Apple ginger cake: for when the birthday cake has to survive a backpack

Multi-layered, icing-filled constructions do not survive well in a rucksack (I've tried), and besides which, most people actually do not like them so much as simpler, less sweet confections. However, I firmly believe that birthday cakes are absolutely necessary, no matter how old the person and wherever you are going to celebrate.

Cakes which stay fresh or even improve after a couple of days sitting are best - anything containing muscovado sugar, treacle, spices or fruit is a good bet, as are those with a syrup dowsing. Some stalwarts of my touring birthday cake repertoire are Smitten Kitchen's lemon cake (I adore this, but it is rather labour-intensive), Nigella's dense dark chocolate loaf from How to be a Domestic Goddess and for speedy crowd pleasing, brownies (though these don't last well for more than a day or two).

Gingerbread travels well, but for something a bit more interesting and celebratory, this is more cake-like and stuffed with apples and sweet-spicy lumps of crystallised ginger. I made for my friend A for his birthday, on which his activity of choice was freeriding in Flumserberg. We had fresh tracks almost the whole day, it went from overcast to cloudless blue skies by midday and there was snow flowing up over my thighs and even into my face as we descended. It was fantastic. We ate sandwiches on the lift rather than stop, but the cake was treated with a little more ceremony: eaten outside a small hut at Fursch obtained by a bootpack and a descent out of the back of the resort from the Leist, with tea and sun and mountain views, before being towed back to the resort behind a skidoo. In the words of A: it's as fun as it sounds!


Adapted liberally from Allora Andiamo, who got it from Marguerite Patten

Ingredients:
110g butter
50g black treacle
120g golden syrup
90g light muscovado sugar
20g dark muscovado sugar
2 tbsp water
75g crystallised ginger (I used the dry type, the stuff in syrup would work too, but drain it well first)
2 medium apples (preferably a more sour variety)
225g plain flour
2.5 tsp ground ginger
0.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
4 tbsp milk
1 egg

Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees Celcius. Line base and sides of a 20cm round, high sided cake tin (springform would be ideal, but I don't have one) with baking paper.

Put butter, sugars, syrups and water in a saucepan and heat gently until butter is melted and sugar dissolved. Meanwhile, chop ginger into tiny (about half a centimetre) dice. Peel, core and chop apples. I cut each quarter lengthways into 3 pieces and then chopped into about half to one centimetre pieces.

Mix flour and ginger in a bowl. Add the warmed liquid to the flour and stir together.

Separately, mix bicarbonate of soda and 1 tbsp of milk together, then add to the batter. Rinse out the saucepan with the rest of the milk and stir into the rest. Beat in the egg. Add the apple and crystallised ginger chunks and stir just until combined.

Pour into the lined tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 1.5 hours, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cover the top with foil if it starts to colour too much.

Leave to cool in the tin on a wire rack. Wrap well in foil if you want to keep it for a couple of days before eating. It will stay moist and even improve.

Savoy Spaghetti (aka waistline rescue)

Not one for adventure, but for when you suddenly find that your power-to-weight ratio is plummeting. Say for example, you've replaced after work indoor climbing sessions with German classes. Or the ski touring season just hasn't happened yet, despite it being March already. Or both. 

And it's delicious too! (Assuming you like cabbage). So no reason really to wait until you're feeling both fat and hungry.

Ingredients:

Savoy (or other tasty) cabbage leaves: enough to heapingly fill a pasta bowl when shredded but still raw

0.5 - 1 tsp butter

Finely grated parmesan: about 20g

Black pepper

Cut any thick stems out of the cabbage leaves then shred very finely - I'm talking strands not much more than 1mm wide. You're trying to make something that when cooked you can twirl around a fork like pale green spaghetti.

Put just enough water in a saucepan to cover the bottom and add a pinch of salt and the cabbage. Cook with a lid on until cabbage is soft. Give it a stir once or twice during cooking, bringing the bottom layer to the top, to make sure the strands cook evenly.

Warm your pasta bowl or plate (this cools down strangely quickly).

Once cooked strain out excess water, transfer to warmed bowl and stir in the butter. Use enough that the cabbage is slightly lubricated and doesn't totally stick together. Fold in the grated parmesan, season very lightly with a grind of black pepper and eat. 

Alternatives: use truffle oil in place of the butter. Or after straining cabbage return to the pan with the butter and a few chili flakes and heat gently, stirring to distribute the spice throughout.

Less conducive to weight loss, but also good: sauté a few finely sliced mushrooms in the butter before adding to the cabbage.