Ginger apricot loaf

Ginger bakes are among my top favourites. I love ginger cookies and ginger cakes. If you rummage in my kitchen you'll find some fresh ginger, ground ginger, crystallised ginger, stem ginger in syrup as well as ginger in chocolate. I recently received a jar of Chunky Ginger Preserve from Duerr's, and was curious to test how it compares to the other gingery goodies. When you are baking, ground ginger gives a more robust, stronger flavour, while stem ginger in syrup would make your bakes milder in taste. A combination of the two might be just right for a well-balanced flavour: not too strong and not too mild.
And so I baked a ginger apricot loaf for an afternoon tea.

Ginger apricot loaf
Ingredients:
2 eggs
100g molasses sugar
zest of 1 orange
pinch of salt
4 tbsp Duerr's Chunky Ginger preserve
1/3tsp ground cloves
1tsp ground ginger
230g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
120g butter, melted
2tbsp milk
2tbsp golden syrup
80g dried apricots
icing sugar and orange juice for icing

Beat the eggs with the sugar. If you don't have molasses sugar, use a dark sugar like demerara or muscovado. Add some finely grated orange zest (I used a blood orange), a pinch of salt, ginger preserves, cloves, ginger, flour, baking powder as well as melted butter, milk and golden syrup.
Chop the dried apricots into small pieces and add to the cake mixture.
The cake batter is quite thick. Spoon it into a well-oiled 900g loaf tin. Bake for 45+ minutes, check with a wooden skewer if it's ready.
Take the tin out and let it cool for about 10 minutes before removing the loaf from the tin.
Mix 4tbsp of icing sugar with enough of orange juice to make a runny icing and drizzle over the cake.
Serve warm.
It was an experimental cake, but it happened to be delicious, moist and crumbly.

I used Duerr's Chunky Ginger preserve in my recipe. It is a lovely amber-coloured preserve with the most marvellous aroma. It is finely chopped sweet ginger, which will work as a treat on a toast or served with a hot crumpet.

Disclosure: I received a jar of preserves for the purposes of testing and reviewing. All opinions are mine.

As I used some of the molasses sugar which I bought back in summer for baking molasses cookies, and the box has been sitting in my kitchen cupboard since then, I am adding this post to #KitchenClearout linky run by Cheryl at Madhouse Family Reviews.