Chocolate Gingerbread

I made this for my work husband's birthday. The recipe used to be available on Nigella's site, but it has since disappeared. This recipe was adapted from the original which is from Nigella Lawson's Feast.

For the Cake 1.5 sticks unsalted butter 1 cup + 2 Tbsp dark brown sugar 3/4 cup light agave 3/4 cup amber agave 1/4 tsp cloves 1 tsp ground cinnamon 2 tsp ground ginger 1.25 tsp baking soda 2 Tbsp warm water egg replacer for 2 eggs 1 cup skim milk 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 cup white wheat flour 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa 1 cup semisweet chocolate bits	For the Frosting 2 cups confectioners' sugar* 2 Tbsp unsalted butter 1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa 1/4 cup Sprecher ginger ale

* I most likely used less, I never use the exact amount of confectioners' sugar that frosting recipes call for.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. The instructions tell you to use a 12x8x2 roasting pan and line it with parchment paper. I ignored the parchment paper for this round and used a 9x13 pan that I sprayed and floured.

Melt the butter along with the sugar, the agave (both), cloves, cinnamon, and ginger in a saucepan.



While that's going on, dissolve the baking soda in the water in a cup.

Take the saucepan off the heat and beat in the eggs, milk, and baking soda in its water. Make sure the melted butter/sugar with spices goodness isn't too warm, or it will cook the egg as you beat it in.



Stir in the flour and cocoa and beat with a wooden spoon to mix. Fold in the chocolate bits.



Pour into the pan and bake 45 minutes until risen and firm.



It will be slightly damp underneath the set top. Remove to a wire rack and let cool in the pan.



Once cool, frost it, baby!

1. Sift the confectioners' sugar.
2. Heat the butter, cocoa, and ginger ale in a saucepan.
3. Once the butter is melted, whisk in the confectioners' sugar.
4. Pour the frosting on top and make sure it covers the top.

The end product was quite delicious, but here are my lessons learned:

• Line the pan with parchment paper. I had no idea how sticky the bottom would be! Serving the cake was adventurous because chunks of the cake would come out of the pan, and the bottom was just stuck there. I made this cake again for the family dinner at Christmas and I lined the pan. Problem solved!
• The chocolate bits. The recipe calls for chocolate chips, and I chopped the chocolate into bits that were relatively similar in size to chocolate chips. Those sank to the bottom both times I made this cake. The batter is quite thin, so maybe using mini chocolate chips would be better.