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Preheated oven to 350º
½ cup cooking margarine; I use rectangular cakes that arrive in a small carton. Chilled, they drop easily from the paper wrapper. I leave them in the bowl for a few hours to soften up for easier mixing.
4 eggs, but in truth two would probably do.
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½ an inch of fresh ginger root, grated. I don’t bother to peel it.
¾ teaspoon of salt. I have stopped buying salt on the advice of my doctor, so now I just lift a few extra packets if I find myself in a café or fast-food place. I figure one or two of those little sachets are enough salt.
1 level tablespoon of ground nutmeg
1 level tablespoon of ground cinnamon
1 level tablespoon of ground ginger (yes, as well as the grated ginger!)
4 level tablespoons of milk powder.
1 level tablespoon of baking powder. There’s a joke in there somewhere about a level of leavening.
1 level (hah hah!) tablespoon of vanilla extract.
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3 half-cups of sugar. I find it easier to measure three little plastic ½-cups than to estimate a half of a big cup.
4 half-cups of all-purpose flour. I suppose one could use cake flour and omit the baking soda. Next time ...
The mixture pours in to the cake pan and settles flat.
Into the oven for anything from 35 to 60 minutes, depending on the dimensions of the pan and the wetness of your mixture.
Test with the traditional wooden chopstick which I brought home last time I ate Chinese buffet. If the stick comes out dry, the cake is ready.
Turn onto a cooling rack and try to ignore it for at least thirty minutes.