Gingerbread: the Pumpkin Spice of Christmas

Hell has finally frozen over--at 4:30 a.m. last Saturday morning, it snowed for like thirty seconds in Northwest Florida. That day I believe I went through about four wardrobe changes so I could cycle through all my favorite boots because I literally had no idea if the opportunity would present itself again, and after spending a week in the sweaty nightmare that is Orlando, I nearly wept at the sight of frosty lawns while walking the dogs. It was so cold I couldn't feel my face, and it was fantastic. It finally feels like Christmastime, so it was only appropriate that I commenced with all of the Christmas baking this past weekend. My family traditions are stacked high with Spritz cookies, caramel bars, lemon squares, fudge, literally everything under the sun except gingerbread. I decided I needed to change that this year and baked this super cute naked gingerbread cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting and edible chocolate trees (because there should be chocolate in every dessert):

Squee! So wintery!

I had so much fun decorating this cake. It was a pleasant, spirit-lifting experience after watching my Vikings winning streak get snapped. It took everything in me not to sit down and eat the entire pan of caramel bars I just baked to get over it. But sadness coupled with stomach ache was not how I wanted to spend my Sunday, and my sports-related depression was stopped dead in its tracks the second I took a bite of this cake. Why did I wait almost 31 years to bake a gingerbread cake? This stuff packs a punch. It's like the pumpkin spice of Christmas!! That jolt of ginger and cloves followed by the smooth sweetness of the cinnamon cream cheese frosting transported me to snowy, cold lands (you know, like Minnesota or inexplicably the entire South last weekend). What I'm trying to say is, I'm super late to the gingerbread party, but I'm trying to live my best basic white girl life, so I'm putting this into regular holiday rotation, stat. I adapted a recipe that was almost 550 calories for one slice of cake and Kated it up (I'm using my name as a verb now, deal with it) to cut the calorie content down to a much more respectable 330 calories a slice. You know, so you can have your cake, cookies, and fudge and eat it, too.

Praise be to Truvia, for making holiday binge eating possible.

Legitimately the hardest part of making this cake was tracking down a bottle of molasses. Apparently gingerbread is super popular during the month of December (Who knew? What? Everyone but me? That checks). It took us a few store runs, but eventually we found molasses and that moment will be what I consider "Katy's Christmas Miracle 2017." This recipe makes three thin 6-inch rounds, and you'll need:

• 1 1/2 cups All Purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves (or use 1/4 for less of a "jolt")
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce*
• 1/4 cup Truvia Baking Blend
• 2 TBS plus 2 tsp Truvia Brown Sugar Blend
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup molasses 
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk

*Subbing applesauce in place of butter will make a super dense, bread-like cake. If you'd rather have it light and fluffy, use 1/2 cup of butter at room temp. The next time I make this, I am going to use 1/4 cup of applesauce and 1/4 cup of butter to even things out.

Ah, ginger. Color of my hair. Soother of my stomach. You know, Ginger was my favorite Spice Girl, too.

 Start by preheating your oven to 350 and line your pans with Parchment paper and spray with cooking spray. Dump the flour, baking powder, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves in a medium bowl and whisk together. In your stand mixing bowl, blend the applesauce/butter and both Truvias until mixed. Things will be sloshy if you're using all applesauce, so blend on low (if using any butter, mix this with the sugars first until fluffy before adding applesauce). Add in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well. Then add in that mythical, elusive molasses and the vanilla extract. Blend well. Now, take turns adding in a third of the dry mix, blend well, then add in half of the buttermilk. Repeat until you've used all of your dry mix (you'll end with this) and the other half of the buttermilk.

I still only have 2 6-inch pans...

Dump your batter evenly into your prepared pans. Tap on your kitchen counter to release any air bubbles and even out your batter. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Your house will smell like Santa's dreams.

Let these rest in the pan on top of a cooling rack for 10 minutes before removing from the pan and allowing them to finish cooling on the rack. Now, for a naked cake, it is super helpful to freeze your cake rounds to ensure they don't get crumbly while you scrape down frosting (but don't forget to level your cakes so they're all even before you freeze them. You know, like I did. More on that later.). I wrapped all three of my rounds into individual cling wrap pouches and froze overnight. I also made my chocolate Christmas trees the night before to allow them time to set in the fridge. Because is it really Christmas baking if it doesn't take up your entire weekend? Exactly.

You should also hate yourself a little for eating way too many baking scraps.

 To make my Christmas trees, I used green chocolate melts, green and white sanding sprinkles, and white pearl sprinkles. I really like this brand of chocolate melts (found at A.C. Moore) because I wasn't too keen on the shade of green after I melted them, but I was able to add green gel dye to it to achieve the color I wanted without it seizing up which is practically unheard of in chocolate decorating. Small miracles. While I was melting my chocolate according to package directions, I sketched out some trees on a sheet of Parchment paper to act as a guide:

Don't forget to flip this over before you pipe chocolate or it'll taste like Sharpie...some lessons are hard learned from the past and never forgotten.

 I fitted two piping bags with a #16 Wilton tip (star tip) and another with a #5 Wilton tip (round open tip). I tried piping a tree with the #5 tip, but it looked really boring. The star tip definitely wins out here because it gives a nice texture. I piped over the outlines I had drawn by first piping one line the height of the tree to act as the backbone and then piped waves back and forth to create my trees (very slowly to ensure they didn't have large gaps in them).

