Having never made gingerbread before in my life, I find it odd that I made two different versions of it two weeks in a row. I'll talk about David Lebovitz' version some other time, but since it's Guinness week, let's talk about the one with Guinness in it: Gramercy Tavern's gingerbread, which I got turned on to by a post over at Smitten Kitchen.
There was one issue with the recipe, and I must admit, I was totally warned. Deb says right in the recipe that hers sank too much and that she thought excessive baking powder might be responsible. But... I don't improv with baking as much as I do with regular cooking, and I made it as written, and therefore, have a gander at my exceedingly sunken-middled gingerbread:
Witness also how I have developed a deep affection for my camera's macro lens:
And last but not least, let's take a look at how to transform a perfectly lovely, dark, sticky, not-too-sweet adult dinner party cake into something that truly and officially qualifies as Too Much of a Good Thing:
Nigella Lawson's influence, of course. She has a recipe for a Chocolate Guinness Cake in her book Feast, and I didn't want to do a chocolate cake since I already had a chocolate ice cream, but I did nab the idea of frosting just the top of the cake "so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint."
(American translation of the ingredient amounts in her frosting: an 8-oz package of cream cheese, 1 1/4 cups of confectioner's sugar, and 1/2 a cup of heavy cream)
Really super good and rich and sticky. Very moist. It stuck to the pan something awful, and Deb warned about that too, so I made sure I buttered the heck out of the pan... but in all that buttering I forgot to put down a parchment paper lining.
Oh well. I got to eat everything that stuck to the bottom.
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