Tangled Branches: Satiated
riveting tales of how we sustain ourselves
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Gingerbread
I don't bake many sweet things anymore, but once a year or so there is a Cake Occasion. On such occasions, I make gingerbread.
Laurie Colwin is responsible for my gingerbread renaissance. Back when I liked Gourmet magazine, her column there was always a delight. Her writing was unpretentious (sometimes I wished she could come by for a cup of coffee) but she was serious about her cooking. And she was serious about gingerbread. Each of her two collections of Gourmet columns has one essay about gingerbread, and in an essay titled "How to Give a Party", she writes:
My birthday is a sort of makeshift affair. My favorite cake is gingerbread with chocolate icing, and I make the cake the night before. Sometimes I make two layers, and sometimes I split one. When the cake is cook, I spread the middle with a very, very thick layer of raspberry jam and stick the layers together. The top is spread with a thin layer of jam and the cake is left to stand, uniced, overnight. The next morning I make a plain butter, sugar and chocolate icing—any standard cookbook will give you a recipe with proportions.
Well, my gingerbread is a simpler thing, but I've always meant to try it her way. For me, I follow the recipe in the 1975 Joy of Cooking, except I use Ceylon Cinnamon (I just like the flavor; don't know why), and I increase the amount of ginger (at Laurie's suggestion). I drizzle a lemon glaze over the top, which is just powdered sugar mixed with enough lemon juice to get to a drizzling consistency.
Last week, as I made this, I thought I might write a post about Laurie and gingerbread, but then got busy with other things and lost the momentum. So it was a happy surprise and coincidence that last night, catching up on blog reading, I found that Kate had written about Laurie Colwin. It truly is a small world.
Labels: cakes, gingerbread, sweets
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