Gingerbread cake: a recipe

It's December again and we finally got some fluffy snow here in Vermont, so I guess it's ninjabread time.

Last year,  I made ninjabread men because of the ass-kicking cookie cutters that I got.

This year, it's a cake because who doesn't love cake? Pie, meh. But cake? Come on.

Not really much to say about gingerbread without just diving into the recipe. I don't have any waxing-nostalgic stories about holiday gingerbread growing up or anything like that. If you do, that's great. Please share them in the comments section.

I just like gingerbread. And I like cake. So there you go.

The original recipe for this one, from Bon Appetit, includes a lovely cream frosting infused with lemon curd, and I think that would be heavenly.  But by now you know my rule:

If you put frosting on it, you can't call it "breakfast bread" -- at that point, you're just eating cake at 7 am.

Gingerbread Cake-I-Mean-Breakfast-Bread (slightly adapted from Janet McCracken via Bon Appetit)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons grated peeled ginger

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat an 8" x 8" pan with nonstick spray and line the bottom with parchment paper (spray the paper as well). Whisk flour and next 5 ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Place butter in a large bowl and pour 1/2 cup boiling water over it, then whisk until melted. Whisk in the sugar, molasses, egg and ginger. Add the flour mixture and whisk to blend. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then cool completely on a wire rack. Remove the parchment paper before serving.