TWD Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread

Do you remember a Stevie Nick's song with these lyrics?

"I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait. What can I do when I'm crazy for you?"

Insert "I'm crazy for you" with "I want to eat you", and that's how I felt while waiting for my fresh ginger and chocolate gingerbread to "cure" for a day. Seriously painful! So painful in fact, that I only made it about an hour before I tried a piece. Luckily I made two 4" round cakes and one baby loaf pan.


The gingerbread loaf was immediately sacrificed, I just had to know what it tastes like, but we'll get to that later.

While reading the P&Q section on TWD, I was surprised by how many people said they thought the recipe called for too much ginger. Too much ginger? Is that even possible in a gingerbread cake? Does a fruitcake ever call for too much fruit, or a chocolate cake call for too much chocolate? I guess, but I'm all about excess; so I thought the amount of ginger in this recipe was appropriate. I even candied some of the fresh ginger I had left over to garnish the cake.

Joe and I don't have any plans to see people this week, so I halved the recipe. The only ingredient I couldn't find was the stem ginger. For chocolate I used Scharffenberger 70%, which is a favorite of mine.


It is kind of pricey, but it has always proved itself to be worth the splurge in baked goods. The recipe was easy to follow except Dorie doesn't say what to do with the 1 tbsp of sugar (I used 1 ½ teaspoons). I assumed it was to put on the finely chopped ginger to extract it's flavors, so that's what I did.

The recipe says that the cakes will rise, but not to worry because they'll level out once they come out of the oven. Mine rose, but stayed nice and tall. I think it may have something to do with the fact that I used such small cake pans. I love the look of domed cakes, so they are fine with me. Plus, what really matters is the taste.

As I said earlier, I had to try a piece once it came out of the oven, and I wasn't that impressed. The chocolate was still warm and I was having a difficult time picking out the chocolate flavor in the cake. A few hours later, I tried it again, and again, and again. The cake was so good plain that I considered not frosting it, but that would be just, well… wrong. Once frosted the cake was delicious. The ginger and the chocolate played off each other beautifully. All together the cake and frosting weren't a sweet as I had thought, so that was nice. I think the bittersweet chocolate is what makes this cake exceptional. Thanks to Heather of Sherry Trifle for choosing this recipe which I will certainly make again.