Gingerbread and lemon zest

from my garden

Hello, hello, everyone.  Tonight is the end of a hot day in Kansas City that started out as a very cool day:  58 degrees to start the day, and then ending with the upper 80s.  That's quite a temperature spread, especially for mid-June.  It made a great morning for cooking, though, since it was so cool.  I opened up the window on the back door to let in all the birdsong from the garden, started some Debussy playing, and got everything ready for gingerbread loaves.  

These are a very special item to me.  I love gingerbread cake.  I usually make it as a loaf or a jumbo-sized muffin.  The combination of dark brown sugar, molasses, cinnamon, cloves, and of course the ginger makes for an almost intoxicating flavor.  Sometimes I am in the mood for a deep dark rich gingerbread, one that is very very potent in terms of the spices.  Then other times I want something with all that dark flavor but lightened with an additional flavor component, and for that I go to lemon zest.  

For this recipe I take the zest of 3 medium-sized lemons, about 12 - 13 grams of zest, and it's stirred into the batter after everything else is already combined.  And what you get when it comes out of the oven is a spice-warm cake with a zest-cool component that makes it all seem lighter .... yet not.  It's hard to describe, but I guarantee it's delicious.  The lemon doesn't come out as a separate flavor.  It acts rather like an invisible element that affects the final product but doesn't let you see what it is.  

gingerbread loaf with lemon zest

And I love it.  I hope you will, too.  Before the end of this upcoming weekend it will be out on the full menu of the main site.  I haven't decided whether to offer it as a loaf or a jumbo muffin, but I will try to put into a weekly menu very soon so anyone who wishes to will have a chance to give it a try.  FYI, after going on hiatus for the health crisis shutdown, I am just about ready to announce a resumption of weekly food offerings, so keep an eye out both here and on the main site for that information.

Have a great summer evening.  And sleep well.