Last weekend Alice served some lovely ginger cake with the tea. It came from one of the Suffolk farm shops, it was moist, sticky on top and oozing with ginger. I loved it.

At home I looked through the net, found a recipe that I thought would be closest to the one I wanted and made it last night. It is excellent, but I will double the amount of ginger next time.

• 250 g butter
• 275 g soft brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• AT LEAST  4 tbsp of fresh grated ginger
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 250 ml milk
• 320g plain flour
• 4tsp baking powder
• 4tsp ground ginger
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt

Oven 180 C/gas mark 4.

Prepare the cake tin, grease it and line with baking paper.

Sift all the powdered ingredients and flour.

Cream the butter and sugar, then add eggs one by one. Add ginger ( and some more ginger! ) and vanilla. Beat in all the powders and milk. Pour into the prepared tin. Bake for 40-45 minutes.