Fresh Ginger & Chocolate Gingerbread (TWD)

It's Tuesday, and it's time for another delicious installment of Tuesday's With Dorie. Heather of Sherry Trifle selected Fresh Ginger & Chocolate Gingerbread. How do you describe this cake? I think Dorie Greenspan's description says it all --- "Packed with fresh, candied and ground ginger, spices, molasses and a little chocolate, it is moist, mildly spicy and just a teensy bit hot from the ginger. It's a hearty, high square with a wonderfully solid look, and it's topped with a swath of bittersweet icing."

I didn't stray far from the original recipe, and here are my notes and adjustments:

- fresh ginger: Instead of chopping, I used a microplane grater (IMHO, a fantastic $12 investment for the kitchen)

- stem ginger: Didn't want to schlep to the Asian market to find this ingredient; instead, I added 1/4 C chopped crystalized ginger (I LOVE this stuff).

- chocolate: Instead of chopping chocolate, I used bittersweet mini-chips

- baking pan: I used an 8x8 pan, and had enough extra batter to make a dozen mini muffins

- baking time: The mini muffins were out of the oven at the 10 minute mark. The 8x8 pan did take longer than the 40 minutes detailed in the recipe. Mine required 50-55 minutes to bake through.


I love ginger, but I'm not huge fan of gingerbread (go figure), so I'm not the best person to judge this recipe. Personally, I thought there was a bit much going on with the strong flavors of ginger, molasses, spices, and chocolate. I must be in the minority, as my taste testers thoroughly enjoyed this cake with their morning cup of java.

For the recipe, please head to Heather's blog. To see other tasty versions of this cake, check out the TWD blogroll.