This is delicious. I stole the recipe from someone who is no doubt super well known (Faith Durand) but I haven’t come across her till late last year. I was kindly asked to make my sister’s wedding cake. I decided I wanted the base tier to be something substantial, slightly unusual and warming given the November date. That’s how I stumbled upon this recipe for gingerbread, it’s more of a cake though.

This time I iced it with her suggested cream cheese frosting. I don’t mind the taste but it turned out fierce runny so I would go for, like I did for my sister, with a standard cream cheese buttercream.

The other less that good point on the original recipe are the quantities. 12 tablespoons of butter? How on earth is that the most efficient measurement for that ingredient?

Life. It’s been a hectic little week. Emotionally pretty exhausting. You’ll all be delighted to know that Tom is settling remarkably well in his playschool despite it seeming like a sure defeat last week.

My husband and I had a city break into town. It was so much more lovely than I was expecting. We stayed in a hotel with a view overlooking Stephen’s Green. Went for dinner in a seriously tasty tapas restaurant. Full body massage in a swanky spa. Lunch in the most amazing dessert heavy cafe – Eathos, Lower Baggot st. One of the most relaxing bits was that getting there and back only took half an hour. No airport security. No connecting trains. No irrationally frustrated me.

I also went for a mooch around Parnell st. Mad place. The fabric shop I was aiming for had an amazing selection of all sorts of shit I didn’t need. Everyone needs to go there – Fabric Select. They have everything for dressmaking you could want.

Last thing; I ate a protein bar. I’ve been exercising – don’t know if I told you – and Mr. Exercise said protein bars were better than eating a chocolate bar. Perhaps in an alternate anti-happiness world they are but not in my world. I had to eat the whole shagging lot to make sure but I can emphatically state that protein bars are crap. I felt rubbish for ages afterwards.

This is a whopper cake, a deep 23cm round.

Oven temperature 180 Celsius

Butter                                                                 180g

Blackstrap (or any other kind) molasses    340g

Light muscavado sugar                                   165g

Caster sugar                                                       70g

Salt                                                                      pinch o’

Plain flour                                                           425g

Baking soda                                                       2 teaspoons

Ground ginger                                                   2 teaspoons

Ground cinnamon                                            1/2 teaspoon

Cocoa powder                                                    2 teaspoons

Whole milk                                                         360ml

Eggs                                                                      2

Vanilla essence                                                   1 teaspoon

I am aware that that is a crazy load of ingredients but it’s not actually that complicated.

Begin by lining a 23cm, loose bottomed round tin. If you have foolishly forgotten how to do that click here.

Preheat the oven and begin the melting.

Put the butter, molasses, salt and the two sugars into a saucepan an place on a medium heat. Let it all melt away and come together while you do other things.

In a big mixing bowl weigh our the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon and cocoa powder and mix everything up.

In the last vessel, a jug, beat the milk, eggs and vanilla.

Your pan of sugary butter should have melted by now. Take it off the heat and give a good stir to cool it down a bit.

If you can, keep stirring the liquid while you slowly-ish pour in the milk and eggs. If that’s beyond you then let the mix cool down for a few minutes before adding in the milk.

When it’s all combined pour it into the centre of the floury bowl add start to whisk it altogether – starting slowly in the middle and working in all the flour from the sides.

The batter is now complete.

Pour it into the awaiting tin. Tell your children to not play with the tin. To not open the tin. I forgot this step and went to pick up the tin full of batter only to realise the base was no longer connected to the sides.

I had to scoop the whole feckin’ lot into a huge mixing bowl, fish out all the components of the tin and the baking parchment. Clean it all. Re-assemble it and fill it again. Aren’t children so cute.

Put the tin in the oven and bake for about 40mins until a knife comes out clean after sticking it in the middle.

It’s just perfect served slightly warm with vanilla ice cream.