It's quick and easy, promise. You can eat any you don't like. Win-win.

I piped two at a time and then decorated with various sprinkles while the chocolate was still soft.

I went a little overboard on the number of trees I decorated.

...but since our current house has no place for our Christmas tree, I knew this would be my one shot at tree decorating this Christmas, so I made my own tiny Christmas tree farm. And then I ate several of them because I cannot be trusted around chocolate. I let these sit out on the counter for about an hour before carefully and gently placing them in a Tupperware: one layer topped with Parchment paper followed by another layer. I closed the lid and hid them from myself in the fridge overnight. Just because they are tiny green trees does not mean they have the nutritional content of broccoli.

Don't ever read the nutritional content of powdered sugar, either.

The next day, I made my frosting. I knew I wanted a cinnamon cream cheese frosting, but if you want that "Whiter than a Canadian after a long winter" look about your frosting, you'll want to skip the cinnamon as it does add color to the frosting. And by color I mean "Tan as a Canadian after a brief summer." My color comparisons are distinctly channeling my heritage...Gingerbread men are tanner than I am. To make the frosting you'll need:

• 8 ounces of 1/3 less fat cream cheese at room temp
• 1/2 cup of butter at room temp
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3- 3 1/2 cups of powdered sugar (I used 3 1/2 but had a decent amount leftover, so 3 is safe for a naked cake)

Blend the cream cheese and butter in your stand mixer until fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. Then add in the vanilla, cinnamon, and powdered sugar. Blend on low until the sugar has been well incorporated, then blend on high until everything is smooth.

Hi cakes I forgot to torte...

 Before I froze my cakes, I completely forgot to level them. This is why baking and Benadryl don't mix. I would probably have a better chance of remembering to level my cakes while just straight up sleep walking than I would when Benadryl is introduced to my system and that sweet, sweet numbness overtakes my sinuses. Since this wasn't for anyone's birthday or consumption other than mine and my husband's, I didn't have too much of a meltdown (I did all my melting in Orlando...86 degrees in December, really?!). But I highly recommend leveling your cakes before freezing them so you can assemble layers without things getting wonky. Unwrap all your cake layers and load up a piping bag with a large round tip (Wilton 1A is my go-to) and a plop a heaping dollop of frosting inside it.

The circle of life.

 With naked cakes, remember to flip them upside down so the bottom of the cake is now facing up. This allows an even surface for you to stack your layers! I place my cake on a cake round and pipe a large circle of frosting around the edge of my cake first.

You're getting very sleeeeepppyyy....

 Then I spiral in a decent amount of frosting in the middle.

And I finish up by smoothing with an angled spatula.

 Repeat this process until you have used all of your layers. Smooth the top layer of frosting out nicely. There will be some overhang, which is good:

Especially if you forgot to level your cake and need to cleverly disguise that fact.

 I took my leftover frosting and angled spatula and filled in any areas where it was obvious that my cakes weren't totally level (then I ate a few spoonfuls of frosting because I'm excellent at coping with problems). Then I went around the cake a few times with my bench scraper to pull any excess frosting off the cake. I didn't have to do this much, as I didn't use a ton of frosting between layers. I wanted this to be a mostly naked cake, so less is more here.

I'm going to be obsessed with naked cakes forever because they are pretty and easy. This is like the no-makeup look but for a cake.

 Once I finished my frosting, I transferred my cake onto a large plate. Then I gathered up my not-broccoli trees.

I piped a gob of frosting down where I wanted to anchor any trees in place.

 Then, with a touch more gentle than I knew I possessed, I gingerly (ha!) placed each tree into the frosting glob until it had sunk into the actual cake. I am happy to report not a single tree broke during this process. I made like ten trees for emergency breakage and only used six because chocolate always crumbles on me (Kate Hulk Smash). More leftover eating trees for me!

So much Christmas in a tiny, adorable, yummy package!

 As you can see, I finished up by adding a large sprinkling of white sugar crystals to give it that wintery feel. I know with the cinnamon cream cheese frosting it looks more like the beach than snow, but I live in Florida, so this totally works here. Let me have this moment, people.

I just needed to see some snow, okay?

 This cake really helped boost my Christmas spirit. I mean, I still avoid stores I know for certain are playing Christmas music, but I'm less angry when I walk by the inflatable beach snowman down the street (for reference, this guy. I can't stand his smugness or his sunglasses.). It might stay "coldish" around here, and I am super grateful for that because I have one hell of a boot collection and not enough reasons to change outfits more times in one day than Beyonce. After finally getting to experience the magic of Disney World at Christmastime (minus the heat, which I am told Mickey can do nothing about), I'm ready for hall-decking and whatnot. A slice of this cake just puts me over the top. Of course, my "over the top" Christmas spirit simply means I might smile for 30 seconds longer a day. Baby steps. But when this gingerbread cake hits my tongue, I believe in Christmas miracles! Cinnamon cream cheese frosting is probably the best thing ever--the right amounts of sweet and tang meet with that unmistakable spiced, gingerbread goodness for literally the perfect balance. And since it is gingerbread with cream cheese icing on top, you can feel completely guilt-free about having a slice for breakfast. It's like a really fancy bagel with enough sugar to power you through even the earliest of Christmas mornings. Happy Holidays! 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

Pictured: my Christmas joy.