When I was a kid, I refused to eat ginger and spent a lot of time picking ginger slivers and slices out of my food. All of my mother's and grandmother's home cooking was Asian food, so there was ginger to avoid on a daily basis. But as an adult, ginger is one of my favorite flavors in baking, especially when it comes in candied form.
So I was pretty sure I would like the Double-Ginger Bundt Cake recipe I found on epicurious.com. Not only does the batter include both powdered ginger and crystallized ginger, but the headnote promised a "sparkly crust" from turbinado sugar sprinkled on the buttered Bundt pan. To make the cake batter, you beat room temperature butter with sugar; add eggs, an egg yolk, and vanilla; alternately add the dry ingredients (flour, ground ginger, baking powder, and salt) and sour cream; and mix in crystallized ginger. You spread the batter into a pan that has been buttered and coated in raw sugar, and bake.
When I unmolded the cake I was disappointed that the outside of the cake didn't sparkle. The large crystals of turbinado sugar were embedded into the crust and my cake looked nothing like the photo included online with the recipe (and I really don't understand how you could achieve the sparkly look in that photo without applying sugar after baking). But after tasting the cake, I didn't care. The raw sugar might not have looked like much, but it gave the crust a wonderfully satisfying crunch. And the dense buttery cake did a great job showcasing the sweet and mildly hot flavor of the ginger.
I didn't make the ginger-infused strawberries included with the recipe because I was taking this cake to work and I try to limit office baked goods to hand foods to eliminate the need for plates and forks. Fortunately, it turns out that this cake is perfect just as is. I think one reason my testers loved it is that I used Penzey's Australian crystallized ginger. I consider Penzey's the gold standard of candied ginger, but it comes with the corresponding wallet-busting price; this cake required about $10 worth. But sometimes you get what you pay for -- every tender and sweet nugget in the cake was a treasure.
Recipe: "Double-Ginger Sour Cream Bundt Cake with Ginger-Infused Strawberries" from epicurious.com.
So I was pretty sure I would like the Double-Ginger Bundt Cake recipe I found on epicurious.com. Not only does the batter include both powdered ginger and crystallized ginger, but the headnote promised a "sparkly crust" from turbinado sugar sprinkled on the buttered Bundt pan. To make the cake batter, you beat room temperature butter with sugar; add eggs, an egg yolk, and vanilla; alternately add the dry ingredients (flour, ground ginger, baking powder, and salt) and sour cream; and mix in crystallized ginger. You spread the batter into a pan that has been buttered and coated in raw sugar, and bake.
I didn't make the ginger-infused strawberries included with the recipe because I was taking this cake to work and I try to limit office baked goods to hand foods to eliminate the need for plates and forks. Fortunately, it turns out that this cake is perfect just as is. I think one reason my testers loved it is that I used Penzey's Australian crystallized ginger. I consider Penzey's the gold standard of candied ginger, but it comes with the corresponding wallet-busting price; this cake required about $10 worth. But sometimes you get what you pay for -- every tender and sweet nugget in the cake was a treasure.
Recipe: "Double-Ginger Sour Cream Bundt Cake with Ginger-Infused Strawberries" from epicurious.com.
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