Cake prep.

Gingerbread is one of my favorite foods. I love it in all its incarnations: spice cookies, upside-down cakes with fruit, gingerbread cookies, molasses cookies, and just good old-fashioned gingerbread cake. Last year I discovered the Gramercy Tavern recipe for gingerbread, and it is quite easily the best gingerbread I have ever eaten. Yes, even better than the gingerbread from Marvelous Market, DC folks! I don’t know if it’s the beer (I like to keep it all NYC by using Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, another semi-local and seasonal favorite) or the two tablespoons (!) of ground ginger that make it the best; whatever the reason, the cake is awesome. I couldn’t wait to make it again this year; I usually foist it upon the women’s club, as I can’t really justify making a whole cake just to keep it at home and eat it. (I know I said I did that with the sweet potato pie, but I am giving some to our neighbors after all.)

Cake missing a top.

Sadly, this year’s cake fell victim to sleep deprivation: I used the wrong flour (white whole wheat) to flour the pan and did a completely inadequate job, resulting in the bottom (top?) of the cake sticking in a nice ring nearly all the way around. Since I’m tired and really can’t face making another, I am going to just slice it and serve it all weird looking. Not to mention that we have followed up apple pie, pumpkin pie, and pecan bars at Thanksgiving with sweet potato pie at home just for the heck of it, multiple desserts at the town holiday potluck last night, and almond cookies from the farmers’ market today for no good reason except that it was cold, windy, and actually snowing for a while there. It’s all well and good to be running on sugar, but it’s only the first week of the month and there are many more sweets to come and we really don’t need an extra gingerbread cake thrown into the mix! At any rate, the cake is going to a holiday party, so I’m hoping the lights will be dim and no one will really notice the oddly-shaped slices. It is seriously delicious, though, and I have nothing to be embarrassed about when it comes to the taste.

All sliced up and ready to go.