Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Dining with the Bloggers - April 20th



So what was that I was saying last week? Oh yeah, "I'm going to be good". Ha! This is one of those weeks. It started with a cookout at my parents, followed the next night by dinner out with my family to celebrate three birthdays, and then I had to make a cake. Yes, following close on the heels of cheese week, this week our Dining with the Bloggers theme is "A Cake".

Well, I can't complain too much. Any excuse for a cake is good enough for me and you don't have to search too hard among all those food blogs out there to find some mighty tempting cake recipes. Actually, this week I didn't have to search at all as I found this recipe in the course of my regular wanderings several weeks ago. It is Deb's (of In My Kitchen) recipe for Chocolate Gingerbread Cake. I love chocolate anything, but this combination of chocolate and ginger sounded especially appealing to me. The cake is a spicy gingerbread with additions of cocoa and chocolate chips. The cocoa gives the cake a nice undercurrent of chocolate, while a generous amount of ginger and other spices (cinnamon, cloves, allspice, pepper, and nutmeg) give it some zing. All this is punctuated with a smattering of chocolate chips - yum! Deb added a cardamom cream cheese icing, but since most of my cake was bound for the freezer, I decided to omit the frosting. The cake is delicious as is, but I'll bet it is stunning with the icing. I've always liked gingerbread, and this is a variation that I know I'll be making again.

Now off you go to Zarah's, where another yummy cake awaits!

3 comments:

Niki said...

Yum! I'm a big fan of chocolate gingerbread; I actually made one a little while back, to which I added some chilli powder. I think it's one of the best cakes I've ever made. With some sour lemon icing I drizzled over the top to complement the muskyiness of the cake, it was divine. Wasn't quite the same recipe as yours; I got mine from Nigella's "Feast" book.

Anonymous said...

I give you credit for keeping up with trying out blogger recipes... as for me I'm just drowning in them. ;-)

Sigh... so many great recipes but so little time!
*rowena*

Cathy said...

Hi Niki - I hadn't had chocolate gingerbread before, but I shouldn't be surprised that there are similar recipes out there - it does seem a natural pairing. Yours sounds great - the chili powder sounds like a great addition! I made a gingerbread once with a lemon syrup topping, so I know those two work together! I've not yet bought any of Nigella's books (that could change at any moment!), but I have tried a few of her recipes from the paper.

Hi Rowena! It's hard to do it all - and I don't! You've been coming up with some really wonderful recipes of your own lately, which I'm sure leaves little time to try others.