GINGERBREAD CAKE Recipe

Gingerbread Cake

With the graying Fall days …

Gray skies over Heron Pointe: looking river side

Looking river side towards Willow Grove road

… and the thick low-laying a.m./p.m. river fogs banks that settle over the area from where we live to R.A. Long High School by Lake Sacajawea where it surprisingly clears up while I drive back and forth to the hospital every day, I have had a hankering for gingerbread the last 2 weeks and finally broke down and made it this morning ;-)

This recipe is an old one and comes to me here in the PNW all the way from Louisville, Kentucky. And I am thankful :-D The house smells wonderful with that gingery/cinnamon/clovey scent and it tastes as good as it smells!

GINGERBREAD CAKE (Sweden)

1/2 cup Butter * 2 cups light Brown Sugar * 2 Eggs * 1 teaspoon Soda, dissolved in a small amount of warm water * ½ teaspoon ground Ginger * ½ teaspoon ground Cinnamon * ½ teaspoon ground Cloves * 2 cups sifted Flour * 1 cup Milk

Cream butter; add sugar, mixing well with electric beater. Beat eggs until light – add to sugar mixture. Add soda and spices; fold in flour, alternating with the milk: mix well.

Grease large tube pan and dust with flour. Pour in batter. Bake in 350-degree oven for 35 minutes. Let cake cool before removing from pan.

I always have gingerbread in the house – cookies or cakes – around this time of year, but lately it’s been a a bit hard to get into the upcoming holidays because my husband will not be here with me to celebrate them; but last night I happened to notice that my holiday cactuses have been putting out buds in my lengthy absences from home …

White Christmas Cactus; larger buds

Pink Christmas Cactus; smaller buds

… and that revived the holiday spirit within me enough to at least hang the wreaths on each door and change the welcome mats ;-) And that’s about all that will get done this year because I will, of course, be spending the holidays with my husband in his hospital room cheering him up – which cheers me up.

We are hoping he will be coming home soon, but only Elohei KNOWS what the future holds. Today’s concerns are sufficient for the day, I won’t borrow tomorrows’ troubles. Today I am going to enjoy the gingerbread cake I made!

And work some more on MOD Candy Cane Baby Swaddling Blanket I started last week:

MOD Candy Cane Swaddling Blanket – half completed

This blanket is a donation item, but I can’t l help thinking while working on it that I wish our grand-daughters would give us great-grandbabies … nothing would make me happier than to make up layette sets for my longed for great-grandbabies. I don’t think my husband and I will live long enough to see our grandson’s children (he’s only 4 yo this year), but our grand-daughters are all in their 20’s, ranging from early twenties to late twenties and it would be nice if they started reproducing while Hubs is still on this planet ;-)