Believe it or not, I had never made gingerbread until a couple of days ago. I’m not sure why, maybe because it is not the typical eggnog/peppermint/chocolate holiday dessert that I usually go for but it has so many things in it I love! To start, it is full of molasses and I absolutely adore molasses. When I was a kid, I loved eating a bowl of peanut butter with either honey, molasses or sorghum all mixed in. Yes, I’d just eat it with a spoon. Healthy, right? Needless to say, I was a chubby kid.
Anyway, I finally made it and I am so glad I did! This gingerbread is absolutely delicious and the smell while it is baking–divine! I looked for some eggnog ice cream to go with ours but for some reason Wal-mart had zero holiday ice cream flavors the day I went so I had to settle for rum raisin. Which ended up being a yummy choice, especially when topped off with homemade salted caramel sauce…which is exactly what we did. Mmmmmmm! Highly recommend!
Enjoy!
- ½ c. White Sugar
- ½ c. (1 stick) Unsalted Butter
- 1 Large Egg
- 1 c. Molasses
- 2 t. Pure Vanilla
- ½ c. Applesauce
- 2½ c. All-Purpose Flour
- 1½ t. Baking Soda
- 2 t. Ground Cinnamon
- 2 t. Ground Ginger
- 1 t. Ground Cloves
- ½ t. Nutmeg
- ½ t. Salt
- ¾ c. Hot Water
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9-inch square pan (I did mine in a 6.5x11 loaf pan).
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg. Add the molasses, vanilla and applesauce and mix thoroughly.
- In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg. Blend into the butter mixture. Stir in the hot water. Pour into the pan.
- Bake for 1 hour (mine took 1 hour and 10 minutes) or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool.
