Juliet Sear’s gingerbread latte traybake
It’s perfect for the festive season, Juliet’s gingerbread latte tray bake has all the flavours of the much loved Christmas drink! Gorgeous soft spiced sponge with cinnamon, ginger buttercream frosting - it’s a super easy bake that will definitely take pride of place on your Christmas table this year!
Serves: 12-14
Ingredients
For the sponge mix:
300g self-raising flour
1 tbsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
180g soft unsalted butter, softened
225g light muscovado or soft brown sugar
3 medium free range eggs
40g black treacle
100g chopped stem ginger in syrup
190ml Buttermilk (If you can’t get hold of buttermilk you can replace this with full fat natural yoghurt)
For the coffee syrup:
Approx 5-10g good quality instant espresso powder (to taste)
35g caster sugar
35 ml boiled water
Shot of brandy or coffee liqueur, optional
For the icing:
250g soft unsalted butter
500g unrefined icing sugar, sifted (if you can’t get unrefined you can use regular that’s fine)
80g full fat soft cheese, at room temperature
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
1-2 tbsp of treacle (gives the icing it’s colour)
Traybake tin (approx. 20 x 30cm) Grease and line your tin on the bottom and sides with baking paper.
Piping bags fitted with a mix of nozzles (large round nozzle, closed or open stars are lovely)
For the decoration:
A little red and white fondant/sugarpaste icing - rolled on a little icing sugar to create two strips, twist the two together to create a candy cane shape
Sprinkles of your choice
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C, fan 160°C, gas 4.
1. For the sponge, Sift or whisk together the flour, baking powder and spices to combine.
2. In a bowl cream the butter, sugar, treacle and glace ginger on medium speed for a few minutes until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time combined
3. Add the sifted flour and buttermilk in increments of 3, flour then buttermilk until all mixed in.
4. Place into the tin, level the batter and bake for approx. 20-25 minutes or until risen, springy and a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre.
5. Leave to cool in the tin, pierce all over the sponge with a sharp knife or skewer to aid soaking with the syrup which you can make once the cakes go in the oven.
6. To make the coffee syrup, combine the coffee and sugar in a bowl, stirring in the boiling water until everything has dissolved. Add alcohol if you wish.
7. Drizzle or brush the coffee syrup evenly over all the cake, then after 10 minutes turn out and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
8. To make the buttercream icing, cream the butter, vanilla, spice and treacle until it is really soft and fluffy and is a light cinnamon/ginger shade.
9. Add the icing sugar, a quarter at a time, with the mixture on slow. Once the powdered sugar has blended up, whip up the speed to high for a minute to make it really light.
10. Stir in the cream cheese on slow until combined, then place into your piping bags.
11. To decorate: Pipe the buttercream icing in random swirls and blobs over the traybake sponge, and decorate with the mini gingerbread and candy canes and scatter over some festive sprinkles.
(If you’re short for time, shop bought gingerbread men and candy canes are just as good)