Gingerbread Pancakes and Community

I have been thinking a lot lately about food and community. Lewis is reading A Papa Like Everyone Else by Sydney Taylor to the boys, and I am reading it to myself. In one chapter Mama and her daughters, Szerena and Gisella go to make their Passover matzoh at the synagogue. They bring the flour that was specially ground for the purpose and a basket to carry home the finished matzo in. In the synagogue they work with the other women of the community to make all the matzo they will need for the 8 days of Passover. The scene is one of shared talk and work, a joyful gathering.

A modern Jewish family does not need to make their own matzo, they can just go to the store and buy as many boxes as they need. Somehow I cannot help feeling that we have lost something, not just a connection to our food, but also one to our neighbors. On my street we don't make matzo together or help tend the community cattle but we do share our food and lives more then I think is the norm.

We have one neighbor whose kitchen is like an extended pantry for us. Many times when I am preparing dinner and I realize I am out of one of the required ingredients and I call across the street to check if my neighbors have any. When I call to ask if they have some cumin, vinegar, garlic, carrots etc to share they often have a similar request. Growing up in Manhattan we never asked a neighbor for a cup of sugar or a quarter cup of rice wine vinegar. We just went to the grocery store and bought that one missing ingredient. I prefer the method I have now, which is often accompanied with a brief conversation about our children and either the fiendish things they are up to or a funny story.

My street is made up of small houses that are built almost on top of each other. In the summer this might be a problem for some of my neighbors as my boys keep up a constant chatter at them over the fence. Sunday I made Gingerbread Pancakes for breakfast and my boys shared the leftovers over the fence as barter. They gave our neighbor, Paul, a pancake and in return he let them shoot arrows in his yard and then fed us dinner. Our kitchen was unusable as Lewis was getting it ready for a new dishwasher coming today. Somehow that involved tearing out the counter and sink.

When Sebastian first tried the pancakes he said, "We should make these more often." Which means I just have to make them again, as this was the first time we have had them. He doesn't need to worry though, they will appear again. Besides their value as barter they were delicious for breakfast and made a fine snack later. Our poor chickens did not receive any of the leftovers as they all got eaten.

Gingerbread Pancakes

Adapted from The Pancake Handbook

Just in case you don't always read all the way through a recipe before proceeding, please notice that the batter needs to rest for 5 to 10 minutes before cooking the pancakes. Before resting the batter will be too thin.

2 cups white whole wheat or whole wheat pastry flour (even if you hate whole wheat the strong gingerbread flavors will make this healthy flour boost completely unnoticeable)

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup hot, freshly brewed coffee

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup molasses

1/2 cup butter, melted

2 eggs lightly beaten (I did not beat mine before adding to the hot coffee mixture and they seemed to cook slightly but still incorporated fine)

Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, cocoa powder and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl add the sugar to the hot coffee and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the milk, molasses, butter and eggs to the coffee sugar mixture and stir or whisk to combine. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir just to blend without over mixing. Let the batter rest for 5 to 10 minutes so it can thicken. Before resting it should be thin and pourable.

Heat a skillet or griddle over medium high heat (an electric griddle should be set to 375°) and grease lightly (I used butter and rubbed it around with a paper towel to provide only the thinest surface to the griddle). Ladle 1/4 cup portions of batter on to the hot griddle or skillet leaving space between them. A skillet is hot enough to use when a drop of water dances and evaporates right away on it's surface. The recipe calls for cooking them for 3 to 4 minutes on the first side until the top side is covered with bubbles and the underside is brown. My pancakes needed 6 minutes on the first side. Flip over the pancakes and cook for 2 minutes on the second side, until the second side is browned and set.

Dust the pancakes with confectioners sugar and serve with a dollop of whipped cream. Leftovers make a fine snack just served plain and eaten out of hand. You might even be able to barter with your neighbors using them as payment.

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache and Peanut Butter Frosting

This month I signed up for Taste and Create and my partner is Stef at the Cupcake Project. Taste and Create pairs up food bloggers to select a recipe from their partners blog, make the recipe and then blog about it. I am one of those people who doesn't like frosting so I don't usually make cupcakes. Stef does have recipes for other things on her site, often from her Taste and Create partners, however that seemed like cheating to me. I was paired with a cupcake blog and made naan, then I went to a seafood restaurant where I ordered a steak.

Luckily Stef mostly uses frosting that is whipped cream, cream cheese or marscapone based. I decided to treat her blog like a palate of cupcake and frosting recipes. I decided to make her gingerbread cupcake with her ginger lemon frosting. I would have gone ahead with that plan if Lewis hadn't innocently asked me to try to recreate a cupcake he had tasted. It was a spice cupcake with chocolate ganache and peanut butter frosting. I decided to do make the gingerbread cupcakes with the chocolate and peanut butter toppings. Lewis seldom makes special requests in the kitchen so I would even overlook the fact he did not bring me a bite of that cupcake.

