Sunday Night Sweets Blogging: Honey Gingerbread with Apple-Quince Compote

I am woefully behind on the blogging, and I’m afraid I still don’t have the time or energy right now to do this anywhere near as well as I’d like to, but something is better than nothing, right? Anyway, in a (probably futile) attempt to catch up, here is the Sunday project from two weeks ago: Honey Gingerbread, served with a compote of apples and quinces and topped with a generous dollop of sweetened mascarpone. While I love ordinary gingerbread, using honey instead of molasses gentles the cake, letting the spices warm and soothe you instead of being overwhelming, and serving it with the sweet fruit and the creamy cheese turns a humble snack cake into an unpretentious but still elegant dessert that could unapologetically round out a fancy meal.

Since the accompaniments are so simple (just add quinces to your favorite applesauce recipe, and stir a spoonful or two of sugar into a container of mascarpone), I will only give the recipe for the gingerbread. I will, however, encourage you to consider serving it with the garnishes, since the combination of textures and flavors is fabulous. If you don’t have access to quinces, you could use a combination of tart and sweet apples instead, but quinces add such a wonderful, exotic floral note to any fruit dessert that they are absolutely worth paying the extortionate prices whenever you can find them.

Honey Gingerbread
Serves 8-12

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 cups honey
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda, dissolved in 2 tablespoons warm water
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
Pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 325 F. Grease a 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking pan and line with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, spices and salt.

In a saucepan over medium-low heat, melt together the butter, sugar, and honey. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly, then mix in the milk, eggs and dissolved baking soda.

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well. Pour into the pan and bake until firm but springy when touched, 45-60 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely in the pan before cutting into squares.

Notes: This gingerbread, like any gingery, cinnamony cake or cookie, will only improve if you give it a bit of time to sit. While it’s wonderful fresh from the oven, it will be even spicier and more flavorful for breakfast the next day.

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Pie? Meh, but Cupcakes I Can Get Behind.

We never had pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving when I was growing up. While my mother adopted Thanksgiving with a vengeance when she first discovered it as an immigrant, her nearly-wholesale appropriation stopped short of the dessert course. She never cared for pumpkin pie, probably because she dislikes cloves and allspice, so we usually had some variation on apple pie (pie, strudel, even tarte tatin) instead. As an adult, though, I’ve thrown off my mother’s aversion to the spices usually found in pie, and I’ve also become really fond of pumpkin as a dessert medium, although pie is still not my favorite use for it, partly because really good pie dough without hydrogenated fat is my personal demon and constant nemesis, and partly because there are so many more interesting possibilities for pumpkin.

For the past few years, I’ve been alternating between the flan/creme brulee end and the cake ends of the spectrum. This year, I decided to follow the example of the very inventive Chockylit at Cupcake Bakeshop, because, in addition to being cute, leftover cupcakes would be much easier to take to work than a partially-consumed cake. I used the same recipe for the cakes, but I’m just not convinced by the combination of pumpkin and chocolate. I opted for a mascarpone and cream cheese frosting instead, based on a recipe I’d seen on Everyday Italian (yeah, she’s annoying, but at least she does have a legitimate grounding in terms of both training and Italian cuisine). The results were both yummy and attractive, although next time I might double the amount of frosting, since there was only enough to cover eighteen cupcakes, and not particularly generously, either.

I won’t re-post the cupcake recipe, since I didn’t modify it at all (although it made twenty-four rather than thirty in my muffin tins, probably because I always resist underfilling the cups), but I’ll post the frosting recipe, since I added vanilla and since the Food Network pulls recipes after a while.

Mascarpone Cream Cheese Frosting
Makes enough to lightly frost 18 cupcakes

3 oz cream cheese
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter
1/3 cup mascarpone cheese
3 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Let the cheeses and butter come to room temperature, then beat together the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Beat in the mascarpone until combined, then the honey and vanilla extract.

Chill until firm.

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