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Sticky ginger cakes with cranberry salted caramel
Sticky ginger cakes are the ultimate in cozy comfort food desserts. With their dense, moist centres, warming spices throughout, and that coating of warm salted caramel sauce – they’re literally heaven on a plate and exactly the type of dessert I crave once temperatures begin to dip.
YIELDS
18
TO
20
Ingredients
Sticky ginger cakes:
- 175 grams deglet dates, pitted, roughly chopped
- 75 grams candied ginger, roughly chopped
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup boiling water
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for greasing pans
- 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
- 2 eggs, large, room temp
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2 tablespoons canola/neutral oil
- 1/4 cup molasses
- 1-1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon ginger, ground
- 1/4 teaspoon allspice, ground
- 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon, ground
- 1-1/2 cup cranberries, fresh or unthawed frozen
Salted caramel:
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 1/3 cup whipping cream
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Directions
Sticky ginger cakes:
- Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare your muffin tins by brushing with softened butter and lining the bottom of each with a small circle of parchment cut to fit.
- Add chopped dates, ginger, and baking soda to a heat safe bowl and cover with the boiling water (just one cup). Leave to soften for ten minutes then blend until chunky-smooth with an immersion blender, regular blender, or food processor. Let it hang out a moment.
- Mix the butter and brown sugar together with an electric mixer on medium speed until combined and a little fluffy, pausing to scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula a couple of times.
- Add eggs one at a time, pausing to scrape the bowl as before. Don’t worry, the mixture isn’t supposed to be completely smooth - you’ll know it’s combined enough when the butter lumps are smaller than peas.
- Add the vanilla, oil, molasses, and date-ginger mixture. Mix until combined, and of course, pause and scrape.
- Whisk to combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and spices in another mixing bowl
- Mix the dry ingredients to the wet in two additions with the mixer on low speed, pausing to scrape the bowl one last time.
- Stir the cranberries into the batter and spoon into the prepared muffin tins until 3/4-full.
- Bake in preheated oven 17-18 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the centre of a cake comes out with just a few crumbs. Use a mini offset spatula to easily loosen the sides of the cakes if needed, then invert onto a cooling rack until ready to serve but do warm them up before serving if they’ve cooled too much.
- **While the cakes are baking is the perfect time to make the salted caramel sauce…
Salted caramel sauce:
- Heat a small saucepan over medium. Once heated add butter and melt.
- Add brown sugar and cream and stir constantly until sugar is dissolved.
- Simmer for three minutes, increasing heat just a little if needed to bring to a simmer. Stir now and then.
- Remove caramel from heat and stir in salt. Taste to check salt level and adjust as desired. Pour over warm sticky ginger cakes and serve with vanilla ice cream if you’d like. Cool leftover sauce to room temp, transfer to a mason jar, and store in the fridge up to two weeks.
