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| Poisoned Apple Gingerbread Cake |
Well, lords and ladies of your own kitchen tables, I made a magical recipe for my book club this month (the real one, not the one I fake started online to motivate myself and still haven't finished...). We read a compilation of rewritten short fairy tales by Emma Donoghue, Kissing the Witch. The book was fine - a great quick, LGBTQ reworking of 13 known stories - but the recipe, my friends, came to me in a vision sent by my very own fairy godmother: my stomach.
I mean, they're fairy tales, right? We're all familiar with the ol'poisoned apple trick, right? And how you should never ever enter a gingerbread house if you find one in the woods, even if it smells really good and you're really, really hungry, right? This also comes to mind. Naturally, my mind first jumped to conclusions of a caramel apple nature, but I a) don't really like said caramel apples, and b) I wanted to make it poisoned...which in my mind equals booze. In this case, rum, because rum+cake generally portend good things. Judge away, teetoallers; this one is for you! I also really, really like gingerbread. It's so good, you guys. Double naturally, I just had to combine these things. And so I did - behold, my glorious, beautiful, Poisoned Apple Gingerbread Cake!
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| Oh look! It's my busted ugly stepsister of a Poisoned Apple Gingerbread Cake! |
Errrrr...that is one busted ugly stepsister of a cake! Guys, I think I got my yearly recipe collapse syndrome out on this one. Or else an evil witch cursed me. I'm inclined to go with the former, though. Does anyone else suffer from this? (I know some of you chocolate banana fiends just had a case of it!) Like many Grimm fairy tales, this cake did not have an attractive ending. Some of the cake decided to stay put in the Bundt pan, half came out, and the remaining pieces tragically fell into my mouth...
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| Poisoned Apple Gingerbread Cake (so good I suspect it's laced with a love potion) |
Long story short, this is a delicious, but super heavy and moist cake. My oven also tends to overcook, and I was a little more proactive about not doing so, to the point where though it was cooked, it probably should have been a little more dried out, almost erring on the overcooked side (especially because you'll be adding more moisture at the end). In the end, though I was sad it was a supremely unattractive cake, it almost worked. I mean, it's supposed to be poisoned, right? It looked pretty dodgy! More importantly, the flavors more than make up for it. I'm pretty sure I actually laced it with a love potion, not poison, because it is so delicious, to the point where I ironically ate so much that I got a stomachache...from ginger. Luckily there are MANY fairy tale adaptations (some included below the recipe), that you can use it for many book clubs of your own - let me how yours turn out!
Tips and Notes:
- Don't mess around with preparing your pan. Grease it up, and then generously flour it down. Seriously. Look at my cake. I'm not joking.
- The next time I make this, I plan to sub in 1/2 cup of wheat flour to see if it helps dry things out a bit. If you do, let us know how it turns out!
- I used a combination of Blackstrap molasses and Corn Syrup, because that's what I had. The original recipe suggests just using dark molasses. Pick your poison (ba dum?).
- Make sure that the cake is well cooked. Prick with a skewer to test, and when it comes out clean, give it approximately 5 more minutes. I'm dead serious; there's a lot of liquid in this one.
- If you are lazy, you can mix the cake all in one bowl. This might, however, be why the gods of Pastry and Dessert smote me...whatever. If you want to mix it in multiple bowls, check out how Smitten Kitchen does it.
- I used Flor de Cana rum, straight from my Nicaraguan aventuras. Use any rum, dark or light, you've got though!
- I used Fuji apples, and would recommend sticking with a sweet, slightly sturdy type that will soften but still hold the rum mix and some semblance of shape. I consulted the Apple Lover's cookbook!
- I got this recipe from a holiday cookbook released by my graduate school; it had been adapted from Smitten Kitchen, where it had been adapted from the Gramercy Tavern. I also looked at The Apple Lover's Cookbook, where there is a chaste and different version of an apple gingerbread cake, and The New Best Recipe, for rum glaze ideas (isn't anything involving rum subsequently glazed, especially your eyes?)
Poisoned Apple Gingerbread Cake
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| Poisoned Apple Gingerbread Cake |
