Recipe and photo courtesy of Ellen Easton

Autumn is a great time to bake.  Gingerbread cake is a perfect autumn dessert. And with  a wonderful variety of spices including ginger, cardamom, cloves, fennel, nutmeg, anise and cinnamon, and a “secret” ingredient (shhh… Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Pure Extract,) even if you’re not a baker you’re going to want to try this one.

Gingerbread Cake   Print This Post

Ingredients:

• 
1- 2/3 cups unbleached all purpose flour, sifted
• 
1 tsp. ground ginger
• 
1/2 tsp. cardamom
• 
1/16 tsp. ground each of black pepper, clove, fennel, nutmeg, Star anise
•  1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 
1 tsp. baking soda
• 
1/2 tsp. salt
• 
6 Tbs. Crystallized Ginger Baking Chips
• 
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 
1/2 cup packed golden brown sugar
• 
1/2 cup sugar
• 
2 extra large eggs
• 
1 TBS. Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Pure Extract
• 
3 tbs. minced fresh ginger
1/2 cup non-fat milk {or buttermilk}
• 
2 TBS. nonfat plain yogurt {or sour cream}

GARNISHES: optional~ Sanding sugar, confectioners’ sugar, whipped cream, seasonal berries.

 Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch loaf pan {or Nordicware gingerbread Bundt or loaf pan} with PAM™ Baking spray. Using Domino Brownulated light brown sugar {or plain granulated sugar}; dust the bottom and all sides of the pan, leaving a thin coating of the sugar.

In a large mixing bowl add dry ingredients of flour, spices, baking soda, and salt together. Mix in 3 tablespoons crystallized ginger.

In an electric mixing bowl, beat the butter and both sugars until light and creamy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Mix in the vanilla extract and the fresh ginger. Slowly mix in 1/2 of the dry ingredients, add milk and yogurt. Add the rest of the dry ingredients. Blend until smooth. Pour into the prepared pan. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons crystallized ginger over the surface of the batter, pressing the ginger lightly into the batter. Optional: dust with colored sanding sugar.

Bake 50 to 60 minutes, until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let pan cool on a wire rack for ten minutes. Turn cake out onto the wire rack to cool completely. When completely cool, using a fine mesh strainer, dust lightly with confectioners’ sugar.

Recipe and Photo ©Ellen Easton- All Rights Reserved

Ellen Easton, author of Afternoon Tea~Tips, Terms and Traditions (RED WAGON PRESS), an afternoon tea authority, lifestyle and etiquette industry leader, keynote speaker and product spokesperson, is a hospitality, design, and retail consultant whose clients have included the Waldorf=Astoria, the Plaza and Bergdorf Goodman. Easton’s family traces their tea roots to the early 1800s, when ancestors first introduced tea plants from India and China to the Colony of Ceylon, thus building one of the largest and best cultivated teas estates on the island.