TWD: Gingerbread Baby Cakes

Crapola. I need to get off my behind and start shopping for Christmas presents. I can't believe it's already December! I'm usually pretty good and have ideas on what to get people by mid-October. But this year. Oh man....

Oh well! I'll just distract myself with baked goods instead. This week's TWD recipe is Gingerbread Baby Cakes.

These things are evil! EVIL I SAY! I couldn't stop eating them! Maybe because they are packed full of caffeine. Or maybe because they are just spicy enough for your body to release some endorphins. I don't know...but I sure did scarf a lot down.

Alone, they are rich and sticky from the molasses, with a big kick in the face of ginger power. The black pepper is really apparent in the aftertaste. It lingers on your tongue, just long enough, that you lose your willpower and have to take another bite.

To tone down the spiciness, I made some lemon mascarpone. The sweetness definitely mellows the cake out and brings in yummy tartness into the mix. Yay.

I liked having the cake either way, but I think I enjoyed it more on its own. Every time I took a bite, my mind would immediately think of the fight scenes from the old Batman TV show. KAPOW! WHAMM!

For the recipe, check out Karen's blog, Karen's Kitchen Stories. She was this week's host!

Notes: I used random amounts of molasses, because I was running really low on unsulphured molasses. I had 1:1:2 ratio of unsulphured molasses, blackstrap molasses, and agave nectar. Also, I used grated ginger instead of minced ginger. The batter was baked in a mini muffin pan and some of it was placed on a parchment paper lined sheet pan to make mini-cookies/whoopie pie-ish things. Yum.