Transform homey gingerbread into a stately layer cake
Crinkle cookies look pretty but can they taste better?
By America’s Test Kitchen
Good gingerbread is dark and moist, with an intriguing hint of bitterness and a peppery finish. Usually it’s a rustic square cake or maybe even an attractive Bundt, but it’s never quite sophisticated enough to serve as the centerpiece holiday dessert.
We wanted to transform homey gingerbread into a stately layer cake. The problem? Traditional recipes are too moist to be stacked four layers high. We knew we could fix the excess moisture problem by cutting back on the molasses or coffee in our recipe or adding a bit more flour. But both strategies would lighten the color and dull the flavor.
Instead, we added a conventional cake ingredient that’s unconventional in gingerbread: cocoa powder. Cocoa contains a high proportion of absorbent starch; just 1/4 cup of it soaked up the cake’s excess moisture, so the crumb was no longer objectionably sticky. The cocoa also deepened the color and flavor of our gingerbread without making the cake taste chocolaty. As a bonus, it diluted some of the gluten, making the cake’s crumb more tender.
Sprinkling chopped crystallized ginger over the top of the cake completed the holiday gingerbread revamp. Use a 2-cup liquid measuring cup to portion the cake batter. Do not use blackstrap molasses here as it is too bitter.
Gingerbread Layer Cake
Servings: 12-16 Start to finish: 3 hour 30 minutes
1 3/4 cups (8 3/4 ounces) allpurpose flour
1/4 cup (3/4 ounce) unsweetened cocoa powder 2 tablespoons ground ginger 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 3/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1 cup brewed coffee 3/4 cup molasses 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) sugar 3/4 cup vegetable oil 3 large eggs, lightly beaten 2 tablespoons finely grated fresh ginger 5 cups frosting 1/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger (optional)
Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 8-inch round cake pans and line pans with parchment paper. Whisk flour, cocoa, ground ginger, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, pepper, and cayenne together in large bowl. Whisk coffee, molasses, and baking soda in second large bowl until combined. Add sugar, oil, eggs, and fresh ginger to coffee mixture and whisk until smooth.
Whisk coffee mixture into flour mixture until smooth. Pour 1 1/3 cups batter into each prepared pan. Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 12 to 14 minutes. Let cakes cool in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove cakes from pan, discarding parchment, and let cool completely on rack, about 2 hours. Wipe pans clean with paper towels. Let pans cool completely, regrease and reflour pans, and line with fresh parchment. Repeat process with remaining batter.
Line edges of cake platter with 4 strips of parchment to keep platter clean. Place 1 cake layer on platter. Spread 3/4 cup frosting evenly over top, right to edge of cake. Repeat with 2 more cake layers, pressing lightly to adhere and spreading 3/4 cup frosting evenly over each layer. Top with remaining cake layer and spread remaining frosting evenly over top and sides of cake. Garnish top of cake with crystallized ginger, if using. Refrigerate until frosting is set, about 30 minutes, before serving. (Cake can be refrigerated for up to two days; bring to room temperature before serving.)
Rolled in powdered sugar before baking, chocolate crinkle cookies (often called earthquakes) feature chocolaty fissures that break through the bright white surface during baking. While striking in appearance, these cookies often fall short on taste.
Using a combination of cocoa powder and unsweetened bar chocolate rather than bittersweet chocolate (which contains sugar) certainly upped the intensity, and swapping brown sugar for the granulated created a complex
This undated photo provided by America’s Test Kitchen in Nov 2018 shows crinkle cookies in Brookline, Mass.
(AP)
sweetness. At this point, the cookies had deep, rich flavor, but the exterior cracks were too few and too wide, and the cookies weren’t spreading enough. Using a combination of baking soda and baking powder helped–the bubbles produced by the leaveners rose to the surface and burst, leaving fissures–but the cracks gapped.
We had been refrigerating this fluid dough overnight before portioning and baking the cookies, but the cold dough
didn’t begin to spread very much until after that dried exterior had formed, forcing the cracks to open wide. The solution was to bake the cookies after letting the dough sit at room temperature for 10 minutes, which was just enough time for the dough to firm up to a scoopable consistency.
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
Servings: 22 Start to finish: 1 hour
1 cup (5 ounces) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (1 1/2 ounces) unsweetened cocoa powder 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 cups packed (10 1/2 ounces) brown sugar 3 large eggs 4 teaspoons instant espresso powder (optional) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped 4 tablespoons unsalted butter 1/2 cup granulated sugar 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in bowl.
Whisk brown sugar; eggs; espresso powder, if using; and vanilla together in large bowl. Microwave chocolate and butter in bowl at 50 percent power, stirring occasionally, until melted, 2 to 3 minutes. Whisk chocolate mixture into egg mixture until combined. Fold in flour mixture until no dry streaks remain. Let dough sit at room temperature for 10 minutes.
Spread granulated sugar in shallow dish. Spread confectioners’ sugar in second shallow dish. Working in batches, drop 2-tablespoon mounds of dough (or use #30 scoop) directly into granulated sugar and roll to coat. Transfer dough balls to confectioners’ sugar and roll to coat; space dough balls evenly on prepared sheets, 11 per sheet.
Bake cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until they are puffed and cracked and edges have begun to set but centers are still soft (cookies will look raw between cracks and seem underdone), about 12 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through baking. Let cookies cool on sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack. Let cookies cool completely before serving. (AP)