Celebrate National Gingerbread Day

June 5, 2016

When looking for today's food holiday (there is one for most days of the year) it was interesting to note that today is National Gingerbread Day. It's going to be one of our new favorite holidays, because we love the traditional gingerbread in our winter holiday season. Who knows why it's also got a special day in the summer? Perhaps it's to give everyone another excuse to eat this spicy, sweet cake. 

Today's recipe from the Foodista archives is both spicy and special. It's a chocolate gingerbread cake. What a delicious dessert this is. The cake tastes super moist, with the ginger giving the chocolate an unexpected kick in every bite. You are going to love it! 

Chocolate Gingerbread Cake

For the gingerbread
180 g unsalted butter
1 tsp ground cloves
1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/4 tsp ground ginger
3 tbsp fresh ginger, finely grated
150 g brown sugar
150 g treacle
150 g liquid honey
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
240 ml milk
2 large eggs
280 g plain flour
35 g cocoa powder
150 g dark chocolate chips
For the icing:
80g unsalted butter
4 tbsp cocoa powder
3 tsp fresh ginger juice – from about 3 inch, finely grate and squeeze out the juice
30 ml lemon juice (2 tbsp)
180 g icing sugar
 
Preparation
 
1 Preheat the oven to 300 F / 150 C. Grease two loaf pans and line with baking paper.
2 In a saucepan melt butter with spices, fresh ginger, sugar, treacle and honey. Heat the mixture until the butter has melted, do not bring to boil. Set aside to cool for a few minutes.
3 In a small bowl mix soda with 1 tbsp of milk.
4 Add eggs, soda, the rest of the milk and sift in flour and cocoa. Whisk after each addition (no need to use a mixer with this cake). Fold in chocolate chips and spoon batter to the prepared pans.
5 Bake for 50-55 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool completely before icing.
6 Make the icing: in a double boiler or a microwave melt butter with cocoa, lemon and ginger juice (do not over heat you just want to melt the butter). Mixture might look curdled, it’s normal!
 
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