This gingerbread bundt cake is a winter spice wonder. It’s moist, soft, and oh so perfect for Christmas. And since I don’t do Christmas, I’ll just eat it all anyway.
As a perk, this cake is finished off with brown butter icing. It’s pretty much the best cake ever. No bias here, of course!
I’m working on cozy holiday plans, and I’m very excited to curl up with my kids by the fire later this week while we watch movies. It’ll be great.
Just as exciting, the D.C. area is poised for 75-degree temps this Christmas Eve. Heck yeah! If we don’t get a white Christmas, can we get a tropical one instead? I’m down with that. It might be global warming, but let’s not talk about that right now.
This week, I’m still chugging away at work. Most school districts all over the country are on winter break, but my school system is insisting on three days of instruction this week, which means I will work through Wednesday and then run for the hills. It’s not that bad, except that people keep asking me how much I’m enjoying vacation, and I have to tell them that nope, not there yet. Gone are the days when winter break was two weeks long!
Okay, enough kvetching. I’ll talk about cake instead. Glorious, glorious cake.
This cake has all the elements of gingerbread: molasses, cinnamon, ginger, and lots of love. But it’s a cake, and it’s way too easy to eat about three slices at once. I don’t have gingerbread often, but when I do, I take it very seriously.
The brown butter icing takes just a few minutes to make, and it’s the perfect rich accompaniment to a dark, spicy cake. I can’t recommend it enough!
Stay tuned tomorrow for my next foray into food film. Until then, enjoy all the holiday sugar you can!
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350. Coat a bundt pan with cooking spray and dust with flour. Set aside.
- In a bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and spices. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat until smooth. Mix in the molasses until blended. Working alternately, beat in the flour and milk until all ingredients are incorporated and smooth.
- Bake for 45-55 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Cool for 10 minutes, and then invert onto a plate. Cool completely.
- When the cake is cool, make the brown butter icing. In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and let it cook until golden in color, anywhere from 3-5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat.
- Stir in the powdered sugar and vanilla and gradually add the milk until the mixture becomes spreadable. If the mixture is too thin, add more powdered sugar. If it's too thick, add more milk.
- Spread the icing over the cooled cake. Let it set.
- Slice and serve!
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I’ll be honest with you: I have very mixed feelings about the holidays. They seem to be an elaborate ruse to guide us toward winter with enthusiasm, where we’re left in January with bare trees, chilly mornings and frozen windshields. But on the other hand, those lights sure are pretty.
While I don’t celebrate Christmas, I can get down with gingerbread anything. That includes these gingerbread cookie cheesecake bars, which are both easy and festive. They’re also studded with cinnamon chips, one of my favorite baking inventions.
Here’s my pet peeve of the week: ready? People in parking lots with no manners.
When I was a kid, it was common courtesy (not to mention a safety practice) to drive through parking lots slowly, allowing for the possibility that either a person or a car would appear in your path. I very strongly remember a time when, if a person were pulling out of a parking spot, someone driving past them would respectfully stop and wait for them to finish coming out of the space, letting them go first.
Now, cars shoot through the lots at high speed, and if someone is coming out of a space, they typically swerve around that person and continue on their merry way. I’ve seen more than a few people almost killed by this practice. And aside from being dangerous, it’s also downright rude.
Plus, we all know how hard it is to see what’s behind us in parking lots. My head is always swiveling like crazy, trying to see everything at the same time. As much as I love Trader Joe’s, backing out of a parking space in that jammed little lot terrifies me. My car isn’t fancy enough for one of those rear-view cameras, which I hear really help.
This holiday season, let’s all begin by not just being kinder and more generous in person, but also by letting someone back out of their f-ing parking space. Can we all just do that for one person? Great. Rant concluded.
The last time I was at Trader Joe’s, I picked up some of their refrigerated gingerbread cookie dough. It formed the base for these lovely bars. On top went a layer of simple cheesecake batter with cinnamon chips, and I added some caramel sauce for bling. Mission accomplished. Yet another holiday bar option to celebrate and enjoy!
Bar cookies are my favorite, in case you haven’t figured that out by now. But they’re especially marvelous this time of year, because they pack and go very easily. Perfect for potluck holiday parties!
Whether or not you see winter looming this holiday season, be sure to fill it with good cookies and even better parking lot etiquette. It’ll guarantee you points with Santa or whatever higher power you believe in!
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350. Line an 8-inch square pan with foil, leaving enough to hang over the sides. Coat with cooking spray.
- Open the packages of cookie dough. Using all but three or four of the cookies (you can save for later to bake on their own), press the cookies into the pan evenly, patting them down to be flat and connected.
- Bake the cookies for 15 minutes. While they're baking, make the cheesecake layer. In a medium bowl, mix the softened cream cheese with the sugar until smooth. Add the egg and vanilla and stir again until completely incorporated. Fold in the cinnamon chips.
- Pour the cheesecake batter over the cookie base and bake for an additional 20-25 minutes until set.
- Cool completely and cool overnight.
- When ready, cut into squares. Drizzle the caramel sauce over the top and sprinkle on more cinnamon chips.
There was a cookie shop (a Mrs. Fields-type place) in the student union of the university where my parents worked. Sometimes, we’d go visit my dad at work, and on a really good day, we’d get a big gingerbread man as a treat. Or at least, it seemed big. If I looked at the cookie as an adult, it would probably be tiny.
These gingerbread men had red hot buttons. You know, the candy. So as an adult, I don’t like to eat gingerbread if there are no red hots involved. That’s why these delightful gingerbread bars are covered not only in a thick, snowy layer of frosting, but also with red hot candies!
If a brownie had a gingerbread counterpart, this would be it. As much fun as it is to roll out those little guys, this is the low-maintenance version. Same flavor, less work. I’m a fan!
The most surprising thing about these bars is how quickly they bake. They’re pretty much set after 15 minutes in the oven. You don’t want to leave them in much longer, or they’ll get overbaked. That’s the enemy.
For an easy and different addition to your holiday party circuit this year, give these bars a shot. They might not bring back the childhood joy of biting the head off a gingerbread man, but they’ll sure bring back that taste.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350. Line an 8 x 8 pan with aluminum foil, leaving enough to hang over the sides. Spray with cooking spray. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar with the molasses until smooth and creamy. Add the egg and mix again. Beat in the baking soda, salt and flour gradually, until the dough forms.
- Spread the dough in the prepared pan, patting it down. Bake for 15 minutes. Cool completely.
- When the bars are cool, make the frosting. Cream the butter and shortening until smooth. Add the powdered sugar gradually along with the vanilla. When the powdered sugar is added, mix in the milk. Whip for a few minutes until completely smooth.
- Spread the frosting on the bars. Add sprinkles and other decorations as desired!
- Let the frosting set; cut into squares and store in an airtight container.
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