For some reason, as I was writing the title of this post, I thought of the lyrics from Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. Odd.
Anyway, gingerbread is one of my favorite holiday treats. I love the cookies, I love it in a spicier form like pfeffernusse and I love gingerbread cake. I don’t make it nearly enough, though, even around the holidays. I have a favorite gingerbread cookie recipe & a favorite Guinness ginger cake recipe, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy trying others. So I thought that this year, I’d make a plain gingerbread cake- no Guinness, no chocolate- and top it with some fluffy white snow.
And trees. Gotta have trees.
For the trees, I got the how-to from The Cake Blog. Pretty self-explanatory, but still. It’s a fun & easy way to make cupcake or cake toppers.
It’s so retro-looking, isn’t it?
The little elves are from Tiny Things are Cute. And these are indeed cute.
Let me also take a quick detour here & compliment myself; my new dining room wall color looks awesome! Okay, back to the cake.
GINGERBREAD CAKE (from Joy of Baking)
Ingredients:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 1/2 cup unsulphured molasses
- 1 cup whole milk
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350° degrees F and place rack in center of oven. Butter and flour an 8″ round or square cake pan with 2″ sides.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, ground cinnamon, ginger and cloves.
- In bowl of your electric mixer (or in a large bowl with a hand mixer), beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the lemon zest and molasses and beat to combine. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the dry ingredients and milk, alternately, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Beat just until incorporated.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with an offset spatula. Bake for 40 – 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before removing cake from pan. Let cool completely and then frost with 7-minute frosting (below).
- This cake will keep for several days at room temperature. Frosting will get hard the longer it’s out, but it’s still edible.
7-MINUTE FROSTING AKA “SNOW”
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1/3 cup water
- 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
- 3 large egg whites, room temperature
Directions:
- Combine 3/4 cup sugar with the water and corn syrup in a small saucepan; clip a candy thermometer to side of pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves. Continue boiling, without stirring, until syrup reaches 230° degrees.
- Meanwhile, in the bowl of a standing electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk egg whites on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. With mixer running, add remaining tablespoon sugar, beating to combine.
- As soon as sugar syrup reaches 230° degrees, remove from heat. With mixer on medium-low speed, pour syrup down side of bowl in a slow, steady stream. Raise speed to medium-high; whisk until mixture is completely cool (test by touching the bottom of the bowl) and stiff (but not dry) peaks form, about 7 minutes (hence the name). Use immediately.
WARNING: Do NOT get any egg yolk in the egg whites. But mistakes happen… so if you do, try & scoop it out as much as possible with a broken egg shell, then add a bit of cream of tartar to the whites. It’ll help them get closer to where they need to be in spite of the yolk. And if you’re scared, then yeah sure. Use the marshmallow Fluff, you big wuss.
If it were me, & I was making the 7-minute frosting for this cake on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day/the day of a celebration, I’d make the cake in advance & frost it just before serving, or at least the day of. The cake is easy enough to make the day of, though. However this frosting does get hard so you want it to be as fresh as possible. You could also frost this cake with fresh whipped cream, lemon cream cheese frosting or just sprinkle some confectioner’s sugar on it.
And watch out for those elves!
Sweet blog! I found it while browsing on Yahoo News. Do you
have any tips on how to get listed in Yahoo News?
I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to get
there! Many thanks
Greetings, I believe your site could possibly be having internet browser compatibility issues.
When I look at your site in Safari, it looks fine however, when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping issues.
I just wanted to provide you with a quick heads up!
Apart from that, great website!
Heya i’m for the primary time here. I found
this board and I in finding It truly helpful & it helped me out
much. I hope to provide something back and help others such as you helped me.
Howdy! This post could not be written much better!
Reading through this article reminds me of my previous
roommate! He always kept talking about this. I will send this article to him.
Fairly certain he’ll have a very good read. I appreciate
you for sharing!
Post writing is also a fun, if you be acquainted with afterward you can write otherwise it is complex to write.
I got this website from my pal who informed me about this web
site and at the moment this time I am browsing this web site and reading very informative articles
at this time.
I loved as much as you will receive carried out right here.
The sketch is tasteful, your authored subject matter stylish.
nonetheless, you command get bought an nervousness over that you wish be delivering the following.
unwell unquestionably come further formerly again as exactly the same nearly a lot often inside case you
shield this hike.
Fantastic goods from you, man. I have consider your stuff previous to and you’re simply too great.
I really like what you’ve acquired here, really
like what you’re saying and the way in which you assert it.
You make it entertaining and you continue to care for to keep it sensible.
I can not wait to learn far more from you. That is really a great web site.
If some one desires to be updated with most up-to-date technologies afterward he must be go to see this website and be
up to date every day.
Hi there to all, it’s really a nice for me to pay a visit this web site, it contains valuable Information.
Valuable information. Lucky me I found your website
accidentally, and I’m surprised why this twist of fate did not happened in advance!
I bookmarked it.
Great items from you, man. I’ve be mindful your stuff prior to and you’re just extremely wonderful.
I actually like what you have got right here, certainly like what you’re stating and the way through which
you are saying it. You are making it entertaining
and you continue to care for to stay it wise.
I can’t wait to read far more from you. This
is really a terrific website.
Hi there, I found your blog by means of Google at the
same time as looking for a related topic, your site came up, it looks great.
I have bookmarked it in my google bookmarks.
Hello there, just become alert to your blog through Google, and located that
it’s really informative. I’m gonna be careful for brussels.
I’ll be grateful in case you proceed this in future.
A lot of other people will likely be benefited out of your writing.
Cheers!
Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to make your point.
You definitely know what youre talking about, why waste your intelligence
on just posting videos to your site when you could
be giving us something informative to read?
I always spent my half an hour to read this webpage’s articles or reviews daily along with a mug of coffee.
Way cool! Some extremely valid points! I appreciate you penning
this post plus the rest of the site is really good.
I’ve read several excellent stuff here. Certainly price bookmarking for revisiting.
I surprise how much effort you place to make such a great informative
web site.
Aw, this was a very nice post. Taking the time and actual effort
to generate a good article… but what can I say… I put things
off a lot and never seem to get nearly anything done.
Thanks for finally writing about > CUPCAKE REHAB | est.
2007 < Liked it!
WOW just what I was searching for. Came here by searching for cupcake rehab
Excellent web site you have got here.. It’s difficult to
find excellent writing like yours these days. I really appreciate people like you!
Take care!!
Appreciate this post. Will try it out.
Why users still make use of to read news papers when in this technological world
the whole thing is existing on web?
Simply want to say your article is as amazing. The clarity in your post is just excellent and i can assume you are an expert on this subject.
Fine with your permission let me to grab your RSS feed to keep up to date with forthcoming post.
Thanks a million and please keep up the enjoyable work.
Thanks in favor of sharing such a good opinion, article is good, thats why i have read it fully
Good way of telling, and fastidious post to get data regarding my presentation subject matter,
which i am going to present in university.
I love reading a post that can make people think.
Also, thank you for allowing for me to comment!
It’s very straightforward to find out any topic on web as compared to books,
as I found this article at this web page.