chocolate gingerbread cake.

I was at Wegman’s a couple of weeks ago and I found some Wild Friends peanut butter.  It took me a second to realize they were all seasonal/holiday flavors: Gingerbread, Sugar cookie, and Pumpkin spice!  Of course, I had to buy all three.  All the flavors are delicious, but the one that stood out the most in my mind was the Gingerbread flavor. It was so…. GINGERBREAD-Y!  You could really taste the spiciness of the gingerbread spices.  The ingredients include roasted peanuts, molasses, evaporated cane sugar, peanut oil, organic vanilla, and gingerbread spices.  All of these ingredients I recognize and can pronounce, which is always a good thing when you’re choosing what brands of food to buy!  So here, I made a gingerbread cake.  I actually wanted them to be brownies, but it turned out to be a deliciously moist cake.  Not complaining!  I incorporated this Gingerbread peanut butter, duh!

RECIPE:

• 3/4 cup Wild Friends Gingerbread peanut butter (buy HERE on amazon!)
• 1/4 cup earth balance butter spread
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate morsels
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon cloves
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 1/2 cup boiling water

INSTRUCTIONS:

• in a small sauce pan, melt earth balance butter, peanut butter, semi sweet chocolate morsels and vanilla until smooth
• remove from heat and let cool slightly
• transfer mixture to a larger mixing bowl
• add almond milk and mix until smooth – this should cool the mixture down even more so when you add the egg, it doesn’t cook!
• add egg and mix until smooth
• in a separate bowl, mix flour, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder, cloves, ginger, and salt
• add dry ingredients to chocolate peanut butter mixture in about 3 increments, mixing after each addition
• boil water and add to batter

note: adding boiling water helps make sure the batter isn’t clumpy – cocoa powder and brown sugar can clump together 

• whisk until batter is smooth
• bake in a greased  9 x 11 baking dish at 350 for about 20-25 minutes or until toothpick or knife comes out clean
• garnish with powdered sugar and serve with tea! or coffee 🙂 OR top with more gingerbread peanut butter!!! … best idea ever