Gingerbread (cue spooky music)….to DIE For

Happy Halloween y’all!

I made this recipe for the first time last year and immediately fell in love.  Like the “I want to be around you all day every day” kind of love.  This gingerbread rocks my world.  I didn’t even think that I liked gingerbread before I tried this.  Turns out, I don’t. I freaking love it! But you get my point…

Like usual, I’ve made a couple adjustments to the recipe in order to “healthy” it up a bit.  While it took some will power to stray from the original masterpiece, my updated recipe does this classic justice.  Don’t worry, I didn’t mess with the two integral ingredients: stout beer and molasses.

I make these in mini-bread pans vs. a bundt pan so that 1) I can try to impress people I really really like, and 2) so I don’t eat entire gingerbread cake/loaf/batch by myself.  But feel free to do whatever butters your biscuit.

I guarantee that today won’t be the only time this gingerbread is baking in my kitchen this season.  I feel fairly confident that once you try it for yourself, you won’t touch another piece of Halloween candy for errr….at least a week.

Note: Just like most magical things, this is better the next day.
….okay maybe most magical things aren’t better the next day.  But this one is.  Done and done.

ps…you can totally save the money you were going to spend on fancy autumn scented candles – real gingerbread in the oven totally trumps “roasted marshmallow” or “pumpkin spice”!

Mini Gingerbread Loaves

• Servings: makes 8 mini loaves
• Time: 30 minutes prep, 25 minutes baking
• Print

ingredients

• 1 cup oatmeal stout or Guinness Stout
• 1 cup dark molasses (not a scary dark, but dark)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups white wheat flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 tablespoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• Pinch of ground cardamom
• 2 large eggs
• 2 large egg whites
• 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• a little powdered sugar for sprinkling on top (optional)

directions

Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously spray the mini bread pans (or pan of choice) with cooking spray and dust with flour, knocking out excess.

Bring stout and molasses to a boil in a large saucepan and remove from heat. Whisk in baking soda, then cool to room temperature.

In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and spices. Whisk together eggs and sugars. Whisk in applesauce, then molasses mixture. Add to flour mixture and whisk until just combined.

Pour batter into each mini bread pan. Bake in middle of oven until a tester comes out with just a few moist crumbs adhering, about 25 minutes. Cool cake in pan on a rack 5 minutes. Turn out onto rack and cool completely.  Dust on powdered sugar if you’re feeling crazy.

Enjoy!

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