The Recipe

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs - Weigh them in their shells
• Self raising flour - same weight as the eggs
• Sugar - same weight as the eggs (a mix of brown and white sugar - see below
• Soft butter or margarine - same weight as the eggs
• 1 Teaspoons baking powder
• 1 Teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 Generous dessert spoon of black treacle or molasses

Method:

Weigh the eggs in their shells - and take note of the weight - 188g in my case.

Preheat the oven to 180 C.

Weigh out the flour and sift it into a large bowl.

You don't absolutely need to sift it, but the cakes will be measurably lighter if you do - it's worth the effort.

Measure out all the other ingredients and add them to the bowl.

For the sugar, I used a 50/50 mix of white caster sugar and soft dark brown sugar - you can adjust this to get a richer or lighter cake, as long as the total weight of sugar is the same.

There's no need to mix the butter and sugar separately - everything goes in one bowl - just mix it together to a smooth batter with an electric beater.

For medium to large eggs, the mix should produce enough for about 12 muffin-sized cakes.

Alternatively, the batter can be put into a single 8 inch greased and lined cake tin.

Place the cakes in the oven and bake for 10 minutes - testing by inserting a toothpick - if it comes out clean, they're done - if not, give them another couple of minutes.

Allow the cakes to cool in the tin for at least 5 minutes before handling, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Serve on their own, or with hot custard.

Weigh The Same Concept

The weigh-the-same formula (without the ginger, and using only white sugar) makes a good sponge cake mix all on its own, or it can be used as the basis for any number of experiments.