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Look for this recipe in my upcoming book, Gingerbread, due out this fall!

Grandmom Lindner’s Favorite Gingerbread Cake

When I was a young girl, my paternal grandmother, Hedwig Zalewski Lindner, gave me her 1950 edition of Betty      Crocker’s New Picture Book. Among the binder-bound pages covered with my grandmother’s handwritten notes and    various specks of salad dressing and butter, I discovered a recipe for Favorite Gingerbread. It was the first gingerbread I  prepared myself, and for years it became my staple recipe. Eventually, though, I began tinkering with it to make it my  own. Substituting butter for shortening, adding a bit more spice here and there, and playing with a variety of cake pans  and baking times, I soon developed my own favorite gingerbread, which I now share with you. To be honest, I really  don’t know whether my grandmother ever made this gingerbread cake. It doesn’t really matter, though. To me, it is  enough that this recipe originates from a book she used so often. Preparing it, like leafing through her copy of Betty  Crocker, reminds me of her and the many delicious, comforting dishes she prepared.

This cake comes together easily and can be baked in a variety of festive pans. Bake it in an 8-cup Bundt pan, as suggested here, in a 9-inch square pan, or fill muffin tins or mini-Bundt pans about two thirds full with batter. As you play with different shapes and sizes, just be sure to keep watch and adjust the baking times, allowing fewer minutes for smaller items.

Makes one 8-cup Bundt cake

2 1/2 cups cake flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 cup molasses

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 cup hot water

Whipped Cream (page 00) for serving (optional)

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat the oven to 350ºF. Butter and flour an 8-cup Bundt pan.

Whisk together the cake flour, baking soda, salt, and spices in a large bowl.

Put the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium-high speed until smooth. Add the brown sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Pour in the molasses and beat until smooth. Add vanilla extract, drop in the egg, and mix until incorporated, stopping at least once to scrape the sides of the bowl. Reduce the mixing speed to medium low and alternately incorporate the flour mixture and hot water, beginning and ending with the flour mixture and stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl at least once or twice.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 45 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted near the center comes out clean. Set the gingerbread on a wire rack to cool in the pan for about 15 minutes before turning out to cool further.

Serve the cake warm or at room temperature cut into wedges and with dollops of whipped cream, if desired.