It’s World Gin Day! How exciting is that? How can you celebrate? Well, for starters by pouring yourself a gin and tonic, but you can also get on the baking bandwagon with and make a gin loaf cake - be inspired by gin cocktails and then make them into cakes!
I discovered World Gin Day - now in its fifth year - last year and it’s definitely my favourite of the mildly silly ‘World [something] Day’ set. Most of these days are absolutely pointless, but a day dedicated to celebrating gin? I don’t think it’s a huge surprise that I am most certainly on board to celebrate that!
So today gin fans around the world will be raising a glass to the world’s most delicious spirit. If you’ve seen their Twitter feed lately you’ll know that more and more people are getting on board and raising a glass - there’s a lot of love for gin out there (we’ll see how many still love it tomorrow morning). This year there are events running up and down the country (although sadly only two in Edinburgh, neither of which I can attend - might just have to set up my own next year), and all this to celebrate a shared passion for good gin. Seriously, what’s not to love?
I thought long and hard about what I could do to celebrate - apart from having a G&T or three later, that’s a given - and realised that there was an obvious choice. What better way is there to celebrate than by having cake?
So as I sit here in a sunlit window there is a glorious smell of cake wafting through the flat. I may have been far too productive for a Saturday morning, but since the result certainly smells good, I think I’ll survive. This brings me nicely on to fog horns. I was doing a little research online last weekend into different gin-based cocktails which I could transform into cake for this month’s Baking with Spirit challenge (hosted by the lovely Janine at Cake of the Week) - the challenge being cocktails, this time around - and came across quite an apt one. The fog horn.
The original cocktail recipe - gin, lime juice and ginger ale - sounded pretty damn delicious, but it also struck a bit of a chord with me as ‘fog horn’ has been an on-off unofficial nickname that several groups of my friends and colleagues have given me over the years. Obviously I have absolutely no idea why my dulcet, hushed tones have earned me the dubious honour of such a title - I personally believe I am as quiet as a mouse. If that mouse was rather larger than usual, and substantially louder.
OK, so I struggle with the ‘quiet’ concept, but I certainly didn’t struggle to adapt this cocktail into a gin loaf cake. I substituted the ginger ale for plain ginger (no one likes a soggy cake), used lime zest to boost the flavour and threw in as much gin as I thought the mixture could reasonably take - and so the Fog Horn, a gin loaf cake was born.
It was a bit of an experiment, and next time (because there is no way that this will be a one-use recipe) I might use a bit more lime, but on the whole I would say that the loaflettes (totally a word) turned out deliciously well. You should definitely try them. I was a little sceptical about gin in a cake, but I’m pleased to have proved myself wrong - there’s no stopping me now!
However you are celebrating, I hope you have a fantastic World Gin Day! Cheers!
Gin Loaf Cakes
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 Cakes 1x
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This recipe was an original (and successful) experiment by The Usual Saucepans, any resemblance to other recipes is purely coincidental. It’s a simple cake recipe, with the new ingredients added on the side. Don’t worry about gin not working in it, most of the bitter alcohol gets cooked off, leaving just that beautiful flavour. I used Bombay Sapphire in mine, but you can use whatever gin you have handy. It will make about four mini loaves, to make more simply scale up the quantities.
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs
- 130g self raising flour
- 130g butter
- 130g caster sugar
- 1 lime
- 3cm ginger
- 50ml gin
Instructions
Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until smooth, then sieve in the flour. Grate in the ginger and zest in the lime; squeeze in the juice and pour in the gin. Mix thoroughly.
Crack in the eggs (preferably showing off to yourself and doing it one-handed, although this won’t change the taste) one by one and stir them in to the mix. Beat the mixture with a wooden spoon until it becomes smooth and lightens – the lighter the colour, the lighter the sponge will be.
Spoon the mixture into mini loaf cases and place in the centre of the oven. Bake for 15-20 minutes until springy to the touch and golden brown on top. They can be eaten warm, or cool on a wire rack.
- Category: Baking
Amazing, is the taste of the gin reasonably noticeable then? I really like both gin and baking with alcohol, but I’ve never bothered combining the two because I assumed gin flavour wouldn’t come through properly, though now I think of it I suppose it is herbal and herbs tend to be pungent. I may have to rethink. Also, do you think quality would make a difference? Baking may be a good way to use up some bargain-basement stuff I’ve got lurking around (it wasn’t me that bought it, no judging!) and also I’m wondering if the fancy stuff might be a bit wasted, a bit like using premium vodka to make extracts. I suppose I could always use my 99p (well close enough) gin to make raspberry gin then bung that in a cake. Sorry for the stream of consciousness, this has got me thinking…
It’s noticeable, but not overpowering (which is what I was a bit concerned about). I think it’s something you have to be fairly careful about - gin doesn’t often lend itself well to sweetness, but when it does it’s fantastic. Hmm, I think it’ll definitely make a difference, but like you say, anything too good will be lost (I’m also not judging, not if you didn’t buy it - we’ve all found that odd bottle that someone’s brought to a party or we’ve inherited from somewhere - I had a bottle gin like that once too and made the foolish error of tasting it to see ‘just how bad it was’. It was worse.) If you make it into something else to hide the flavour first then it’ll probably work - although I wouldn’t bet on the raspberry gin tasting too good on it’s own. Oh, and if it doesn’t work, I’ve found that dirt cheap ‘gin’ tends also to work quite well as drain cleaner…
These loaflettes (should totally be a word) sound really tasty. I’m not sure I’ve heard of a foghorn, but it sounds like a good cocktail to adapt into a cake as well as drink. Thanks for entering BWS again! I really appreciate that you try to enter every month.
Cheers, they were (even if I say so myself!) I’d never heard of the Fog Horn either, but I like the combination. You’re welcome - at the risk of sounds a little alcoholic-ish, it’s my favourite challenge.
I’ve long been trying to champion loaflets as a word, without much success. But I really think we’re on to something with it. My main point though, was that the Fog Horn sounds delicious, whether in a glass or in cake. Preferably both. Long live World Gin Day, etc.!!
Until now! Raise you wooden spoons and hoist those loaflet cases high! It does sound tasty, doesn’t it - I’ve not tried it in liquid form, but I can attest to the fact that it works in a loaflet. I do love World Gin Day!
I love the fact that you have an entire category named “Baking with Booze”…Right on! And, we’re Baking with Spirit compats. Cheers to you, Craig!
Cheers Ellen! Quite possibly my favourite category as well. PS. Great blog name 😉