Truly strong spices should consist of star anise, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and allspices. After being crushed in a mortar, they impart a warm Christmas flavour to cakes and winter hot drinks. I can't imagine Christmas cakes and crunchy aromatic cookies without spices.

Today I prepared Christmas ginger cake with spices. I found the recipe for this excellent cake at www.cynamonowypyl.blox.pl. It intrigued me with its easy preparation. You know I like this kind of recipe. Plum stew is an interesting ingredient for ginger cake. In this cake the plum stew doesn't serve as a custard but as an ingredient of the cake. Thanks to this the ginger cake is moist and has an inimitably fabulous taste.

Ingredients (25cm cake tin)
300g of flour
50g of caster sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
3 teaspoons of cocoa
2 tablespoons of spices
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of baking soda
2 tablespoons of honey
220ml of milk
170g of plum stew
100g of melted butter
2 big eggs
50g of raisins
150g of dark chocolate
your favourite decorations

Heat the oven up to 175C. Cover the 25cm cake tin with some baking paper.
Prepare three bowls. Mix the dry ingredients: flour, cocoa, spice, cinnamon, and baking soda in the first bowl. Whisk the eggs with sugar and vanilla essence in the second bowl. Mix the milk with the plum stew, honey and butter in the third bowl. First, add the dry ingredients to the third bowl and then the egg mixture. Mix it in. Add the raisins and stir again. Put the dough into the cake tin and bake for 70-75 minutes. Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie. Spread the chocolate onto the cake and decorate it.

Enjoy your meal!

Try also
Cranberry-apple cake
Chocolate cake with plums
Simple poppy-seed cake with white chocolate