My husband’s birthday ginger cake: A ginger overloaded, dense, soft buttery spicy birthday cake with vanilla bean buttercream frosting: a gentle kick of spices in every single bite with a melt in the mouth desired creamy sweetness: Happiness redefined!
A Piece of Advice: If you’re a food blogger or work with food, you should think twice before dieting.
Since I came here, indigestion, bloating, constipation and chronic migraines started attacking me. I have seen many doctors and nothing has worked out. I was having migraine attacks four to five times a week and I was finishing a bottle of Advil like tic-tacs. So, I thought, let find out what’s causing this migraine! I heard about the Whole 30 diet and have wanted to do this detox diet since Nov 2014. However, I was never able to do it as every month there was something in the way. This time, I was determined and decided “I will do it”.
When I told my husband, his reaction was “The person who created this diet must hate Indians and especially Hindus.”
Well, he was not entirely wrong. I live on rice, lentils, butter, and chicken curries with yogurt (totally un-kosher). This diet forbids me from eating grains and any product based on grains, lentils and lentil based products, including peanuts and soy products, milk products, sugar and alcohol etc. I am not writing the entire list, which you can find here. I need to cut these down from my diet and find out what’s torturing my body. As this diet is entirely based on pure and whole foods, I am hoping to find out the troublesome ingredient pretty soon.
“So what are you supposed to eat?” Wondered my colleagues, husband and Simi. I can eat meat, fish, nuts (except peanuts), vegetables, fruits, ghee (thank God) and healthy fats. This is the list of things I can eat – not bad, huh?
Anyway, long story super short – I started doing this diet but IF YOU’RE A FOOD BLOGGER, THIS DIET IS EXTREMELY HARD FOR YOU.
I open my Facebook and my blogger and photographer friends torture me with the pictures of rice, lentils, cheesy dips, and yummy valentine desserts. However, I am exploring more and new dishes and cooking pretty much every day. This diet forced me to stop eating frozen food and cook (which moms would struggle to do) pretty much every evening. I am also hoping to pack lunch and avoid our work cafeteria.
I will post my experiments, stories, those super healthy recipes, and of course my health stats once (and if) I finish the program. I won’t anyone to do this diet, as you all are adults and can decide what’s best for you. However, I am cheating the diet by consuming a bit of dark chocolate every day. I NEED that and if I don’t have it – I might end up fighting with everyone and make Matthew’s life miserable.
Now, this week is Matthew’s birthday and I decided to bake my love a Ginger Bread Cake with Vanilla Bean Butter Cream Frosting. Vanilla is his favorite flavor, which is why most of my dessert recipes are based on vanilla. However, I prefer to use pure vanilla bean and I buy from Amazon.
When I started looking for the recipe, I was hugely confused. I browsed through 50 recipes and shortlisted 12 of them. After having a long conversation with my darling Faith (the lovely lady behind An Edible Mosaic), I came out with this recipe. The birthday boy confirmed, “This is the best birthday cake he ever had.” She also tried a small batch and instagrammed it (she said she will blog later)…Isn’t she amazing?
Special Notes: The cake was dense, soft, buttery, tender. I was confused between milk and water (as many recipes had hot boiling water) but Faith said that a milk based cake will have tender crumbs, which was impeccably true. Use a good quality molasses and I strongly recommend Grandma’s Dark Molasses. Faith’s suggestion: “You can use sugar and molasses in a 1:1 ratio however, Elise from Simply Recipes has used honey. If you’re using honey, do 1 cup brown sugar, ½ cup molasses and 1/3 cup honey (as honey is much sweeter).”
Egg Replacement in Ginger Cake: ½ to 1 whole banana, mashed. Banana adds a unique flavor to this cake. Here are some other alternatives in case you’re interested.
Recipe of Triple Ginger Cake with Vanilla Bean Frosting
Triple Ginger Cake
Butter and flour for greasing the pan
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon candied ginger, chopped
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup molasses (grandma’s brand)
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
1 1/4 cup whole milk
- Set the oven to 350 degrees. Have a hand on a round 8 by 3 inches baking pan ready. Grease them generously with butter and flour.
- In a bowl add flour, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, salt, baking powder, baking soda. Sift them to mix it through. Add candied ginger and mix them. Set it aside.
- In a bowl, add unsalted butter and sugar. With electric egg beater or stand mixer mix them thoroughly or until they are pale.
- Add molasses, eggs, fresh ginger and whole milk. Mix them throughly. Add sifted dry ingredients and beat it until thoroughly mixed.
- Transfer the mixture to well greased pan and bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until the toothpick comes clear.
Note: The cake it self is delicious, so you can skip the frosting very easily.
Vanilla Bean Frosting
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 stick salted butter, softened
2 vanilla bean, scraped or 1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence.
4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
3 tablespoons heavy cream
- In the stand mixer mix two types of butter. Mix it thoroughly and run the motor for about 4 to 5 minutes.
- Add vanilla beans from the pod run the motor to mix it throughly for about 1 to 2 minutes.
- Add sifted sugar and and beat for about 4 to 5 minutes, until thoroughly combined. Add heavy cream and continue to beat it until combined. It was enough to frost this cake.
You can easily skip the stand mixer and use electric beater to make this frosting. Recipe is copied from Everyday Maven.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post and totally agree that dieting is not in a food blogger’s cup of tea.You have put in soo much of effort in shortlisting the perfect cake recipe. Bet He loved it!! Cake is gorgeously decorated…
But.. these are not your best. The biscotti ones are absolutely blissful.
Belated birthday wishes to your husband and the cake looks so gorgeous. Moist and with all those spices…yum
Lucky husband! This is such a lovely cake. I love ginger.
Cheers,
Rosa
Your cake is stunning!!! Oh my gosh, that beautiful crumb looks perfect. Very lucky birthday boy! And I love your snowy photos – what a winter wonderland!
Yet another beautiful cake! I am sure I will give it a go sometime:). Enjoy the snow and take more beautiful photos! BTW, did you make those beautiful roses on the cake as well? Maybe a tutorial on that as well someday?!:)
Belated birthday wishes to your husband. And I bet he had a special day with such a delicious cake, Winter storm photos are too good. That magical light… that is a visual treat.
AHH! A beautiful cake. Love dense bold flavored cakes like this. Happy Birthday to your husband. As for diets I do not believe in them and any diet cutting out lentils / legumes is just mad! Sorry! LOL! But I hope you find out what it is that is causing your irritations.
My husband just went to a no-carb diet and I am practically going cuckoo on how to deal with this catastrophe. I’m worried about how to finish all the dishes I make for the blog myself 🙁 I wish you all the very best with your new diet regime and hopefully you’ll get to know know the reason for your tummy troubles.
Cake looks amazing. I’m sure it must have tasted awesome too. Belated birthday wishes to your husband.
Lucky husband! That cake looks incredible and I love how you’ve given replacements for everything. Belated happy birthday to him 🙂 Tell him he’s really lucky to have such a loving wife!