Shaky Pete Bundt Cake

So we were having a little soirée. I'd like to tell you that this was a civilised adult dinner party, but in actual fact, it was the three of us sat in our pyjamas, stuffing our faces, playing with Lady the sausage dog, and drinking gin.

My friends like a bit of gin. They like it a lot. I'd been tasked with making a bundt using our botanical fave, so I put my thinking cap on. I was pondering, if my 'thinking cap' was an actual hat, I'm fairly confident it would take the form of some sort of floppy, flowery number, which is difficult to keep on your head. I digress.

So, I decided to recreate a Shaky Pete cocktail, in cake form. This is a legendary cocktail devised by Hawksmoor legend, Pete Jeary, and is a wonderful mix of beer, gin, ginger syrup and lemon, all of which lend themselves perfectly to me shoving them in a bundt tin. The result was a very boozy cake, which was just delightful.

Ingredients

• 225g unsalted butter
• 100g of vegetable fat 
• 650g golden caster sugar
• 6 medium eggs
• 450g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 6 tsp ground ginger
• Zest of one lemon
• 200ml Fuller's London Pride beer
• 50ml nice gin (I used Tanqueray) 
• 500g icing sugar
• Juice of 1 lemon
• More gin... or water... 
• Stem ginger cookies to decorate (optional)

Method

1. Grease and flour a large sized bundt tin (15 cup). 
2. Note: This recipe quantity is for the largest of the Nordic Ware tins, the Anniversary. However, I have used the Elegant Party Tin, and popped the rest in a 1lb loaf tin. Perfect, two cakes!
3. Soften the butter and vegetable fat and then cream in the sugar in stages.
4. Add the eggs one at a time on a slow setting.
5. Add all the remaining dry ingredients to a large bowl.
6. Add the lemon zest to the beer.
7. Sift in 1/3 of the dry ingredients, followed by 1/2 of the liquid. Repeat until all the flour and liquid is used up. Fold it in gently...
8. Tip: at this stage it will look a bugger. Terrible even. Don't worry... 
9. Give the whole thing a quick mix for about 10 seconds or until well combined. It will no longer look wrong.
10. Spoon the mix into the prepared tin and give it a good whack on the worktop. Because the cake has fizzy stuff in, it will hold a lot of air bubbles. Too many may mean the tin design is lost.
11. Bake at gas 3/160 C for about 2 hours (1.5 for a regular sized bundt, and an hour for a 1lb loaf). 
12. It should be shrinking from the sides and a skewer should come out clean.
13. Let it cool in the tin for ten minutes then turn it out. 
14. Allow to cool fully.
15. To make the topping, add the lemon juice to the icing sugar, and enough gin/water to make a runny icing. I used neat gin on mine, which meant it was practically a fire hazard. 
16. Top with chunks of stem ginger cookie, and you're away.

Bloggers: Please respect the fact I am sharing my own ideas and recipe. Blood, sweat and many tears have gone into getting this right, so you may enjoy a perfect bundt. If you wish to re-blog a recipe from these variations, please credit my blog and link to this original post rather than pasting the recipe on your own page. Please see my Creative Commons Copyright information for more details. Thank you.