TWD--Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread

Tuesday's With Dorie this week was chosen by Heather of Sherry Trifle and she chose Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread, pgs. 212-213 in Baking From My Home To Yours.  This was a good one!

But--I actually changed a lot of things about the recipe because I know that a lot of ingredients could be changed to make this gingerbread lower in fat and just a little healthier.  So--get Dorie's exact recipe from Heather's blog and here's the recipe as I made it.

Chocolate Gingerbread Cake, adapted from Dorie Greenspan by Katrina

2 tablespoons finely chopped peeled fresh ginger

1 tablespoon sugar

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup unbleached all purpose flour

1 teaspoon ground ginger

a few shakes of pumpkin pie spice (I ran out of ginger!)

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

5 tablespoon 50/50 Blend Smart Balance Butter, unsalted

6 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce

3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed

3/4 cup Egg Beaters w/touch of yolk

1/4 cup molasses

1/4 cup agave nectar (I didn't have enough molasses and the agave worked great!)

6 ounces Hershey's Special dark chocolate, 2 oz. melted & cooled, 4 oz. finely chopped

1 cup low fat buttermilk

Icing

3 ounces Hershey's Special dark chocolate , chopped

3 tablespoons 50/50 Smart Balance Butter, unsalted

3 tablespoons powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray silicone rose-shaped bundt pan with cooking spray (any 9x9-ish pan will work). 

Put the freshly grated ginger and sugar  in a small bowl and set aside.

Whisk the flours, baking soda and spices together.   Set aside.  In bowl of electric mixer, combine butter, applesauce and sugar and beat well.  Add Egg Beaters a little at a time and beat well for one minute.  Scrape sides of bowl.  Add molasses and agave nectar and beat until smooth.  With mixer on low, add the melted chocolate and the sugared ginger.  Then add the dry ingredients in three increments along with the buttermilk in two additions (ending with the dry ingredients).  Mix just until incorporated.  Fold in the chopped chocolate.  Pour batter into pan. 

Bake for 40-50 minutes until knife inserted into center comes out clean.  Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes, then unmold the cake. 

For the icing, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water.  When melted, remove from heat and using a whisk, add the butter one tablespoon at a time.  Sift the powdered sugar over the chocolate and stir in.  Let sit for 10 minutes.  Ice the gingerbread.

I didn't want to have too much batter in the bundt pan, so I made five cupcakes.  Baked them for 14 minutes.  They turned out great.

It is advised when making gingerbread that you check how much ground ginger you have left.  I'm just saying, you might want to check.  Another thing I suggest--how much molasses DO you have?  And as for bittersweet chocolate--I learned when I made Dorie's chocolate cupcakes last October, that bittersweet chocolate just isn't sweet enough for me, so I used Hershey's Special dark chocolate in this recipe.  The cake turned out moist and dense and flavorful with all the changes I made.  Baking it in the silicone bundt pan made for a fun, pretty cake, but I kept testing that thing from the time it had baked for 40 minutes until about 60 minutes before the knife really came out clean.  And with every extra minute, I could tell the edges were baking up nice and toasty and knew I wasn't going to be able to trim off the edges as Dorie suggested with the 9x9 pan.  So, all the little nooks and crannies of edges are a little--crunchy I guess and the rest is great.  I actually don't mind the edges, so it's all good.  I loved the flavor of this gingerbread.  Next time I make it, I already have more ground ginger and the fresh stuff tucked away in the freezer where it is supposed to last.  I'm happy about the changes I made and thanks Heather for this week's great pick!

If you can't tell, I drizzled the icing on after putting it in a plastic bag and snipping a little off the corner.

A lot of people on the problems and questions boards were saying they thought the cake was even better the next day, but I loved it fresh and it seemed a little more dry the next day.  It won't stop me from eating little slices of it here and there--after all, I made it healthy, right!  ; )