This recipe was fraught with peril for me. The first time I made it I could not get the cupcakes out of the pan in one piece. Not exactly appropriate for photographing. So I started over again, this time using cupcake liners in the pan. The cupcakes came out perfectly while my boys got up to no good.

While the first batch was baking I walked through the playroom and saw Julian using his screwdriver (yes, my 4 year old has his own screwdriver) to take the window out of his toy stove. Julian is always trying to take apart or build something. He has a whole collection of wires that used to connect computers and he has them strung up all over. So I did not really pay attention.

So while I was mixing the second batch Sebastian came in to the kitchen with Julian's screwdriver in his hand and asked me which direction to turn a screwdriver to screw something in. I was baking and distracted, and I thought they were just putting the window back. Imagine my surprise when later they showed me the "spy window" they had attached to the bottom of their bunk beds and the "rubber band shooter" on the top. The rubber band shooter was the door closer for the toy stove, and for both items they attached them to the bed by making new holes, sigh.

All the elements of these cupcakes were great. Next time I have a craving for a peanut butter dessert I may just make a batch of this frosting and eat it with a spoon. Not bad for someone who hates frosting. The gingerbread cupcakes are wonderful on their own as well, before I made the frosting we were eating them like muffins. Chocolate ganache shouldn't require me to tell you how wonderful it is, I mean it's chocolate and heavy cream. The combination of the 3 elements was also wonderful. Silky richness from the chocolate, salty and sweet peanut butter frosting and the spicy flavor from the cupcake. All of us really loved the combination, as did everyone I gave one to. Each bite is different, with the flavors first being layered and then combining.

I made some full sized and some mini cupcakes. The mini's are my favorite, I just really enjoyed the more personal size, the ability to eat it all in 1 or 2 bites. Plus I feel the size of the cupcakes worked better at not overpowering the other layers. Many of my tasters seemed to prefer the larger size, but I think they were just worried I would say they could not have more then one.

Before we get to the recipe I want to talk a moment about ingredients. I made these with quail eggs, and no I absolutely do not expect you will. Furthermore I do not think it will have a negative effect on the flavor. I used quail eggs because I was given some by a neighbor. But aren't they cute?

Gingerbread Cupcakes

5 Tbsp unsalted butter softened

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup unsulfured molasses

4 quail eggs (or 1 large chicken egg)

4 quail yolks (or 1 large chicken egg yolk)

1 Tbsp cocoa powder (the recipe calls for dutch process cocoa powder but I just used a good quality regular one)

1 1/4 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup hot milk

1 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour (trust me, with all the other flavors you won't notice the whole wheat, or you could use white flour)

Preheat the oven to 350° and place cupcake liners in a 12 cup muffin tin. (Stef says you can just butter the tin, I tried that the first time and none of them came out of the pan neatly, I suggest just using liners).

Cream the butter and white sugar, add molasses, egg and egg yolk and beat in. Add cocoa powder, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and salt and mix until fully incorporated. Dissolve the baking soda in the hot milk. Add the flour to the batter and stir until just combined. Stir in the hot milk mixture. Pour the batter into the prepared tins, filling the liners about halfway (the first batch I overfilled and they did not dome up but rather spread out to form a solid top).

Bake at 350° for 20 to 25 minutes until the center of the cupcakes is slightly springy to the touch. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

When cool spread an even layer of the chocolate ganache on the top of each cupcake and allow to set. After the ganache has set pipe on some peanut butter frosting.

Chocolate Ganache

3 oz's bittersweet chocolate broken up

1 Tbsp white sugar

1/3 cup heavy cream

1/2 tsp vanilla

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and heat over low heat while stirring until the chocolate is melted and smooth.

Peanut Butter Frosting

adapted from Ina Garten's recipe

1/2 cup confectioners sugar

1/2 cup smooth peanut butter (I used natural peanut butter, before proceeding with the recipe I put the peanut butter in a quart jar and stirred it really well so the oil was not separated)

2 1/2 tsp unsalted butter at room temperature

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/8 - 1/4 tsp Kosher salt (I like the frosting on the salty side but some of my tasters wanted it less salty. Start with 1/8 of a tsp and taste before deciding)

3 Tbsp heavy whipping cream

Place the sugar, peanut butter, butte, vanilla extract and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix on low speed with the paddle attachment until smooth, scraping down as needed. If you have one of these beater blades you won't need to scrape the bowl. Add the heavy cream and beat on high until light and smooth.