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Sour Milk Ginger Cake

Sour Milk Ginger Cake is a traditional English recipe (originating in Cornwall) for classic lardy cake with sugar, treacle and ginger moistened with soured milk and leavened with bicarbonate of soda. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic English version of: Sour Milk Ginger Cake.

prep time

20 minutes

cook time

60 minutes

Total Time:

80 minutes

Serves:

8–10

Rating:

Tags : Milk RecipesBaking RecipesCake RecipesBritish RecipesEnglish RecipesCornish Recipes

This is a traditional (pre-war) cake from Cornwall. It's clearly a farm-style cake that uses soured fresh milk (originally milk with vinegar added, but today I would add lemon juice). Sour milk is simply a mixture of 2 tbsp lemon juice to every 250ml (1 cup) of milk. Set the mixture aside for 5-10 minutes until it thickens, then use. You could substitute sour cream if desired.

Ingredients:

450g (1 lb) plain flour
1 tsp (level) baking powder
pinch of salt
2 tsp of ground ginger
90g (3 oz) butter
90g (3 oz) lard
225g (½ lb) soft brown sugar
1 egg
150ml (3/5 cup) black treacle (molasses)
150ml (3/5 cup) soured whole milk
1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda dissolved in 1 tbsp boiling water.

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 180°C (160°C fan/355F).

Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and ground ginger in a bowl.

Cream together the fats and sugar until smooth and fluffy (due to the lard it will never be that fluffy). Add the egg, beating to combine, before adding the treacle, followed by the sour cream. After tach addition beat well to combine (easiest done with an electric whisk).

Now fold in the flour and ginger along with the bicarbonate of soda. Mix well, then turn into a prepared, greased and lined tin (I usually use a round spring-form cake tin) but a lined loaf tin also works.

Transfer to your pre-heated oven and bake from 45-70 minutes (the lower end if you are using a large, shallow tin; the upper limit if using a deep but smaller tin). Reduce the heat to 170°C (150C/340F). When done the cake will be golden brown on top, just firm to the touch and a skewer inserted into the centre will emerge cleanly.

Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

If desired, you can dust with icing sugar before serving.