Carrot Gingerbread Muffins

This recipe is essentially a gingerbread cake batter that gets shredded carrots folded into it. It is really more gingerbread cake than carrot muffin. I love the flavour of these, there is quite a large amount of ground ginger in the batter and it gives the muffins a spicy kick while the cinnamon lends its lingering warmth to the palate. These "muffins" have the texture of delicate soft fluffy cakes. I think these would be delicious with cream cheese frosting, although that would definitely take them out of muffin-land and into cupcake territory.

Carrot Gingerbread Muffins

Dairy,
Time: 1 hour

• 1/2 sup golden raisins
• 2-1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 2-1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 pinch ground cloves
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cu packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup fancy molasses
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cups plain yogurt or buttermilk
• 2 cups shredded carrots
  

1. In bowl, whisk together flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg and cloves.
2. In large bowl, beat butter with brown and granulated sugars until light, about 1 minute. Beat in molasses and vanilla; beat in eggs, 1 at a time. Stir in flour mixture; stir in yogurt until combined. Fold in carrots and raisins just until combined. Spoon into paper-lined or greased muffin cups.
3. Bake in 350°F (180°C) oven until cake tester inserted in centre comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Transfer to rack; let cool.

adapted from: Canadian Living Magazine Sept 2010

Vegan Gingerbread Cupcakes

A lot of my friends are vegan, and although we love to talk about food, I hate not being able to share a lot of the things I bake with these friends. So on a winter trip to Toronto, I was quite excited to find the book Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World, which I have heard is apparently the vegan cupcake bible.

So I decided to try out some vegan cupcakes to surprise some friends who don’t get to eat baked goods very often.

These Gingerbread cupcakes, with a lemony buttercream are my first real foray into the world of vegan baking. They use ingredients like soymilk and soy yogurt that I otherwise wouldn’t use on a regular basis, but for the most part the recipe was simple and straightforward. I was very pleasantly surprised by the cupcakes they were light and fluffy, had a lovely texture and a spicy, rich gingerbread flavour. They tasted good both warm from the oven and room temperature.

The problem however was their appearance. The cupcakes sank in the middle. A combination of the very liquidy batter, and possibly my inconsistent oven, produced fluffy tasty cupcakes that unfortunately had pronounced craters in their centers. Now as an artist I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my baking, and when I eat a cupcake I want it to have lovely rounded tops. I can’t bring myself to serve ugly cupcakes no matter how good they taste, my vegan friends deserve better.

Behold the craters:

The trick is to think of the craters as frosting opportunities. So I proceeded to make up a vegan “butter” cream recipe to make what was once concave look convex. The recipe is loosely based on the lemony buttercream in Vegan Cupcakes take Over the World, but I messed with the quantities because I really didn’t want to buy margarine. So I just used shortening as my frosting base, and made sure it was liberally flavored with lemon zest, and vanilla. And it was better than I’d hoped.

I brought these gingerbread cupcakes with lemony frosting to a soup-making potluck. We ate them with green tea to cap off a productive night of cooking. My friend said they tasted like a lemon bar and a gingerbread cookie that had a cake lovechild. She also thought that the lemon frosting was a surprise with the ginger. She went back for seconds so I do believe my vegan baking experiment was successful.

Vegan Gingerbread Cupcakes

Makes 12 cupcakes

• 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 3 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon cloves
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup molasses
• ½ cup maple syrup
• ¼ cup soy milk
• 2 tablespoons soy yogurt
• 1-1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with paper cupcakes liners.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and salt into a bowl and mix.
3. Whisk the oil, molasses, maple syrup, soy milk, yogurt, and lemon zest in a separate large bowl. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix just until smooth. The batter will be quite runny.
4. Fill cupcake liners two-thirds full. Bake for 19-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely before frosting. (I let the cupcakes cool in pans for about ten minutes before turning out.)

Notes: the cupcakes have a lot of liquid in them so they might sink in the middle, this is ok! As long as the cupcakes are baked through they will be good and fluffy and moist. Think of the craters as frosting opportunities.

Lemon “Butter” cream

• ¼ cup shortening (I used Crisco)
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons lemon zest

1. Beat all ingredients together until smooth, adding more lemon zest or sugar if needed to loosen or stiffen icing.

Adapted from: Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World

Pear Upside Down Gingerbread

It officially feels like fall, the sky is overcast, it is cold enough that my summer clothes just don't cut it anymore and pears are in season.

I have taken to using pears in baking, (in muffins and pear butter) because they have a sweet subtle flavour that melds well with other things.

This recipe combines pears and one of my favourite desserts: gingerbread. I could eat gingerbread any time of the year but my craving for it's sweet-spicy-comfort-food goodness intensifies when the weather turns cold.

The recipe called for either Anjou pears or the teeny Seckel variety. Honestly I’m not sure whether pear variety makes a difference. I could only find the Seckel pears, so I went with those in an attempt to be good and follow the recipe.

So I peeled and sliced the eensy little pears and arranged them oh-so prettily on top of the caramel in the pan.

However about as soon as I poured the batter over my pears they migrated to the sides of the dish. So much for aesthetics. I might not have packed them in tightly enough or maybe the tiny Seckel pear slices were just too small to stay put. (Tiny things tend to be mischievous little fellows) Either way I think one should be particularly gentle when spreading the batter over the pear slices. I think when (notice it’s a when and not an “if”) I make this again, I might try using Bartlett pears, because I think they will work just as well and their bigger size will stop them in their sticky caramel tracks.

Flighty pears aside, this cake tasted perfect. It was exactly what I had been craving. The moist pear and caramel topping gets crunchy round the edges of the cake and stays soft and sticky in the centre. The gingerbread itself was a bit on the mild side of gingerbread. It had more mellowness than spicy bite, but in this regard it balanced the buttery caramel flavour of the pears. It also had that characteristic hot water gingerbread texture (despite not using hot water) that lends gingerbread cakes its tender, pillowy crumb.

I think this would be best served with whipped cream, but as I didn't have any, plain or with ice cream is certainly just as good. No matter how you dress it up, is there anyone out there who could resist the call of warm gingerbread on a chilly fall day?

Pear Gingerbread Upside Down Cake

Prep: 25 min, bake: 35-40 minutes, cool 5 min

Dairy

Makes one 9x9 cake or about 9 servings

• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 Anjou pear or 3 Seckel pears, peeled, cored and thinly sliced ( I don’t know if pear type makes a difference, I used Seckel pears which are tiny and I think that a bigger pear would stay in place better)

cake:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
• ½ cup butter, softened
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup molasses
• ¾ cup water (room temperature, this is not a hot water gingerbread)
• sweetened whipped cream for serving (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a small sauce pan combine the 1/3 cup brown sugar, 2 tablespoons butter, and 1 tablespoon water. Cook and stir over low heat until mixture comes to boiling. Pour mixture into a 9x9x2–inch baking dish, spreading to cover the bottom. Arrange pear slices in a decorative pattern on top of the brown sugar mixture; set aside. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, salt and cloves; set aside.
2. In a large bowl, beat the ½ cup butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds, add the brown sugar and beat until combined. Beat in eggs and molasses until combined.
3. Alternately add flour mixture and the water to butter mixture, beginning and ending with the flour. Beat on low speed after each addition just until combined. Pour batter evenly over pear slices in pan, being careful not to disturb pear slices.
4. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until center springs back when lightly touched. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Using a sharp knife or narrow metal spatula, loosen edges of cake from sides of pan. Carefully invert onto a serving platter. Serve warm. If desired top each serving with sweetened whipped cream. Makes 9 servings.

Adapted from: Better Homes and gardens Holiday baking 2008