Gingerbread Cheesecake

After one more holiday recipe, I promise to move on to cooking in the New Year. I’d been thinking about this cheesecake for years. I cut the pages from the December 2007 issue of Living magazine and filed them away. I remember the whole story about gingerbread from that issue. There were all sorts of pretty cookies, different ways of making gingerbread like with honey rather than molasses, and even gingerbread caramels. From that story, the White Chocolate-Gingerbread Blondies that also appear in the Martha Stewart’s Cookies book became a favorite of mine. But those little gingerbread men on top of the gingerbread-flavored cheesecake were so cute. I think of this cheesecake dessert every year for Christmas, and finally had to give it a try. You need some cookie crumbs to make the crust for the cheesecake, so making the Molasses-Gingerbread Cookie dough comes first. I made enough dough to be able to cut out some gingerbread men for decorating as well. I didn’t go so far as to make both types of gingerbread cookie dough to be able to have two colors of gingerbread men on top as shown in the photo from the magazine, but I was happy with the result with all the gingerbread men from the same dough. 

The Molasses-Gingerbread Cookies recipe is very similar to the recipe I’ve always used for gingerbread cut-out cookies. It included molasses, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. For the cheesecake, one quarter of the dough is rolled into a big rectangle and baked until firm. When cool, it’s broken into pieces and pulsed in a food processor to make crumbs. Next, melted butter, some sugar, and two cups of those crumbs were combined and pressed into a springform pan with the bottom wrapped with foil. The crust was baked for about 15 minutes or until set. The cheesecake itself was a mix of cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, eggs, molasses, lemon zest, and more ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. I also added some finely grated, fresh ginger for an extra boost of ginger. The filling was poured into the crust, the springform pan was placed in a large roasting pan, the roasting pan was set into the oven, and hot water was added to the roasting pan before closing the oven to bake. The cheesecake needs to bake for at least an hour, but mine was still very jiggly at that point. I left it in the oven for an extra 15 or 20 minutes until the center was only slightly wobbly. When the cheesecake was completely cool, it was transferred to the refrigerator to chill for several hours. I dusted the top with confectioners' sugar before placing the cookies in a circle.

It’s a shame that gingerbread only gets the spotlight during the holidays. Every time I bake with molasses, I think about how much I love the flavor and how I should use it more often. The molasses and all the gingerbread spices were delicious here from the crust to the filling to the cookies on top. Maybe I’ll finally try the gingerbread caramels the next time the holiday season arrives. 

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Dark and Stormy Fresh Ginger Gingerbread

On a day when I wanted to make dessert but didn’t want it to be an all-day project, this was the perfect cake. It’s from Sinfully Easy Delicious Desserts which is full of great desserts that don’t take all day to make. I was drawn to the idea of a quick gingerbread made with fresh ginger, and the variation suggested in the side-bar sealed the deal. That variation was to replace some of the water in the recipe with dark rum to match the flavors in a Dark and Stormy cocktail. So, not only was this cake whipped up in record time by mixing everything in a food processor, adding a little Gosling’s Black Seal rum took me back to that pretty, pink sand and that sparkling, blue water of Bermuda on a January day. Alice Medrich also offers all sorts of great ideas for garnishing desserts, and there’s even a page of “Things to do with gingerbread” that lists accompaniments like lemon whipped cream, dessert chutney, and fruits in syrup. Sticking with the Dark and Stormy theme, I topped mine with grated lime zest and poured a little more rum over the mascarpone whipped cream. 

The only slightly time-consuming task here was peeling some fresh ginger. You need to peel and slice enough to fill one-half cup. Then, the fresh ginger was finely minced in the food processor. Next, brown sugar, cinnamon, ground dried ginger, allspice, cardamom, salt, molasses, butter, an egg, rum, water, flour, and baking soda were added. In all of about 15 seconds, the batter was done. The cake baked in an eight-inch square pan for about 30 minutes. I whipped mascarpone and cream with a scant bit of sugar and washed a lime for zesting. Once the cake was cool, it was ready to be topped with the lime zest, some whipped cream, and a drizzle of more black rum. 

Ginger and molasses have become a couple of my favorite ingredients in recent years, and they’re especially good in the wintertime. They’re also quite good with the flavor of rum. Admittedly, our winter hasn’t been too harrowing, but still, a dessert that brought back memories of Bermuda was a welcome idea.

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Gingerbread Cookies

If I had to choose one favorite Christmas cookie, well, I couldn’t do it. But, if I could have a top ten, this gingerbread cookie would definitely be in it. The cookies and bars and treats that I call Christmas cookies are certainly just as delicious for any other occasion, but when the weather is cooler and the holidays are fast approaching, gingerbread somehow becomes a little bit even more delicious. How does it do that? The flavor just seems right at this time of year. This recipe comes from the Martha Stewart Cookbook, and the ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and molasses combine in a wonderful way. In the book, the recipe is called gingerbread cupids, and there’s a similar recipe available on the Martha web site called gingerbread snowflakes. The recipe online includes ground pepper, but it’s not part of the recipe in the book and I’ve never added it.

This dough is a little sticky even though I always chill it overnight before rolling, and I use a generous amount of flour on the board and rolling pin. On the bright side, once baked, the cookies retain their flavor and texture for several days if they last that long. I’ve also baked them in advance, frozen them, and then let them thaw before decorating. The cookies are fairly sturdy if stored carefully, but the sturdiness really depends on the shapes of the cookies. I made some reindeer, and I’m worried those slender legs could snap off easily.

I made a big batch this time, and I enjoy making the dough, rolling it out, deciding which shapes to make the cookies, and smelling the gingerbread as the cookies bake. Then, my energy seems to dwindle when it comes time to decorate them. When I was little, my favorite thing about cookies was decorating them. These days, I may have lost my cookie decorating creativity, but that’s where my nieces enter the picture. I’m going to send them a box of these cookies to decorate and see what cute ideas they come up with for all the different shapes.




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Gingerbread White Chocolate Blondies

Back in May, I baked a couple of things from Martha Stewart's Cookies and realized that I wanted to try every cookie in the book. They all look delectable, are simple enough to create, and all together form a great cookie baking reference. Also, my co-workers have gotten accustomed to my habit of bringing treats into the office, so it was time to grab this book again. This time, I chose the gingerbread white chocolate blondies. Because they are bar cookies, the baking time is minimized. Beyond the time required, I didn’t think too much about this choice and had no idea what I would be unleashing by making them.

Seeing molasses in the ingredient list may have somewhat influenced my decision as I think I’m developing a molasses dependency. The homemade graham crackers made with molasses started it. Then, while making these blondies, I realized that molasses and salt causes a swirling in my brain just like the effect of caramel and salt. This recipe didn’t require an inordinate amount of salt, but it was somehow more noticeable than usual as it played with the molasses flavor. And, then, there’s the white chocolate. White chocolate has always held a special place in my appetite. I used a block of Callebaut which was chopped into chunks. So, molasses, gingerbread, and white chocolate all sounded good.

Apparently, they were, in fact, freakishly good. Everyone who tried one got that jaw-dropped look of wonder. After having a sample, Kurt is searching our kitchen for more, is sure there must be some hidden somewhere, and can’t believe I took them all to work. He might be right. I definitely recommend the book, but if you need some of these cookies before you can get a copy, the recipe is also online.

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