Gingerbread | Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Holidays, everyone!

I've been enjoying my last few weeks at home with Maxwell and it's been wonderful.  In less than two weeks I'm returning to the office, so I'm getting my fill of baby smiles and baby giggles every day right now.  Of course, there will be plenty of smiles and giggles after I return to work, but right now I get to enjoy them without any time constraints.

What do you think of our Christmas card?  Family and friends, yours is probably in the mail.  We're really late getting them out, but I'm also posting it here for all to see and enjoy.

If you've been on the Facebook page you've probably noticed that I've been experimenting with some new recipes, particularly gingerbread.  My earliest memory of gingerbread was making gingerbread (or molasses bread) with my grandmom. I'm pretty sure my mom doesn't like molasses (and she's not a huge fan of baking), so it was grandmom who introduced me to the sweet goodness of molasses. My pop pop used to bring me back jars of blackstrap molasses from North Carolina.  As a matter of fact, I think I still have one of the jars (and it has to be at least 15 years old).

So I started looking around for some recipes to approximate the molasses bread I know and love and I found this recipe from King Arthur Flour.  I tweaked it a bit to make it gooey-er and a bit more robust in flavor.  I bet you have most of these ingredients (minus the molasses, which can be purchased at any grocery store) in your pantry.  I actually prefer gingerbread over coffeecake in the winter with my coffee.

The sweet spicy taste takes me back to childhood.  It's really easy to make and it keeps at room temperature for a few days. I'm not sure my husband had ever had gingerbread, but he enjoyed it as much as I did. Next year Max will be enjoying it with us!  (He's still on an all-milk diet.)

So here it is!  Bake and enjoy!  Merry Christmas!

Gingerbread
adapted from King Arthur Flour

2 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon each cloves and nutmeg (or nutmeg and cardamom... I didn't have any cloves!)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup water
1 large egg
1 cup buttermilk

1) Grease and flour a 9" square pan. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2) In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

3) Melt the butter in a heatproof measuring cup. Add the molasses to the cup, and pour into the dry ingredients in the bowl, mixing to moisten.

4) Add the water, stirring until everything is moistened. Whisk together the egg and buttermilk. Stir into the batter until it's evenly combined.

5) Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the cake just begins to pull away from the edge of the pan.

6) Remove from the oven and cool on a rack for 15 minutes before slicing; serve warm with ice cream or freshly whipped cream for dessert or at room temperature with coffee at breakfast.