My friend Sonja says that every time she makes this gingerbread the whole room swoons. With that kind of recommendation, and a name so apropos for Halloween, and our Honey Girl flying home from college for a long weekend to celebrate with us to boot, I had to try it. It’s from A Measure of Grace: The Story and Recipes of a Small Town Restaurant by Blake Spalding, Jennifer Castle, and Lavinia Spalding, and it does not disappoint. Swoon we did—until we mustered the wherewithal to float to the kitchen for a second piece. I think it’s so good because it’s moist with chunks of ripe pear and an extra generous measure of dark molasses, and Chimayo chile and crystallized ginger join the usual gingerbread spices for an extra kick. The warm butterscotch sauce is a rich and boozysweet counterpoint. Bake this for Halloween, and bake an extra to wait in the freezer for a night when you could use a little sweet, dark magic. The sauce keeps for a month in the refrigerator, so it will be ready when you are, too.
Serving Suggestions
I usually favor plain whipped cream with gingerbread, but I think this one begs for a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The gingerbread is delicious both cold and warm. I’m looking forward to cold gingerbread with whipped cream laced with Scotch, and warm gingerbread with ice cream, and plain gingerbread at room temperature, perhaps with a cup of tea. I made three cakes–one to test drive, one for Halloween night, and one for my book group. Maybe I should have baked four! To freeze the cake, allow it to cool completely, remove it gently from the pan, and wrap it tightly in cellophane and then in aluminum foil. To reheat the sauce, warm it slowly in a double boiler or heat it in the microwave.
Music for Halloween baking:
Halloween Sounds This CD is 70 minutes of screams, howls, chain rankling, and spooky sounds.
Dark Magic Gingerbread
From A Measure of Grace: The Story and Recipes of a Small Town Restaurant by Blake Spalding, Jennifer Castle, and Lavinia Spalding
**The only change I made to these recipes was to increase both the pear and the Scotch by a good measure. I would guess I added 3/4 c. pear to the cake and 1/4 c. Scotch to the sauce. The recipes below are as originally printed. I used very ripe Bosc pears and substituted Irish whisky with happy results.
Yield: 1- 9×13 cake
Ingredients:
3 c. white flour
2 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
3 t. ground ginger
1 ½ t. ground cinnamon
½ t. ground cloves
½ t. Chimayo chile
1 ½ sticks unsalted butter
2 eggs
1 ½ c. sugar
1 ½ c. dark molasses
1 ¼ c. boiling water
½ c. diced pear
1 T. chopped crystallized ginger
Method:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9” x 13” baking pan.
- Sift or stir well together the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices.
- In a large bowl, beat butter until it’s creamy. Gradually add eggs and sugar and beat with an electric mixer on high speed until batter is light in color and texture, two or three minutes. Slowly beat in the molasses.
- Add flour mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until it’s just combined. You don’t want to overmix this cake.
- Stir in the boiling water slowly, mixing well, then add diced pear and crystallized ginger.
- Pour batter into prepared pan and bake it for about 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean and the cake springs back when lightly pressed on top.
**Baking Tips
Bake the cake on the center rack in your oven, and rotate it halfway through the baking time.
A triple recipe for this cake just fits in my Kitchen Aid Professional mixer. If you have a smaller mixer, only a double recipe will fit.
Butterscotch Sauce
From A Measure of Grace: The Story and Recipes of a Small Town Restaurant by Blake Spalding, Jennifer Castle, and Lavinia Spalding
Yield: about 1 1/2 c. sauce
Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter
¼ c. water
2 T. light corn syrup
1 c. sugar
½ c. heavy cream (I love Cedar Summit Farms.)
½ t. salt
1 t. vanilla extract or Scotch whiskey
Method:
- Combine butter, water, and corn syrup in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the butter is melted.
- Add sugar and stir until it’s really dissolved—completely smooth and no longer making gritty, scraping sounds.
- Increase heat and boil without stirring until the mixture starts to brown around the edges. Start stirring at this point, and continue to stir as it thickens and turns a darker brown.
- When it just barely begins to smoke, remove from heat and pour in cream (be careful here, because it can sputter and get kind of wild). Stir butterscotch until it’s dissolved. If it’s stubborn and won’t melt, place briefly over low heat and stir the lumps out.
- Add salt and vanilla extract or Scotch and stir well.
