Moist and dark with wonderful pronounced flavours. Real different cake.

Spicy chocolate cake - hmmm

Inspired by Linda Collister's little book "Easy Cakes", I had to try her spicy chocolate cake with ginger. In Dutch, the book is titled "cake anders" - translated as "andere cake", different cake, I think it would have made a nice Dutch pun on something in a league of its own; much more appropriate.

The book has some really great photography, and some good and up-to-date recipes. The only thing is that especially with cakes, the amounts have to be right for the mold, it needs to "fit" as it were. The book uses a lot of fancy shapes for molds, and the poor user is left to guess how to translate amounts into something fitting her own hardware. But - once out of the oven - this chocolate-ginger cake was indeed in a league of its own! The little chunks of ginger stand out in glorious contrast against a sweet dark chocolate cake. I added a topping of fresh cream cheese frosting with some white chocolate to decorate.

Ouverture for two mixing bowls

Prepare the cake tin with a bit of margarine and line it with baking parchment. Then combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger powder, and salt together in a bowl; use fingers or a fork to powder any lumps in the sugar.
Put the oil and the eggs in another bowl, whisk the eggs a little, then stir in creme fraiche and apple sauce. When this has an even consistency, pour it carefully onto the dry ingredients. Stir with a fork. When done, work the chopped ginger and chocolate chips into the mixture. Pour the batter into the prepared tin.

Baking the cake

Bake in a pre-heated oven, 175°C, for about 40 to 45 minutes. Leave to cool for 20 minutes, then remove the cake from its tin and leave it (preferably overnight) to cool completely. The cake has a sticky crumbly texture.

The cream cheese frosting

This frosting adds a terrific *fresh* flavour to the overall sweet-and- spicy taste of the cake. I have used this often on carrot cake. The maple syrup is there as a variation on a much used theme, and to have a soft toffee-color contrast with the white chocolate curls on top - but without maple syrup it's probably just as good.

Melt butter and cream cheese in a saucepan. When the cream cheese is soft, but not yet combined with the butter, add the sugar and stir it with a metal spoon to a soft creamy-white consistency without lumps. Add the maple syrup (which is optional) and the vanilla extract. And although this mixture smells really inviting, do not taste it at this stage, as the sugar-fat combination will probably be very hot. This is me speaking from experience! :-)
Leave to cool for about 10 minutes or until it is still a spreadable paste but not too thin and hot to work with. Use a knife to spread the glaze on top and sides of the cake. As you can see, I cut the cake in two layers (before glazing, of course) and put some frosting in between as well. When still sticky, but cold enough to not melt the chocolate, add the curls for decoration. Leave to cool and set.