Cake #13: ATF Gingerbread

I was more excited about this one than the last one, because:
1. It calls for crystallized ginger, and Molly got me started with crystallized ginger, which I love.
2. It calls for cream cheese frosting w/ ginger, which sounded interesting!
Similar to cake #12, this one should be re-named molasses cake, it calls for 1 cup of molasses. It also calls for 1 cup of dark beer, so be careful measuring if you have homebrewed munich dunkel which happens to be over-carbonated.

In the book, Melissa mentions that crystallized ginger can be quite spendy. I found some at Hy-Vee in the produce aisle next to the bagged nuts for a pretty good price. And, liking ginger, I measured the 1/2 cup of chopped ginger pretty liberally.
She also says to add the egg, molasses & beer all at once. That just seemed like too much work, so I added them separately, letting the molasses slowly pour in while the kitchen aid was spinning away.
The cake baked for 50 minutes and after letting it cool in the pan for 15, it came out of my well-buttered cake pan pretty well. It helps to let it cool for 15 minutes first, because I put a plate on top, flip it over, then flip it onto the cooling rack. Doing this involves touching it with my bare hands, and getting burned fingers could potentially cause a not-so-perfect looking cake.
This was a pretty easy cake to make, I'm getting the idea that most gingerbread cakes are pretty easy. And tasty!
Next, I made the gingery cream cheese frosting, which the author pulled from a community cookbook by the Gideon Sunday School Class of Providence Baptist Church in Gloucester, Virginia. Gotta love the variety of resources! It's pretty simple: cream cheese (I used neufchatel because I always do), butter, vanilla, powdered sugar & ground ginger. Which means this "ginger" bread cake has a teeny little bit of ginger powder in the frosting and some crystallized ginger chunks in the cake. When licking the knife after spreading the frosting, one doesn't really taste too much ginger. I think you could use more if you're a ginger fan.
I would rename this cake: Molasses Beer Cake with Ginger Chunks. I think that would go faster at a potluck. Plus, ATF stands for Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms- something to do w/ beer and ginger. But there's no tobacco in the cake, so a re-name is necessary.
Next time I will try 1/2 white flour and 1/2 wheat flour. I do 1/2 & 1/2 with the flours in most things I make. But with the cake book, I'm trying to follow the exact recipe before I experiment. And on this recipe, Melissa notes that she made a double batch using white & wheat flour, and Ari Shapiro called it "rustic in a good way". I would listen to Ari Shapiro if I were you.