Chocolate gingerbread cakes, pixie and bob

Besides TV shows and Christmas baking, this month has also been about my decision to grow out my pixie: I’d decided that a month or so ago, then dropped the idea and thought of keeping the pixie, but then I fell in love with Emma Stone’s beautiful bob and now I cannot wait to have that haircut (and I’ve thought of stealing her color, too, since I’ll inevitably have to start dying my hair soon to cover the grey strands).

Food, movies and hair styles – one can definitely find all sorts of things on this blog. ;)

I’ll have to patient for it will take months for my hair to grow that long, and it will certainly be an interesting exercise for me; luckily in the kitchen I don’t have to wait too long to eat something delicious (which is one of the reasons why learning how to cook can be so empowering) and these cakes are proof of that: small as they are, they bake and cool quickly and in no time at all mine were looking beautiful on the wire rack, just waiting for the ganache to set – if you’re impatient like me you can go ahead and eat the cakes as soon as you finish spreading the ganache on top of them: I promise I won’t tell a soul. ;)

Chocolate gingerbread cakes
slightly adapted from the always wonderful Delicious Australia

Cakes:
¼ cup honey
¼ cup molasses
125g brown sugar
¾ cup (180ml) whole milk
¾ cup (105g) all purpose flour
½ cup (45g) unsweetened cocoa
1 ¼ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
¾ teaspoon freshly ground allspice
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
pinch of salt
65g unsalted butter, room temperature
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
crystallized ginger, to garnish

Ganache:
200g dark chocolate, finely chopped – I used one with 53% cocoa solids
100ml heavy cream
1 tablespoon (14g) unsalted butter

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Butter a 12-hole muffin pan and line the bottoms with a circle of baking paper (I cut the bottoms of cupcake liners and used them to line the pan). In a small saucepan, place honey, molasses, sugar and milk and cook over low heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Cool.

Place flour, cocoa, baking powder, spices, salt and butter in a food processor and pulse to combine. Add egg, the cooled mixture and vanilla and process until a smooth batter forms. Divide among muffin holes and bake for 20-25 minutes or until risen and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then carefully unmold, peel off the paper and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Ganache: heat the cream in a small saucepan over medium heat until it starts to bubble around the sides. Remove from the heat, add the chocolate and butter and set aside for 2 minutes. Stir until smooth. cool to room temperature, then spread over the cooled cakes and garnish with the crystallized ginger – I had some ganache left, so I refrigerated it and rolled into truffles and dusted them with cocoa powder.

Makes 12