Eunice Power - Healing Foods

January has come around rather quickly, the month in which I am always full of good intentions regarding my diet and lifestyle – an annual necessity after a hectic Christmas. However, my body isn’t as fit as my mind, it’s telling me it needs a break, that it is craving warm, healing, nourishing food. And while I’m in listening mode, “What else are you saying, dear body?” – Oh yes, you want ginger!

If you are like me, juggling a family and a job, Christmas can indeed be a trying time and early January generally heralds a collapse into a heap surrounded by tinsel and a sagging Christmas tree.

All the colds and ailments that have been threatening for months decide now is the time to visit. Fortunately January is also a long month and the sugar-free good intentions can be put aside for a week allowing us to nourish ourselves.

I recently bought 3 ginger roots, great big sprawling things that resemble the hands of a hard working man – the ultimate healing hands, which, when grated and added to boiling water for ginger tea with honey and lemon, or used in soups, cakes, breads or stews, will sooth and revive the body and spirit.

The following cake is just what the doctor ordered. Lots of healing ginger, warming cinnamon, cleansing lemon with an egg thrown in for good measure!

In the words of my Mother - Be nice to yourself.

Sticky Gingerbread With Lemon Drizzle

225g self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground mixed spice
115g butter
115g dark muscovado sugar
115g black treacle
115g golden syrup
250ml whole milk
85g grated ginger
1 egg
For the drizzle
50g icing sugar, sifted
zest of one lemon
Juice of one lemon

Preheat the oven to fan 170C. Butter and line an 18cm round, 7cm deep cake tin with greaseproof or parchment paper.

Put the flour, bicarbonate of soda and all the spices into a large mixing bowl. Add the butter and rub it into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs - or blitz in the food processor.

Put the sugar, treacle, syrup and milk in a medium saucepan and heat, gently stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Turn up the heat and bring the mixture to a gentle simmer.

Stir the grated ginger into the flour mixture, then pour in the treacle mixture, stirring as you go with a wooden spoon. Break in the egg and beat until all of the mixture is combined. Pour this into the prepared tin and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until a skewer pushed into the centre of the cake comes out fairly clean. Leave to cool completely in the tin before turning cake out.

To make the drizzle, sieve the icing sugar and mix together with the lemon juice and zest, spoon the drizzle over the cake.

This cake will keep for up to two weeks.

Photography: Shane O Neill www.aspectphotography.net
Food Styling: Leona Humphreys www.onefineplate.com
 

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More recipes from Eunice Power are available on www.eunicepower.com

Room reservations can be made on www.powersfield.com - hope to see you in Dungarvan during the year.

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Eunice Power is a professional chef with over twenty years experience in the hospitality business. She runs Powersfield House in Dungarvan County Waterford, which is our B&B of the Year for 2012 and also the winner of the Best B&B Breakfast. Her philosophy is to use fresh, seasonal, locally produced food, sourced organically where possible. 

Eunice has a successful outside catering company, writes about food (she is the author of an excellent cookery book written for local company Waterford Stanley) and teaches at Paul Flynn’s Tannery Cooking School, where her enthusiasm and zest for a life filled with good food are given free rein."