Spiced Ginger Cake

Ginger.  Either you love it or you hate it.  It's kind of like cilantro in that I have yet to meet someone who's wishy-washy in their opinion of it.  The spicy, aromatic, and in-your-face flavor of ginger is not for everyone, but for me, it serves as the perfect pick-me-upper.  The simple act of sniffing a knob of ginger is therapy for me, but it's well worth the effort if I go a step further and grate it into an ugly but glorious pile of mush to be used for cooking.  While it makes its way into various savory dishes, since it's that time of the year when all I want to do is bake, Spiced Ginger Cake was in order.

But before I get into the recipe, I wanted to give you a brief update on where I am in my dietetic internship.  I just completed 13 weeks of clinical rotations and started my business/management rotations this week.  Here's a list of all the places I'll be going over the course of the next 12 weeks:

Davita Dialysis Center (where I'm at this week.  It's in San Antonio, so I'm incredibly thankful for my friend, Sarah, for allowing me to crash at her place), American Botanical Council, Seton Northwest, HEB headquarter, Cedar Springs Eating Disorder Clinic, and Hays Independent School District.

Oh boy...  Ginger!  I need to smell you!!

I adapted the recipe from one of the most ancient cookbooks that I own.  Seven years later, I'm still cooking my way through it.

The original recipe calls for 1 cup of oil, which I substituted half of it with applesauce.  I also added whole wheat pastry flour to sneak in some whole grains.  I love using ww pastry flour instead of ww flour as this keeps the end product from being too dense.  And for even more zing, I incorporated various spices and lemon zest.

I thought it was interesting that the recipe called for 1 cup of cool water in the wet mixture.  It didn't state the reason, but I'm guessing it makes the cake even more moist?!  If so, then the recipe developers really knew what they were doing.  Moist (almost gooey) and flavorful is what this cake is all about!

I couldn't stop the hands that reached in and grabbed a few slices before I got a chance to photograph.  And of course, a la mode is how I roll.  If you are a friend of mine, you know my obsession with Blue Bell Creamery :).  Enjoy a slice or two, and when you've had enough ginger, wrap the rest in plastic wrap.  It seems to make the cake even more moist with time!

Spiced Ginger Cake

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Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Author: Min | MJ and Hungryman

Ingredients

• ▢ 3 Tbs grated ginger
• ▢ ¾ cup dark molasses
• ▢ ¾ cup brown sugar
• ▢ ½ cup canola oil
• ▢ ½ cup unsweetened apple sauce
• ▢ 1 Tbs lemon zest
• ▢ 1 ½ cup whole wheat pastry flour
• ▢ 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ▢ 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• ▢ 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• ▢ 1 Tbs baking powder
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 325°F. Lightly grease 9 inch round cake pan.
• Add 1 cup cool water, molasses, sugar, oil, applesauce, ginger, and lemon zest in a medium mixing bowl. Mix vigorously with a whisk until sugar is dissolved and mixture is glossy. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the ginger mixture and mix thoroughly until batter is smooth.
• Pour into the cake pan. Bake until skewer inserted in the center comes out clean and top is springy to touch, about 55-60 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes.
• Serve.

Notes

adapted from William Sonoma's Bride and Groom Cookbook

Nutrition

Serving: 8g

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Question:

Are you on team ginger?  I am!