Snow seems to go with gingerbread. I guess because it seems like a winter holiday flavor. In any case, today it snowed - a little dusting to add some new sparkle to the recently snow-blanketed landscape - and I used the excuse to make gingerbread. But not just ANY gingerbread. This is my favorite because it has the addition of little candied ginger bits adding some sweet zing. This recipe came from an ooooold Williams Sonoma mini cookbook on cakes and has been my go-to gingerbread recipe since the first time I made it!
I’ve modified it here into cupcakes - it would make a dozen ordinary cupcakes and they’d probably be delicious with some whipped cream or cream cheese frosting, but I like to make it in this house shaped cupcake mold because they come out so stinkin’ cute! Each one of the 6 houses is different and dusted with confectioners sugar they look like a little snow covered village.
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Set of 6 house shaped gingerbread cakes dusted with confectioners sugar “snow”
Wouldn’t they be adorable for individual dessert portions at a winter dinner on mixed tableware like the ones the Pillow Goddess just posted about from Replacements Ltd?
Here I’ve used them for a winter dessert on some of my own vintage china. I have a tableware obsession in addition to my ribbon obsession, and these little Limoges plates are some of my favorites.
The perfect winter dessert. Individual gingerbread cakes baked in a house shaped pan and dusted with confectioners sugar “snow”
Gingerbread Cake with Crystallized Ginger
from Williams Sonoma
serves 8-12
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup light (unsulfured) molasses
1/2 cup apple juice (I have recently started using boiled cider for even richer flavor)
1/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger (I buy this from nuts.com all diced and ready for baking…it is excellent in these lemon ginger scones as well!)
Confectioners sugar for dusting the finished cake (I love the non-melting variety sold by King Arthur because it doesn’t disappear, even when you freeze your baked goods)
Directions
Preheat oven to 350’. Butter and flour an 8” square baking pan with 2” sides (or a cupcake pan).
Sift together flour, cinnamon, ground ginger, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.
Beat butter with an electric mixer until light, add brown sugar and beat until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg and molasses and beat until well blended.
Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture in 3 batches alternating with the apple juice (beginning and ending with the flour mixture). Stir in the crystallized ginger and spoon batter into the prepared pan. For cupcakes, I use an ice cream size sweep scoop. For the village houses pan, I use 1 1/2 scoops per house and end up with 3 additional one-scoop cupcakes OR you could do 2 more of the houses in a second baking cycle once you have extracted the first batch.
Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (about 35 minutes for the square cake or 30 minutes for cupcakes or the village pan)
Cool in pan for at least 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack. Dust cooled cakes with powdered confectioners sugar. Serve with whipped cream if desired.
