Food TV Cooking Club: December

It’s nearly Christmas, which of course has me thinking about Christmas goodies. I always try to make a few treats at this time of year, even though there are plenty being offered by other people.

This month’s cooking club recipe is for Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Gingerbread Cake. Now, I love gingerbread and I love chocolate, so of course I was going to love this recipe, right?

The smell coming from the oven as the gingerbread baked was so heavenly. It made the whole house smell so nice. As some of you know, my husband and I are currently in the middle of moving to Toronto, and our apartment is being shown from time-to-time to prospective new tenants. If only they had shown the apartment while I was baking, it would have rented for sure.

Now, I’m going to be honest here. I was lazy. I didn’t pick up any parchment paper when I was at the store because I figured I could get by without it. If I spray the pan very well, surely the cake won’t stick, right?

Oh how wrong I was. As you can see from the photographic evidence, the cake stuck quite badly, causing it to fall out in big chunks. Luckily I managed to piece it back together somewhat decently so I could add the icing. I should know better by now that my pans are old and tend to make things stick, and also that if a recipe recommends using parchment paper, you should follow the instructions.

In spite of this mini disaster, I must say the cake is so delicious. I kept coming back to the pan for more bits and pieces of the broken stuff. The calories don’t count if it’s just from the broken bits, right?

In all seriousness, try the recipe. The ginger and chocolate combination is really satisfying and goes extremely well together. The icing seems strange at first, with ginger ale as an ingredient, but it really is the perfect topping for this cake.

Happy Holidays, everyone!