Dark and Delicious

It’s a good thing this Chocolate Gingerbread is supposed to be dark because given the state of lighting in my kitchen I just have to assume I’m doing things right because I can’t actually see anything to confirm that. When I moved into my new apartment, the kitchen ceiling was covered with little twinkly Christmas lights. Half of them didn’t work and were falling down, the other half made a feeble attempt to shine through their dust coating. There was no overhead kitchen light, just the fire hazard Christmas lights that I turned on using a regular light switch and which didn’t appear to be plugged in anywhere. From day one I started bugging the landlord to take them down and install a normal light because I didn’t like trying to cook in a cave, (did I mention there are no windows in the kitchen either? Except for a frosted one that leads to the bedroom.). He kept saying he’d do it, but it never seemed to happen. Then one day when I was out shopping with a friend, the landlord came by. We had left my friend’s boyfriend at the apartment so that he didn’t have to be subjected to a few mind numbing hours of trekking aimlessly store to store. While we were out Landlord and FBoyfriend dismantled the lights and then Landlord left. When Friend and I returned, FBoyfriend told us the landlord had been by, (or so he assumed, he didn’t actually question the fact that a strange man wanted into my apartment, he just let him in). I went into the kitchen and was thrilled to see that the Christmas lights were gone. That thrill was short lived as I realized I was standing in the dark with no light at all in the kitchen. Furthermore, when I opened up a nearby closet I discovered a heap of filthy Christmas lights staring back at me. I am not impressed.

As you may know, my landlord is not the only person I’ve had some beef with. Nigella Lawson is another person that has caused me rage in my kitchen. I know tons of you love her and have had nothing but success with her recipes, but for some reason I’ve failed more than succeeded when I use a Nigella recipe and I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem lies in the Americanized versions of her cookbooks. Somewhere along the line, proper testing was not done and some of the measurements are just plain wrong. However when I see someone like Kelly-Jane of Cooking the Books cooking her way through Nigella Express with such great results it makes me want to give it another try. This month’s Cooking Club Challenge on the FoodTV Canada blog is Nigella’s Chocolate Gingerbread and I decided it was time to give Nigella another chance, especially since measurements were given in multiple formats. I chose to stick to Nigella’s original recipe, measured in grams instead of cups. I really wish that’s how all baking recipes were written, but alas, as with kitchen lighting, I don’t always get my way.

I have to say though, this Chocolate Gingerbread has me eating my words. It’s fantastic! The only regret I have is that I tried to bake the gingerbread in cute little silicone molds of a tree, bell and star. The molds refused to give up the gingerbread and I broke all of them in trying to get them out. Also, as you can see in the picture, the gingerbread rose a lot more than I thought it would. It was still very tasty, especially with my improvised orange icing drizzled on top, but it would have been prettier if the so-called non-stick molds hadn’t of stuck. Nigella is back in my good graces with this recipe though.

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Chocolate + Baking + Cake + Gingerbread + Nigella Lawson