Billie's Gingerbread
From: Ruth Reichl, Delicious!
Makes: 1 cake
Cake:
Whole black peppercorns
Whole cloves
Whole cardamom
1 cinnamon stick
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1 cup sour cream
1 ½ sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large pieces fresh ginger root (1/4 cup, tightly packed, when finely grated)
Zest from 2 to 3 oranges (1 ½ teaspoons finely grated)
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 6-cup Bundt pan. Grind your peppercorns, cloves and cardamom and measure out ¼ teaspoon of each. (You can use pre-ground spices, but the cake won't taste as good.)
2. Grind your cinnamon stick and measure out 1 teaspoon. (Again, you can use ground cinnamon if you must.) Whisk the flour with the baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt in a small bowl. In another small bowl, whisk the eggs and egg yolk into the sour cream. Set aside.
3. Cream the butter and sugar in a stand mixer until the mixture is light, fluffy, and almost white. This should take about 3 minutes.
4. Grate the ginger root — this is a lot of ginger — and the orange zest. Add them to the butter/sugar mixture. Beat the flour mixture and the egg mixture, alternating between the two, into the butter until each addition is incorporated. The batter should be as luxurious as mousse.
5. Spoon batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 40 minutes, until cake is golden and a wooden skewer comes out clean.
6. Remove to a rack and cool in the pan for 10 minutes.
Soak:
½ cup bourbon
1 ½ tablespoons sugar
1. While the cake cools in its pan, simmer the bourbon and the sugar in a small pot for about 4 minutes. It should reduce to about 1/3 cup.
2. While the cake is still in the pan, brush half the bourbon mixture onto its exposed surface (the bottom of the cake) with a pastry brush. Let the syrup soak in for a few minutes, then turn the cake out onto a rack. Gently brush the remaining mixture all over the cake.
Glaze:
¾ cup powdered sugar, sifted or put through a strainer
5 teaspoons orange juice
1. Once the cake is cooled, mix the sugar with the orange juice and either drizzle the glaze randomly over the cake or put it into a squeeze bottle and do a controlled drizzle.
