Jennifer Lindner McGlinn - Gingerbread: Timeless Recipes for Cakes, Cookies, Dessers, Ice Cream, and Candy

All writing is a solitary business. Even writing about food requires many hours alone at the computer. Sure, there are the busy afternoons in the kitchen when music and talk radio make for welcome companions, but they ask little of us. Happily, while others play sonatas or talk about politics, we cook-writers are disconnected enough to focus on the tasks at hand, free to drown out ambient noise with the mixer. Yes, at the end of the day and with a house perfumed from cooking endeavors, even food writers must struggle with finding the right words, turns of phrase, and stories that make up the (hopefully perfect) literary baby we finally deliver to our editors in manuscript form.

The thing of it is, however, once the offspring lands in the waiting arms of the publisher, the solitary act of writing and creating dissipates with astonishing speed like a drop of water on a hot griddle. Editors, art directors, and designers shape and nurture the text, coddling and coaxing it into a mature and beautiful work. We writers like to think our books are ours and ours alone, but, really, they are the result of many talented folks whose skills breathe life into them-hopefully for a long time.

I am grateful for having worked with such a gifted team at Chronicle Books who, through terrific editing, design, and direction, imbued Gingerbread with such tempting spirit. Thank you, first, to Bill LeBlond, who gave me the opportunity to write this book and is always so generous with his support. Thanks, too, to Anne Donnard, my art director and designer, who gave the words on the page shape and clarity through creative images and an eye-catching layout. Thank you to Amy Treadwell and Sarah Billingsley, my editors, who critiqued the text and caringly kneaded it into its present form, and to Doug Ogan, my managing editor, who attended to many of the vital and most important final details.

Thank you, as well, Batrice Peltre, my photographer, for your gifted eye, fresh vision, and creative spirit. Your artistic images give just the right expression to the recipes. It was great fun cooking and working with you. I am grateful for your hard work and am even more honored by your friendship.

Thank you, Liv and Bill Blumer, my agent team, for working so diligently on the business details so I could focus on cooking and writing. I am grateful for your clarity, support, and for your consistently thoughtful advice.

There are those, too, who encouraged this project for years before it ever reached proposal stage and who were always ready with kind nudges during the solitary days of writing and recipe testing. Thank you, Antonia Allegra, Don and Joan Fry, and Diane Morgan for tirelessly believing in my ideas and abilities and for all of your thoughtful advice. Thank you, Dorie Greenspan, for offering me such kind, encouraging, and calming words as I neared my deadline. Thank you, too, Anne Willan, for inspiring me with your own beautiful books and for giving me the opportunity to form many of my ideas about this project at your enchanting Chteau du Fe.

Thank you, as well, to all of my friends and family who tasted countless recipes over the months without complaint and offered such helpful feedback. Thank you, Grandmom Lindner, for inspiring me to love cooking and appreciate good food at an early age, and for sharing yourself with me through your recipes. To my parents, Albert and Carol Lee Lindner, I cant express enough how much I (once again) appreciate your gracious and undying support (as well as the occasional use of your kitchen). To my sister Erica, thank you for all of your good ideas and especially for the honest feedback your children always so candidly offer. To my sister Alexis, thank you for so often being such a helpful and fun second pair of hands in the kitchen. Thank you, finally, to my husband, Chris, who continues to give me the freedom to dream, to write, to cook, and to create. (Yes, there is still a container of buttercream in the freezer.)

My love for gingerbread began with cakenothing fancy, just a square of moist chestnut-colored goodness, stil warm from the oven and fragrant with molasses and spices, best served with a dollop of delicately sweetened, softly whipped cream. I ate slowly, waiting for the cool cream to relinquish its fluffiness to the warm gingerbread, and and I was always left with a comforting plate of saucy, sweet crumbs. Plain, straightforward gingerbread is still my favorite, but over the years, I have found other wonderful versions, too. Some are simple and modest, while others are a bit more complex and elegant. From a nineteenth-century-inspired gingerbread brightened with lemon to a gingerbread topped with walnuts and doused with rum to a ayered gingerbread filled with crunchy meringue and glossy praline buttercream, I have indeed discovered many tempting gingerbread cakes. All represent gingerbreads delicious versatility, and remind me why I fell in love with that seductive square of spicy comfort so long ago.

When I was a young girl, my paternal grandmother, Hedwig Zalewski Lindner, gave me her 1950 edition of Betty Crockers New Picture Cook Book. Among the binder-bound pages covered with my grandmothers handwritten notes and various specks of salad dressing and butter, I discovered a recipe for Favorite Gingerbread. It was the first gingerbread prepared myself, and for years it became my staple recipe. Eventually, though, I began tinkering with it to make it my own. Substituting butter for shortening, adding a bit more spice here and there, and playing with a variety of cake pans and baking times, I soon developed my own favorite gingerbread, which I now share with you. To be honest, I really dont know whether my grandmother ever made this gingerbread cake. It doesnt really matter, though. To me, it is enough that this recipe originates from a book she used so often. Preparing it, like leafing through her copy of Betty Crocker, reminds me of her and the many delicious, comforting dishes she prepared. This cake comes together easily and can be baked in a variety of festive pans. Bake it in an 8-cup Bundt pan, as suggested here, in a 9-inch square pan, or fill muffin tins or mini-Bundt pans about two-thirds full with batter. As you play with different shapes and sizes, just be sure to keep watch and adjust the baking times, allowing fewer minutes for smaller items.

MAKES ONE 8-CUP BUNDT CAKE

2 cups cake flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

teaspoon salt

1 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

teaspoon ground allspice

teaspoon ground cloves

cup (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature

cup packed dark brown sugar

1 cup molasses

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 cup hot water

for serving (optional)

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour an 8-cup Bundt pan.

Whisk together the cake flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves in a large bowl.

Put the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium-high speed until smooth. Add the brown sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Pour in the molasses and beat until smooth. Add the vanilla extract, drop in the egg, and mix until incorporated, stopping at least once to scrape the sides of the bowl. Reduce the mixing speed to medium-low and alternately incorporate the flour mixture and hot water, beginning and ending with the flour mixture and stopping once or twice to scrape the sides of the bowl.