Store your root ginger in a freezer bag in the freezer and grate it straight from frozen for ease. If well wrapped, the cake keeps for at least a week.
200g/8oz butter, cut in pieces, plus extra for greasing
200g/8oz dates, stoned
300g/10oz dark muscovado sugar
2 eggs
50g/2oz fresh or frozen ginger, grated
grated zest of 1 lemon
200g/8oz self-raising flour
1 Bramley apple (about 250g/9oz), peeled and chopped into pea-sized pieces
50g/2oz white chocolate
1 tbsp chopped candied lemon peel and 1 tbsp sugar ‘coffee crystals’, to decorate
Takes 2 hours • Cuts into 12 slices
1 Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. Butter and line a 20cm-round cake tin (about 8cm deep) with baking parchment. Put the dates in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Heat the butter in a small pan until melted, then stir in the sugar. Allow to cool slightly. Beat in the eggs, ginger and lemon zest.
2 Drain the dates and chop them finely. Scrape them into the pan too and mix well. Stir in the flour, then the apple. Spoon into the cake tin, put the tin on a baking sheet and bake for about 1¼ hours, until well risen. A skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come out with a few moist crumbs sticking to it. Leave to cool in the tin.
3 Break the white chocolate into a bowl and melt in the microwave. Trickle the chocolate over the cake, scatter with candied peel and coffee crystals.
PER SLICE 376 kcals, protein 4g, carbs 57g, fat 16g, sat fat 9g, fibre 2g, sugar 30g, salt 0.53g