This vegan golden ginger cake is made with lots of golden syrup, chunks of stem ginger, and a handful of sultanas. The resulting cake is a gorgeous golden colour and a bit on the sticky side.
If you have a sweet tooth, you can transform it into a really sticky gingercake by spooning on a little extra golden syrup while the cake is still hot and in the tin.
The recipe uses a mixture of wholemeal and white flour, and light olive oil, for a moist, lightly crumbly texture.
The flavour is reminiscent of McVitie’s Golden Syrup Cake (sadly not on the ‘accidentally vegan’ list, for those of us who grew up with it before becoming vegan). This cake is a little bit less sweet (but still sweet!) with the added zing of preserved ginger and the fruitiness of sultanas.
Like a lot of ginger cakes, it improves if you leave it to rest for a day or so, and will store well in a tin.
Golden ginger cake…
Ingredients
- 300 g plain flour (ideally a 50/50 mix of wholemeal and white)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tsp dried (ground) ginger
- 180 ml golden syrup (Lyle’s or similar)
- 115 ml light olive (or other mild tasting) oil
- 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 3 chunks (each approx 1″) preserved stem ginger
- 50 g sultanas
Method
- Set the oven to 180°C/360°F and lightly oil or line a standard 2 lb loaf tin.
- Sift the flours, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and ginger into a large bowl.
- Spoon the golden syrup into a measuring jug. Add the oil and vinegar, and 170 ml of warm water. Whisk this mixture until well combined.
- Chop the stem ginger fairly finely (pieces should be no more than a few millimetres across), and stir this along with the sultanas into the liquid mixture to ensure all the pieces are separated.
- Pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients, stirring as you go, until well combined. Don’t over-stir.
- Transfer the mixture to the loaf tin and bake for around 45 minutes until it has a deep golden crust and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
- Leave until completely cool, and ideally overnight, before slicing.
If you would like to receive e-mail alerts when new recipes are published, please see my contact page.
Hi. When you say dried ginger, do you mean ground ginger? Like from the spice cupboard?
I made this! It was very good and lasted well, but was a bit dry. This may have been because a) I don’t have a loaf tin of the right size so I had to make it in a flat tin so it was more of a tray bake, and b) I added about half a cup of butternut purée I had around and reduced the water accordingly, and maybe I was a bit stingy with the golden syrup, which is a rather a precious and hard-to-come-by ingredient round here . The butternut did make it extra golden. And not having anything other than extra-virgin olive oil, I instead used some cold-pressed organic sunflower oil, which has a slightly woody flavour which goes very well with the ginger. I have noticed since cutting right back on meat and dairy my palate seems to have sharpened somewhat, I particularly notice and appreciate the different flavours of the various oils I use.
Anyway, just bought some pecans for the banoffee muffins next!
Thanks for the feedback, and glad it worked for you, overall. I haven’t tried butternut squash in this recipe, but do use it in a recipe for pumpkin pecan spice loaf (also on this website). The sunflower oil sounds like a good addition!