Triple Ginger Skillet Cake #recipe from Molly MacRae

 

If you’ve read my Haunted Yarn Shop mysteries, you might remember that the ghost, Geneva, loves the smell of ginger. I do, too. Anytime I use ginger in a savory or a sweet recipe, I think of Geneva floating nearby. I made this cake one recent blustery afternoon. The kitchen warmed right up and the whole house smelled like Geneva’s idea of heaven. She would like the idea of baking it in a cast iron skillet, too.

If you don’t have a 12-inch cast iron skillet, don’t worry. Any non-stick skillet or baking pan will do. The cast iron gives the cake a nicely caramelized bottom, but no one will miss that after they take their first bite no matter what kind of pan you use.

 

Triple Ginger Skillet Cake

Adapted from Erin Jeanne McDowell in The New York Times

Serves 12-16

 

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature, plus more for greasing the skillet

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 cup molasses

About 2 inches of fresh ginger, peeled

1 large egg

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup diced crystallized ginger

1-2 tablespoons of turbinado sugar to sprinkle over the top before baking

 

Directions

Heat your oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease a 12-inch oven-safe skillet with unsalted butter.

In a large bowl (or the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment), cream the 1/2 cup of room temperature butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the molasses, and then, using a fine grater, grate the fresh ginger into the bowl. Mix until combined, scraping the bowl as needed. Add the egg and mix well again.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, and salt. Add half the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir to combine.

Stir in the milk then add the remaining flour mixture and stir until just incorporated. Fold in the crystallized ginger.

Pour the batter into the prepared skillet. Spread into an even layer. Sprinkle the surface with turbinado sugar. Bake until a toothpick, when stuck in the center, comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes.

Let cool for 15 minutes before cutting. Serve warm or at room temperature. The cake is great on its own, but if you want to jazz it up, try sprinkling it with powdered sugar or serve it with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, custard sauce, or lemons curd. Here's Leslie Karst's recipe for lemon curd.

  

💖 Click here for a free, printable pdf of the recipe  💖

 

It’s the time of year to curl up with a trio of warm cozies – a drink, a treat, and a good book. May I suggest a bit of armchair travel, too? 

Visit Ocracoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina, in the Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries.

 

Or travel to the Scottish Highlands in the Highland Bookshop Mysteries.

 

Spend time in northeast Tennessee in the Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries, two stand-alone mysteries, and a collection of short stories.

 

Or travel from Cape Cod on the east coast to Monterey on the west coast, with a stop in Ohio along the way in my very gentle mysteries written as Margaret Welch.

 

Happy reading!

 

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on Instagram or Bluesky.