Gingerbread Cake With Eggnog Icing

Gingerbread Cake with Egg Nog Icing

For the cake, I use a Suzanne Martinson recipe I originally found here and changed only slightly for my purposes.

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup molasses
1 egg
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup hot water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a nine inch cake pan. In a large bowl, mix cooled butter, sugar and egg and set aside. Sift dry ingredients together. Combine light or dark molasses with the hot water. Alternating, add dry ingredients and the molasses-water to the butter, sugar and egg. Blend just to combine. Pour batter into pan and bake 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Let cool for ten minutes and turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before icing.

The icing is my own holiday rendition of a classic buttercream.

approx. 1/2 lb. confectioners sugar
1/2 a stick of butter at room temperature
egg nog to taste

Cream the butter and sugar together at medium speeds. Add egg nog one tablespoon at a time until the icing is a spreadable consistency.

Optional: Top cake with a dollar store pick-up. What is it about nutcrackers that my children love so much??