Ingredients (serves 12)

• 3 cups self-raising flour
• 1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
• 175 grams unsalted butter
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 400g Jar Stem ginger in Syrup (I like Hong Kong ‘Tung chun’ brand usually available from Chinese supermarkets or Sri Lankan Spice shops.)
• 4 Eggs
• 1/2 cup lukewarm milk

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 ºC (350 ºF)
2. Sift flour and baking powder into a bowl and set aside.
3. In another mixing bowl cream butter and sugar and beat well. Add eggs one a time mixing thoroughly.
4. Remove stem ginger from the jar carefully with a fork, saving he remaining syrup left in the jar for a later step. Either chop up ginger with a knife or pulse in a food processor until chopped. Pulsing is necessary otherwise you will end up with a paste, which is ok but you lose any texture. Add chopped ginger to the butter/sugar/egg mixture.
5. Add sifted flour/baking powder that you set aside earlier and warm milk to the mixture and mix until combined. The mixture should be a soft dropping consistency. If the mix is too dry you can always add a little more milk if needed.
6. Pour the ginger syrup that was left in jar into the bottom of a well-buttered baking dish (I find a 20cm square tin cooks the most evenly) and then carefully spoon your batter mixture over the top. Cover the baking dish with foil.
7. Place baking dish into another larger baking tray and then pour enough water into that tray to come halfway up the sides of the dish.
8. Bake for about 1 ½ to 2 hours at around 180ºc (maybe 170ºc if fan forced, depending on your oven) until the pudding feels firm and springy to touch in the centre and has loosened from the sides of the tin.
9. Carefully turn out into a plate and serve hot with cream or custard or vanilla ice cream. Note: if there is any syrupy cake (after baking) stuck to the bottom of tin I just scrape that off and spread back over the top of the steamed cake, as per the image.