Hot and Sticky

I am making a cake.
On this furnace of a day.
Sun almighty and me in me shorts.

...............A Honey and Spice cake is baking as I write this. The aroma of ginger, cinnamon and ground cloves is making me feel a little high. So warm and pungent are they. So poetic...so dreamy....spices having that effect on me. Whenever I do spices I trip a bit.

To add gentle sweetness, honey is used, and to give the Delia Smith recipe some oooomph, and so it's not all hot and spicy, a great deal of grated lemon and orange rind is added. Along with lots of candied mixed peel. Grating rind drives me bananas because I've yet to find a decent hardworking little grater that does the job expertly and preferably doesn't remove finger skin. lol. The only grater I have is knackered and is apt to rip my wrists with it's bentness. So whenever I need zest I pull out my indestructible Sabatier paring knife and painstakingly slice and dice:)

This cake is from Delias cake book, can't remember the year, it's also in her original recipe book which I've had for over twenty five years. In it she recommends this cake if one is going out for the day...On a picnic don't you know, and it did indeed accompany me and Mr Horshound on a trip to Harlaxton back in the eighties, don't think we've been on a picnic since!
At any rate Delia was right, it is a thick moist robust cake which tolerates car travel very well.

Her original recipe called for a simple lemon icing but when I checked her online club (of which I'm a member) she now tops the simple icing with chopped stem ginger. Now not so simple...
Would definitely like to try this but for the moment I'm going to decorate with a lemony icing mixed with a spoonful of Ginger conserve. (My invention) The Stem stuff will come later.

Ok m'dears the timer has just pinged............

What a lovely day it is:)