The tartist and I have just enjoyed an afternoon cappuccino accompanied by a slice of Jenny's Double Ginger Cake which is a new arrival at the Artcafé. Our Jenny has certainly inherited the tartist gene if her new cake is anything to go by, a very moist and substantially gingery cake which prompted us immediately to discuss how comfortably ginger as a flavour sits with coffee. There are certain obvious partners to coffee, chocolate for example or vanilla or almond perhaps but I hadn't really thought of ginger before this afternoon's slice of ginger cake and it was something of a minor revelation. A bit off topic but still on the subject of ginger cake, Jenny's recipe came up in conversation and Clare from Colchester Artcafé revealed that she used to have ginger cake and custard as a pudding, then the tartist piped up and said 'ooh yeah my mum used to do it too in our house' and I have to confess there were many times when we as kids were treated to McVities Jamaica Ginger Cake and Birds custard as a pudding (quite often after Cubs whilst watching Z-Cars or Rising Damp). Now I recon this combination was possibly going on in the seventies up and down the land and I'd be curious to learn if anyone else had this as a pud. in their household at the time?
3 comments:
never really considered ginger as a compliment to coffee...although the husband is partial to Ginger Snaps...hmmmm.
Ginger cake and custard - absolutely staple 1970s winter fodder at home! And at school, where it would be served with a strange, gloopy, pure white 'custard', the like of which (thankfully) I've never seen since. I love ginger cake and I love custard but I just can't stand the two together (or custard with any kind of cakey or pastry-based pud), which is undoubtedly a legacy from those years when, as a painfully slow eater, my pudding would always be lukewarm and the custard congealing by the time I got round to tackling it!
I grew up in Cape Town, South Africa and having since moved to New York, the one place I could get my hands on the Diviiiine Ginger Cake and Custard that my granma used to make me is Tea & Sympathy in NYC (but its so flippin' expensive!).
I need to just go ahead and make it myself...
Also, the congealing and glooping together of it was one of the Highlights!
Gaarrgh! I wish I was around the corner from Tea & Sympathy right now!!!
Also, I LOOOOVE ginger snaps, but they're Never spicy enough for me ;)
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