If you are looking for a unique gingerbread recipe with adult flavors – look no further. This complex taste offers notes of coffee, molasses, and cocoa with the snap of ginger. Find the recipe at http://karenskitchenstories.blogspot.com/. This is a recipe that begs to be tweaked! With the Tuesday chatter ringing in my ears, I made some adjustments to the recipe. Finding myself without espresso powder, I substituted cocoa powder as suggested by another baker. This definitely made the cake less gingery and gave a stronger taste of cocoa. The other advice I got from the chatter was to cut back on the molasses. The recipe calls for 2 cups – I used one and it was more than enough. I substituted 1/2 c. of maple syrup and a 1/2 cup of strong coffee (make sure you fold from the bottom of the bowl to incorporate the coffee evenly throughout the mixture. I also fudged on the pepper – a teaspoon seemed like a bit much – I gave it a few grinds of the pepper mill and left it at that.
I baked it as a larger cake for a party this weekend. I plan to serve it with some whipped cream to make it more kid-friendly. I made a real baby cake to sample – my husband and I enjoyed the complexity of the flavors and the girls thought it was awesome. I’m not sure that I got the right combination of flavors – ginger should be a bit stronger I think. I probably could have done without the coffee altogether or at least dialed it back substantially. Maybe a 1/4 c. of coffee and 3/4 c. of maple syrup…despite the brown sugar and the maple syrup the cake itself was not overtly sweet.
I liked this recipe well enough to play with the flavors a bit in the future to find the perfect gingerbread!
Sounds like you figured out a way to make the recipe work for you! I think lots of people had issues with this one.
No molasses here so used can syrup instead. I like how you subbed out some of the molasses.
Good idea to tweak the recipe!! Sounds like you had a more enjoyable outcome than most of us
Definitely needs tweaking! I could not taste any of the flavors other than molasses.