GINGER CAKE

Gingerbread or ginger based desserts, drinks, coffees and toppings seems to be a favourite flavour this time of year.  I like ginger and often have some candied ginger in the house to chew on when I get the desire to have a sweet piece of ginger.  I also have a jar of sushi ginger in the fridge as the restaurants or grocery stores never put enough ginger in with your take out sushi order.  I found this recipe on simplyrecipes.com and decided that it would be a great dessert to make.  One of the ingredients is candied ginger and I would recommend adding it to the recipe as I believe it adds to the taste of the cake.  If you don't have candied ginger you can substitute fresh ginger.  This cake also tastes better with time and the flavours do intensify after a day.  You can serve this cake warm, with ice cream, some whip cream or just on its own.

Flour and other dry ingredients mixed together.

Wet ingredients before adding to the bowl with the flour mixture.

Ingredients blended in the mixing bowl.

Uncooked cake before going into the oven.

Baking is done and the cake is cooking on a rack. 

Ready for sampling.

INGREDIENTS:

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter or margarine

½ cup water

½ cup molasses, unsulphured

½ cup honey

½ cup brown sugar

2 eggs, room temperature

1 tbsp fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated

1 tbsp candied ginger, minced

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 ½  tspbaking soda

1 tsp ground ginger

1 ½  tsp cinnamon

½  tsp salt

¼ tsp ground cloves

¼ tsp nutmeg

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter and lightly flour an 9x9 baking dish. Fit a piece of parchment or baking paper inside and allow some to hang off the sides (this will make it easier to lift the cake out of the pan later). Lightly butter and flour the paper as well.

In a sauce pant over medium heat, place the butter, molasses, honey, water, and brown sugar. Stir to melt the butter. Do not allow to simmer or boil. Once the butter is melted take the pot off the heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Be sure to stir the mixture every so often as the sugar and fat will form skin on the surface.

Once room temperature, whisk the eggs, grated ginger, and candied ginger into the molasses mixture. Set aside.

Mix together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg in a large mixing bowl. Add the flour to the molasses mixture in three or four additions and whisk until it is combined.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 35 minutes. Loosely place a piece of foil over the top and bake for another 15-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack for ten minutes, then lift the cake out of the pan and continue to cool on the rack. You can serve this fresh out of the oven, but the flavor is much better if you give it a day to sit and allow the spices to intensify the cake.

Adapted from simplyrecipes.com