COOK Comic Relief Bake Sale

What could be better motivation on a Monday morning than a whole table full of cake? This was the pretty picture which greeted everyone at the kitchen yesterday morning: a delicious spread of home baked cakes for COOK's Comic Relief Bake Sale.

With this epic bake sale we managed to raise £300 at the kitchen for Comic Relief (this was definitely a result of our generosity rather than our greed). There was certainly something for everyone as evidenced by the sparse table at the end of the day. 

It was all cooked by the many closet bakers we have working here at COOK, who we'll definitely be pestering to share their talents more often! 

Creations ranged from the bizarre to the beautiful, including a giant Comic Relief nose cake and some personalised COOK cupcakes decorated with all the joys of spring. Now all we need is another excuse to hold a charity bake sale... 

In the mean time, here's the next best thing: Becky shared her recipe for delicious Sticky Ginger Cake, which proved particularly popular during the bake sale.

Becky's Sticky Ginger Cake

225g self raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate soda

1 tbsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp mixed spice

115g butter

115g muscovado sugar

115g black treacle

115g golden syrup

250ml whole milk

85g drained stem ginger, finely grated

1 egg

Preheat oven to 160/180

Butter and line a round tin with grease proof paper.

Put the flour, bicarbonate soda and all the spices into a large mixing bowl. Then add the butter cubes and rub until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.

Put the sugar, treacle, syrup, and milk in a saucepan and heat, gently keep stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Turn up the heat and bring to just below boiling point. Be careful at this point as this mixture can burn and ruin the cake - I tend to try the mixture to before I mix it with the flour to check it doesn't taste burnt

Add the stem ginger to the flour mixture then pour in the treacle mixture. If you want the cake to be extra moist and sticky add a couple of drizzles of the syrup from the stem ginger jar. Break in the egg and beat until the mixture looks like a thick pancake batter.

Pour into the tin and cook for 50 minutes to an hour. When cooked take out of the oven and leave for 10 minutes to cool. As the cake can be sticky it's best to leave it until completely cool before removing from the tin.