Sugar High Friday/ East- West Ginger Cake

When I heard that Ruth was hosting this month's Sugar High Friday and the theme was Ginger, I knew right away what I would make. I originally saw this recipe for EastWest Ginger cake in an older cookbook called Classic Home Desserts. I saw Nigella Lawson make a chocolate cloud cake using a recipe from this book and I knew right away I had to have it. When I came upon this recipe, it went into my go to pile of things to make. It did seem strange to me that I chose to make this at the tail end of Spring, because I think most people associate gingerbread with Winter. However, this recipe is so dead easy and so flavorful that it would truly be a shame to only serve in when its cold outside. Although this recipe is in the book Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax, the recipe is really from David Lebovitz. I left David a note and asked him if I could reprint the recipe here and he said sure. If you can't find Classic Home Desserts, the recipe is also in David's book Room for Dessert. As I said before, this is a very simple recipe to whip up. David suggests baking this in a springform pan, but I chose to use 6 jumbo muffin tins. I also made 1 thin 9 inch layer. There is also an accompanying recipe for Lemon cream, but I had no lemons and I was too lazy to run to the store so I served it with some whipped cream and uncrystallized ginger that I bought on my last trip to Trader Joe's.


East-West Ginger Cake
2 1/2 cup AP flour
1/2 tsp each Cinnamon and Cloves
1/4tsp fresh ground pepper
1 cup sugar
1 cup peanut or other bland oil( I used canola)
1 cup molasses
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup boiling water
1/4 cup minced, peeled fresh ginger, or to taste( use a food processor to chop this up)

1. preheat oven to 350f. Butter and flour a 9 inch springform pan.
2. Sift together the flour, cinnamon, cloves and pepper on a sheet of waxed paper. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, combine sugar, oil, molasses and eggs until well-blended. Add the sifted ingredeints and mix until just blended.
4. Stir the baking soda into the boiling water and quickly add to the batter and mix until just blended. Stir in the ginger.
5. Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, about 1 hr( my jumbo muffins only took 20 min, but my oven is way off)

I tasted this once it fully cooled and then the next day and it was definitly better the next day.