Gingerbread... reformatted

     When I was a kid, my mom would often make gingerbread with a warm lemon sauce for dessert. It's no coincidence that lemon and ginger are two of her favorite flavors, and she frequently uses them in dinners and dessert alike. I wanted to use up some fresh ginger I had in the fridge and thought ginger cupcakes would be delicious paired with lemon buttercream. Cupcakes are more portable than a gingerbread and so they're easier to share... and I don't need to eat a whole cake myself  ;-). And, of course, I had to share a couple with mom!
     The ginger cake recipe is from David Lebovitz (www.davidlebovitz.com) and I found it in the The Essentials New York Times Cook Book. It's a rich, flavorful cake, with lots of fresh ginger and molasses. It's also a very simple recipe and takes very little time to throw the batter together; preparing the ginger is the most time-consuming part. The buttercream was improvised, but you can take any vanilla buttercream recipe and substitute a about 2 Tbs of lemon juice for milk and add a tsp of lemon zest. It should be a little on the tart side, which contrasts nicely with the sweet cake and spicy candied ginger. You could make it without the candied ginger, but it's so pretty and tasty, why would you want to?

Ginger cake:

-1 c molasses
-1 c sugar
-1 c peanut oil (or vegetable oil)
-2 1/2 c all purpose flour
-1 tsp ground cinnamon
-1/2 tsp ground cloves
-1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
-1 c water
-2 tsp baking soda
-1/4 lb fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
-2 eggs

-Preheat the oven to 350 F.
-Mix molasses, sugar and peanut oil in a bowl and set aside
-Sift together flour, cinnamon, cloves and black pepper together and set aside.
-Bring the water to a boil in a large saucepan and add the baking soda. Then add the molasses mixture until it is well mixed and the sugar has dissolved (it will appear somewhat foamy because of the baking soda).
-Remove the saucepan from heat and combine the molasses mixture and the flour mixture (I used a mixer for this, but it can be done by hand with a whisk).

-Add the eggs and combine until the batter is smooth. (make sure the mixture has cooled a bit before you add the eggs, or you'll end up with chunks of cooked egg floating in the batter... gross).
-Pour the batter into a cupcake pan prepared with paper liners until they are about 3/4 full.
-Bake the cupcakes at 350 F for 13-15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean and the centers of the cake are springy.
 -Once the cupcakes are completely cooled, ice them with the buttercream frosting and sprinkle coarsely chopped over it before the frosting sets. You can pipe the icing onto the cupcake if you wish, but I like how the rough icing texture looks with the candy on top- it's up to you!

You can buy candied ginger in slices, as shown above, and chop it as coarse or fine as you like. I found this in the Asian food section of a grocery store, but sometimes it can be found with the spices.