Friendship Food: The gingerbread cake recipe I don't want you to miss

Also, why build a whole house when you can have an entire tray to slice and share with friends?

Hello! Hello!

It’s my favorite time of every month — it’s the time when I send you a recipe for FRIENDSHIP FOOD and also when I make a contribution in your name to a helping organization. I’ve been doing this since the first FRIENDSHIP FOOD post in June, when I opened xoxoDorie to paid subscribers and began creating special stories and recipes for supporting members. Thank you, thank you a thousand times over for being here and for supporting the work I do along with Mary and Antonella. Since that time, I’ve made donations to World Central Kitchen (twice), Meals on Wheels, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Heifer International and No Kid Hungry.

And I’ve shared these FRIENDSHIP FOOD recipes.

Cookies are made for sharing

Pocket-size sandwiches to share with friends

Dip, slurp, spoon: how to eat mussels with friends

A shareable spud and meat staple

Crisps are crumbles in French and a good time in any language

With enough recipes to share, we'll call it friendsgiving

As we close out the year, I’ve got a terrific recipe for you and I’ve made a contribution to Have Faith Haiti, an organization started by Mitch “Tuesdays with Morrie” Albom and one very close to Antonella's heart. Have Faith Haiti provides shelter, protection (needed more now than ever), food, education and love to children in desperate need in a country that has been wracked by violence. Please read about Have Faith Haiti and read Mitch Albom’s newsletter, Life at the Orphanage — it will touch your heart.

And For the Recipe …

… a gingerbread sheet cake, moist, spicy, chocolate-chip studded, chocolate coated and come-hithery, as in I-dare-you-to-pass-it-without-snacking-on-a-snippet. For the holidays, if you’d like, but mostly for you and everyone who walks in and out of your kitchen, before, after and during the hols. It’s a nibbler, a cake to enjoy anytime.

Catastrophic Deliciousness: The Backstory

Many years ago — so many years ago that we didn’t have mobile phones and long-distance calls on landlines cost the Earth — I was working with Pierre Hermé on our first book. I was beating the batter for a loaf cake, and it curdled. I mean curds-and-whey kind of curdling. I threw out the batter, started over and had the same problem. So I faxed Pierre. He called back and said, “It doesn’t matter what the batter looks like, only the finished cake is important.” I baked the ugly batter. The finished cake was terrific. I moved on to the next recipe, but I remembered that day. The memory of that day has returned many times over the years — cake batters that curdle are pretty commonplace. But the kind of curdling that I got with this gingerbread — it was next level! The batter looked like it had sesame seeds in it. It was ugly. So ugly. Take a look!

Since I no longer throw batters away, I baked the curdled batter and — as though the good witch of baking had waved her wand over my cake — it emerged from the oven beautifully baked. When I cut into it, it was perfect. The crumb was lovely. And the taste (which had nothing to do with the curdle), was just what I wanted it to be — quintessentially gingerbready. Just the right spiciness. Just the right hint of molasses backing it all up. I was in love! But I wasn’t sure that I could ask you to close your eyes and carry on. Actually, could I have?

If a batter were completely curdled, would you …

• Bake it?

• Toss it out?

• Try to fix it?

• Curse me?

I Fixed It … Kind Of

As always, after I’ve made a recipe, I send it to Mary Dodd to have her remake it as a test and to send me notes. With this cake, I was hoping that I’d done something wrong in the mixing and that Mary’s batter would be smooth and beautiful. But nope, no, nah, not at all — hers was ugly too! But just like me — she loved the cake. We both agreed that it was too delicious to relegate it to the failed-recipe bin and so I wrote it for you. And then I thought: Maybe I can fix it.

Mary's (ugly — sorry!) batter // Photos: Mary Dodd

I beat the mixture at a higher speed after each ingredient was added and I incorporated some of the dry ingredients between mixing in all the eggs and adding the molasses. I was kind of/sort of doing a mini/faux reverse creaming (not really, but that was the inspiration). The batter still looked a little curdled, but it was so, so, so much better than the original. As for the baked cake? It baked just like the curdled batter had baked — even, pretty and delish.

In the End – It’s a Perfect Friendship Cake

The cake is big — it serves between 16 and 32! — it’s easy to eat, it’s easy to pack as a gift, it’s good with milk, hot or cold, coffee, tea, eggnog or cocoa and it’s lovable: it tastes like a holiday. And you know that if it tastes like a holiday, your kitchen will smell like a holiday. #bonus

I hope you love this cake as much I do — let me know if you’ve found a way to walk past it and not cut a piece. Me? It’s what I’ve been having with my first cup of coffee in the morning. Cake for breakfast? Please don’t judge — it’s holiday time.

NIBBLE-AWAY GINGERBREAD CAKE

• A FRIENDSHIP FOOD recipe by Dorie Greenspan