Tuesday, November 8, 2011

MY FAVORITE GINGERBREAD CAKE, ALL DOLLED UP (OR NOT)

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As a little prelude to holiday cooking, I made this recipe from my book, The Fiber for life Cookbook last week.  Not only is it moist and dark and rich with spices and molasses, but it also happens to be whole grain, fiber-rich and low in fat.  I had a bit of my vegan caramel sauce leftover from another recipe, so I decided to "doll up" my homespun gingerbread with a drizzle of that and some toasted hazelnuts.  Perfect!

I called this recipe "Gingerbread" in the book because that's what we always called this type of dark, spicy, moist ginger cake baked in a square pan when I was growing up. But, it occurred to me that "gingerbread" is a cookie, too, so it's confusing. I'm hedging my bets and calling it a "Gingerbread Cake" this time!

Researching gingerbread quickly, I see that it can refer to anything from this type of moist cake to a fairly dry cookie (or biscuit, as it's called in the UK). What they have in common, besides the ginger, is the uses of molasses (or treacle), or possibly honey for at least part of the sweetener.  The following type of recipe is much like the British ginger cake, but without the traditional lemon sauce.

Try this with tea on a cold day!

Printable Recipe

BRYANNA’S WHOLE WHEAT GINGERBREAD CAKE (can be SF or GF or both)
makes 1/ 9” square pan/ 9 servings
Moist, dark and spicy—also low-fat and fiber-rich.

WET MIX:
1/4 cup water
1 T. flax seeds
1 cup dark molasses
1/2 T. lemon juice + any nondairy milk to make 1/2 cup
1/2 cup light organic granulated sugar
1/3 cup smooth applesauce
(TIP: Freeze canned or homemade applesauce for baking in ice cube trays and pop the cubes into zipper-lock bags-- each one= 2 tablespoons!)
2 T. oil (olive oil works well in this)
DRY MIX:
2 cup whole wheat pastry flour (a GF flour mix would probably work fine with this-- they usually work well with simple cakes)
1 T. powdered ginger
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. allspice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. grease and flour a 9" square pan.

In a blender, blend the water and flaxseeds until “gloppy” like egg whites. Add the remaining Wet Mix ingredients and blend well.

In a medium bowl mix the Dry Mix ingredients well. Pour in the Wet Mix and mix briefly. Spread the batter in the prepared pan and bake 25-35 minutes, testing with a cake tester. Serve warm or cool.

Nutrition Facts
Nutrition (per serving): 285.8 calories; 12% calories from fat; 4.2g total fat; 0.0mg cholesterol; 267.2mg sodium; 699.4mg potassium; 61.1g carbohydrates; 4.0g fiber; 32.4g sugar; 57.0g net carbs; 4.3g protein; 5.3 points.


"DOLLED UP" VARIATION:
Drizzle the top of the warm cake with about 1/4 cup Caramel Sauce (see recipe below) and sprinkle with 3/4 cup chopped toasted hazelnuts.

With the Variation the Nutrition Facts are as follows: Nutrition (per serving): 396.4 calories; 25% calories from fat; 11.9g total fat; 0.0mg cholesterol; 288.0mg sodium; 796.9mg potassium; 71.4g carbohydrates; 5.1g fiber; 40.3g sugar; 66.4g net carbs; 6.2g protein; 8.1 points

BRYANNA'S VEGAN CARAMEL SAUCE (makes about 1 cup):
1/3 cup brown rice syrup
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbs. brown sugar
2 Tbs vegan butter (such as my homemade vegan palm oil-free Buttah)
1/8 tsp salt
1/3 cup vegan creamer
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Bring the syrup, brown sugar, Earth Balance and salt to a boil in a heavy saucepan and boil over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the consistency of heavy syrup.

Remove from heat and cool a bit. Heat the creamer just until warm. Whisk into the syrup along with vanilla.

Nutrition Facts
Nutrition (per 2 tablespoons): 173.1 calories; 18% calories from fat; 3.4g total fat; 0.0mg cholesterol; 93.7mg sodium; 59.9mg potassium; 37.9g carbohydrates; 0.0g fiber; 33.1g sugar; 37.9g net carbs; 0.7g protein; 3.7 points.


Enjoy!


5 comments:

Sunday Driver said...

I baked this recipe in tiny loaf pans one Christmas or Thanksgiving to go with our family's meal. It was just straight (no glaze). It was well liked by all, especially by my dad (who loved molasses in baked goods) and niece.
If it's not too much trouble, do you mind to keep putting the printable versions of recipes up? I found it quite helpful; then I can go pencil notes from you and the comment section into the margins. Either that or I've got to figure out the printer friendly version better (I can be lazy...)

Bryanna Clark Grogan said...

Glad you like it, and your dad, too! It's just too time-consuming to do the printer ages lately. You can Use Print Friendly function and quickly eliminate all the extraneous stuff you don't want before printing. Here's how:

1.) Click on the green Print-Friendly button at the very bottom of the post. Wait for the Print-Friendly page to come up.
2.) Click the box at the top of the pages that says "remove images", if you prefer.
3.)Change the text size at the top of the page, if you like.
4.) Hover your cursor over any paragraph you want to get rid of-- the section will be highlighted in yellow and it will say (in red) above it "click to delete". Just click on everything you don't want to print and it will disappear! And there is an "undo" icon at the far right of the top of the page, just in case.
5.) Use the icons at the top left of the page to either print the age, or make a PDF file of it.

I hope this helps!

Abby Laks said...

I wanted to make ginger cake as a gift for my friend's engagement. You have got two recipes. Which one would you suggest for the occasion?. Also I want to make the cake using whole wheat pastry flour.
Thanks

Bryanna Clark Grogan said...

Abby, for a party I think the VEGAN ESPRESSO AND TRIPLE-GINGER CAKE would be best http://veganfeastkitchen.blogspot.ca/2012/12/vegan-espresso-triple-ginger-cake-from.html

Bryanna Clark Grogan said...

I now have Printable recipes up on almost every recipe (still working on the old ones!) because PrintFriendly didn't work for some recipes and I couldn't figure out why.