Chocolate Ginger Cake

A week of small kitchen projects. The cookies were the start of it and once I had the rolling pin and the flour bin out I kept going, which is a thing that happens to me in the deep December weeks — the kitchen becomes the only sensible place in the house and a man finds himself filling the time with the work that pleases him most. I made a batch of the cocoa mix Helen used to make for the grandchildren, the dry mix in a quart jar with a label in my handwriting that imitates hers without quite getting there, the kind of approximation that is its own form of homage. The mix is half cocoa powder and half powdered sugar with a pinch of salt and a spoonful of cornstarch to give it body when you reconstitute it with hot milk, and three of those jars are now ready for Christmas distribution, one each for Teddy and James and Anna, who are the grandchildren most likely to actually use a quart of cocoa mix in their adult kitchens, the others having moved into a phase of life that runs more toward espresso and matcha and other beverages I do not entirely understand.

Wednesday I made shortbread — the simple Scottish kind, butter and sugar and flour and a pinch of salt, pressed into a pan and scored and baked at three hundred and twenty for forty-five minutes. Helen had a Scottish grandmother and the shortbread was hers originally, a recipe of three ingredients and one rule, which is do not overwork the dough. I have been making the shortbread for thirty years and I have learned to handle the dough the way you would handle a wounded bird — gently, briefly, and only as much as is necessary to get it where it is going. The shortbread came out exactly the right pale gold, the texture sandy in the way only butter and patience can produce. I will eat it with tea for the rest of the month.

Teddy called Thursday from Burlington — he's been at the restaurant kitchen for almost three months now, weekends mostly, and he has begun to make sense of what he is learning. He told me the head cook had given him a small responsibility this week, a sauce on a single dish for a single service, his to make and his to be judged on. He had been nervous all afternoon and the sauce had come out, in his estimation, well, and he had received the head cook's nod, which in a working kitchen is the highest possible accolade. He wanted me to know. I told him: a nod from someone who has spent thirty years at a stove is worth more than a stack of paper compliments from someone who has not. He laughed and said he would remember that. I told him to also remember that he should not let one good sauce convince him of anything beyond the fact that he made one good sauce, and that the next service would give him another sauce to make and another verdict to receive, and that this is the entire structure of the work — the daily test, the daily verdict, the next day. He said he understood. He probably did. He is becoming a young man who understands more than he says, which is a Bergstrom inheritance and a useful one.

The temperature came up over the weekend — into the high twenties, which after the single digits felt nearly tropical — and I spent Saturday afternoon out in the woodshed restacking the back wall, which had bowed slightly under the weight of the rest of the pile, the way woodpiles always do toward the end of a season if you do not catch them. The restack took two hours and the dog supervised from the doorway and I came in red-cheeked and warm under the coat and stood by the stove and ate a piece of shortbread and was, for the duration of that piece of shortbread, perfectly content with my life.

The cocoa mix jars are labeled and the shortbread is wrapped, but a week of kitchen work like this one deserves one more thing — something that uses the cocoa in a different form, something with a little heat from the ginger that suits the cold outside and the warmth inside. This chocolate ginger cake is the kind of recipe that earns its place in a December kitchen: dark, spiced, unhurried. I would set a piece aside for Teddy if he were here. As it is, I will eat it with tea and consider it well earned.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 12

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup molasses
1 cup hot strong brewed coffee
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Powdered sugar, for dusting (optional)

Instructions

Preheat and prepare. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan and dust lightly with cocoa powder, tapping out any excess.
Combine dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugars. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter with the granulated and brown sugars until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add molasses and vanilla. Beat in the molasses and vanilla extract until fully combined. The mixture will look slightly curdled — this is normal.
Alternate dry and wet ingredients. Add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the hot coffee and sour cream combined, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Stir just until no dry streaks remain. Do not overmix.
Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 32 to 36 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the cake springs back lightly when pressed.
Cool and serve. Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for at least 20 minutes before cutting. Dust with powdered sugar if desired. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chocolate Ginger Cake — The Comfort of Cocoa and a Kitchen Worth Living In