Fig and clementine gingerbread

Lu and I have spent all week feeling very sorry for ourselves with a horrible virus. This is medicinal baking - unbelievably easy to make (it's all just blitzed in a food processor) so minimal effort for an achey body, and proper comfort food to eat - best served warm with a generous dollop of custard!  It's an adaptation of my sticky ginger loaf cake, but I used dried figs as we didn't have any dates in the pantry, and added clementine zest and juice and made a clementine icing to drizzle over the top. (It also happens to be vegan - no eggs or butter, all the stickiness comes from the figs, clementine juice and lovely liquoricy black treacle.) A big warm hug of a cake!

Ingredients

12 oz plain flour

8 oz caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
Pinch salt
3 tsp ground ginger

½ – 1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ – 1 tsp ground all spice

3 oz dried figs

3 oz crystallised ginger

Zest of 2 clementines, finely grated

Juice of 1 clementine

4 fl. oz sunflower oil
4 tbsp treacle
6 fl. oz boiling water

For the icing

3 oz icing sugar

1 tsp ground ginger

Juice of 1 clementine

To decorate

Fresh figs

Crystalised ginger

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease and line a loaf tin.
2. Place all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarb, salt, ground ginger, cinnamon, all spice, dried figs, crystallised ginger and clementine zest) into a food processor and blitz.
3. In a jug, place the clementine juice, oil, treacle and boiling water and stir well.
4. Pour the contents of the jug into the food processor and whizz until you have a smooth golden brown batter.
5. Pour into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 35 – 40 mins until risen and a cake tester comes out clean.
6. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 mins before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
7. Meanwhile, make the icing by sifting the icing sugar and ground ginger into a bowl, and slowly adding the clementine juice a little at a time while beating with a wooden spoon into a smooth, thick paste.
8. Once the cake is completely cool, pour the icing on top and decorate with slices of crystallised ginger and fresh figs.