A giant ginger kiss with coffee cream filling
Original recipes from Country Style, Taste, and New Idea
Last year, for my mum’s birthday I set about making a birthday cake that would resemble her beloved ginger kiss as closely as possible. Using Country Style’s ginger fluff sponge cake recipe, the resulting cake was light, fluffy, perfectly spiced, and needless to say a hit.
Later, when my family finally came together to celebrate a late-Christmas, it seemed the perfect opportunity to take this relatively simple but unanimously delicious cake for another whirl.
Disaster struck on the day before our faux-Christmas. Eager to prepare the sponge ahead of time, I hopped on the Country Style website only to find the ingredient list temporarily missing.
Still eager to recreate the magnificently fluffy ginger treat, I scoured the Internet for a lookalike recipe. The result was a hybrid of Taste’s ginger sponge and New Idea’s chocolate sponge cake with coffee cream.
While this cake mimicked the flavour profile of the Country Style original, unfortunately the ultra-light texture that had my family hooked was lacking. Whether it was the recipe, over-whipped egg whites or faulty raising agents, this cake just didn’t have the same it factor.
Luckily, Country Style have reinstated the ingredients on their site but just in case the go walk-about again, find my tributary version below.
Ingredients
Ginger sponge
4 eggs
¾ cup caster sugar
1/3 cup wheaten cornflour, plus extra for dusting
2/3 cup plain flour
1 tsp cream of tartar
½ tsp baking soda
2 tsp cocoa powder
2 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground cinnamon
Coffee Cream
1 tbsp instant coffee granules
1 tbsp boiling water
2 cups thickened cream
5 tbsp icing sugar
Method
Preheat a fan-forced oven to 160C. Grease two 22cm round cake pans and lightly dust sides with cornflour.
Using an electric stand mixer, beat the eggs and caster sugar for 8-10 minutes or until thick and creamy.
Meanwhile, triple sift the flours, cream of tartar, baking soda, cocoa, ginger and cinnamon together.
Gently fold dry ingredients into egg mixture until combined.
Divide the mixture between prepared pans.
Bake for 18-20 minutes or until the sponges spring back when touched.
Remove from the oven and turn the sponges out onto a baking paper-lined wire rack to cool.
Once the cakes are completely cooled, dissolve coffee granules in boiling water and set aside to cool.
Using an electric stand mixer, beat the cream, sugar and coffee mixture until soft peaks form.
To assemble, set one of the sponge layers on a cake stand, spread with coffee cream.
Top with remaining cake, spread with coffee cream and dust with cocoa powder.