this to The Pink Whisk November challenge which is traybakes. 

 first time using black treacle and stem ginger

 ready to go in the oven

 looks and smells good 

 top with icing

 sprinkle chopped stem ginger on top

225g butter, softened

175g light muscovado sugar

200g black treacle

300g self raising flour

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground allspice

4 large eggs

4 tablespoons milk

3 bulbs of stem ginger from a jar, finely chopped

For the icing

75g icing sugar

3 tablespoons stem ginger syrup from the jar

3 bulbs of stem ginger from a jar, finely chopped to decorate 

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Measure all the ingredients for the traybake into a large bowl and beat until well blended. 
• Pour the mixture into the tin and level with the back of a spatula. 
• Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the cake has shrunk from the sides of the tin and springs back when pressed in the middle. 
• Leave to cool for a few minutes before turning out to cool on a wire rack. 
• Make the icing by sifting the icing sugar into a bowl and adding the ginger syrup. 
• Pour the icing over the cake and spread it to the edges with a small palette knife.
• Sprinkle with chopped stem ginger to decorate.
• Allow the icing to set before slicing.