I've had a copy of Sweet Maria's Cake Kitchen (1998) by Maria Bruscino Sanchez for a few years but haven't made anything from it. I love gingersnaps (ginger in any form, actually) and decided on her Gingerbread Cake with cream cheese frosting and gingersnap crumbs.I made it in four layers and made the mistake of not putting enough frosting between the layers. Most of it is on the outside, I guess. It will still be good with a cup of coffee or tea. Or milk.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 8 inch cake pans with parchment paper. Spray with baking spray.
12 T. butter melted
1 cup molasses
1 cup brown sugar
1-1/2 cups buttermilk
3 eggs
Now, here I found that I don't have ground ginger in our Marion kitchen. I can't quite believe it but I didn't want to use apple pie or pumpkin pie spice in place of the spices. So I used about 1/4 cup of Australian Crystallized Ginger Puree (Williams - Sonoma) and added that to 3/4 cup of molasses (the end of the bottle). Now, W-S doesn't seem to make the ginger puree anymore (it's made with ginger and cane sugar) but I've got 3/4 of a jar left. There are plenty of recipes on the Internet and some products from The Ginger People. But I digress because you can use the ground ginger and full cup of molasses that is called for.
So, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter, molasses, brown sugar, buttermilk, and eggs. (Here I beat in the pureed ginger.) I also added 1/4 candied ginger chips (The Ginger People).
Add these dry ingredients:
3 cups flour, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1/4 tsp. salt, 3 tsp. ground ginger (missing!), 1-1/2 tsp. cinnamon and 1/2 tsp. nutmeg. Mix until blended. Batter will be slightly lumpy. Don't overmix. Pour batter evenly into the prepared pans. Bake 20-35 min. (depending on how many pans) or until a tester comes out with fine crumbs. Remove from pans and cool on rack.
Frost with cream cheese frosting (16 T. butter, 3 c. confectioner's sugar, 8 oz. cream cheese whipped together) and gingersnap crumbs.
