Greatest Recipes Ever: Constance Spry’s Belvoir Ginger Cake
Rose Prince chooses Constance Spry’s Belvoir Ginger Cake as one of her greatest recipes ever.
‘A recipe that I have known since childhood, and the best, stickiest, darkest cake that just gets better and better stored in the tin'
Belvoir Ginger Cake Extract from The Constance Spry Cookery Book Constance Spry & Rosemary Hume First published in 1956 by J. M. Dent & Sons
This must be made at least a day or two before required.
Ingredients 4oz butter 4oz brown sugar 4oz sultanas 10oz (or a breakfast cup) black treacle 1 teaspoon ground ginger 2 eggs ½lb plain flour ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda 2-3 tablespoons milk A few blanched split almonds or 1 piece of stem ginger drained from syrup and sliced Method Cream butter, add sugar, cream again thoroughly. Then add fruit, treacle, ginger and the eggs one at a time with about half of the flour.
Mix thoroughly. Add remaining flour with the soda warmed in the milk. Turn at once into a papered, greased, and floured 8in tin. Bake in a slow oven for about an hour or more. When two-thirds baked, scatter the top of the cake with preserved ginger or almonds. Finish baking.
This cake is excellent for picnics eaten with a wedge of cheese, Cumberland fashion.
Exquisite houses, the beauty of Nature, and how to get the most from your life, straight to your inbox.
Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by His Majesty The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.
-
Dream of revolution inside the 18th-century villa once occupied by Napoleon's French troopsAn apartment inside historic Villa Gnecchi Ruscone is on the market and it comes with a grand ballroom rumoured to have been frequented by Napoleon.
-
Get ready to get spooky in the Halloween edition of the Country Life Quiz of the Day, October 31, 2025Ghosts, ghouls and ghastly questions lurk in today's quivering quiz.
-
Summer pudding recipe: buttery pistachio tartsThe very best pistachios might be costly, but they make a suitably sumptuous pudding.
-
Recipe: Floral strawberry shortcake perfect for summerNothing represents our glorious British summer quite like sweet and juicy strawberries.
-
How to make hummingbird carrot cake, an traditional favourite with a twistCarrot cake, with a tropical twist from out kitchen garden cook.
-
How to make chocolate-and-orange upside-down tea cake, with orange whipped creamSo much more than marmalade – our kitchen garden cook Melanie Johnson finds delicious things to do with oranges.
-
How to make quince-and-walnut crumble cakeOur kitchen garden cook bakes quince-and-walnut crumble cake, a delicious autumnal pudding which will satisfy seasonal glut.
-
How to make salted-caramel, apple and roasted-hazelnut galetteA fail-safe French pudding recipe from our kitchen garden cook.
-
How to make Frances Quinn’s banoffee tumbler trifleTry this delicious pudding from former GBBO winner at your very own candlelit supper and 'Shine for ShelterBox.'
-
Perfect pud: Cherry clafoutis with kirsch compoteTry this speciality of the Limousin region.
