I first made Amy Karol’s Gingerbread recipe when I was pregnant with Miss S in 2008. I craved everything autumnal in that pregnancy– apples, butternut squash, pumpkin, and winter spices. This cake was perfect for satisfying those cravings, and the seasonal ones that still return when the air gets crisp. I’d call it more of a spice cake than a gingerbread, as to me gingerbread means something a bit more dense and fruit-cake/plum pudding like, though I don’t know where I got that platonic ideal of gingerbread. Since then I’ve make it every fall, and today was the day!
I adore Brer Rabbit molasses, on the strength of the bottle alone, and buy a new bottle every year for fall baking season.
The cake comes out of the oven dark, shiny and rich, and rather than use whipped cream, I frost it to keep all that good stuff from going dry and stale.
I made a lackluster cream cheese frosting this year (maple buttercream next time, I think), but that didn’t stop Miz E from licking the spatula with a gleam in her eye!
