Gingerbread Muffins with Coffee Glaze

  • Gingerbread Cake with Coffee Glaze

    It’s that time of year.

    Crowds, weird mall Santas, and gingerbread.  Gingerbread houses are interesting things, aren’t they?  On one hand, they can be beautiful, and yet on the other hand they can seem incredibly germy.  The person making the house obviously manhandles the hell out of each piece, and one has to breathe deeply with the hope that the gingerbread-house-maker washed her hands a whole heck of a lot while assembling the architectural cookie masterpiece.  Like after every single time she wiped her drippy December nose.  Like after every single time she opened the refrigerator door to get some pomegranate juice.  Germs live everywhere, people.  Including on the very people clamoring to rip the cookie shingles and walls and stairs off the gingerbread house in the midst of a dessert feeding frenzy.  If the gingerbread maker isn’t the source of disease, the grubby hands of the house eaters will surely get you sick over the holidays.

    Cheers to me being a gingerbread house ba-humbug, eh?  So reduce the spread of holiday germs and make gingerbread muffins instead.  Very little touching, and very little group-eating.  And very festive, of course.  And WAY less time required than making a house with icing formed to look like eaves troughs.

    (But really- I WILL make a gingerbread house one day, while wearing a hazmat suit.  Totally germ-free.)

    Adapted from epicurious’s recipe…

    2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

    4 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

    2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

    1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

    1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

    1/2 teaspoon salt

    1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

    1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

    2 eggs

    3/4 cup light molasses

    1 1/3 cups cold water

    GLAZE:

    1 cup confectioners’ sugar

    2 – 3 tablespoons very strong coffee or Kahlua

    1. Preheat oven to 350°.  Grease 16 standard muffin cups.
    2. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt until combined.
    3. In a large bowl, beat unsalted butter and sugar for 4 minutes.  Add eggs one at a time, beating 45 seconds between each.  Beat in molasses until well combined, scraping down sides of bowl.  Add a third of dry ingredients, beating until blended.  Beat in half of the water, then beat in another third of dry ingredients.  Beat in remaining portion of water, then remaining dry ingredients.  Divide batter equally among prepared muffin cups.
    4. Bake muffins for about 25 minutes (until tester inserted into center comes out mostly clean of crumbs).  Transfer to rack and cool for 10 minutes; remove muffins from pan and place on rack with a sheet of wax paper/foil/parchment paper underneath (to catch glaze drips).
    5. GLAZE: in a small bowl or measuring cup, whisk confectioners’ sugar and coffee/Kahlua until smooth.  Spoon glaze over tops of muffins.

    Tips:

    • No coffee or Kahlua in the house?  Go ahead and use milk instead.  You’ll miss that coffee flavor, but whatever.  (Oh- you could use OJ instead if you’d like. Orange and gingerbread are a classic combo.)
    • Garnish: a few years ago I sprinkled candied lemon zest over the muffin tops while the glaze was still setting.  I had photos but just deleted them because they looked entirely gross (it’s the lighting, the lighting was shit).  If you want to candy zest like a keen baker, tune into this recipe (it’s for my Classic Carrot Cake, which you might die happy eating) for the zest instructions.  I also made candied pistachios to crumble over the tops of little gingerbread muffins (with a cream cheese frosting).
    • Glaze options: I oped to put my glaze in a small ziploc bag, and cut off a tiny corner to create a neat(ish) drizzle.  Another option would be to just brush glaze over the tops of the muffins while they are still warm, so the glaze soaks into the muffin.  Yes.
    • I am losing my mind.  I totally forgot I made this Gingerbread Cake with Lemon Glaze last year, like almost to the day.  The muffins in this post were going to have lemon glaze, too, because obviously I love that shit.  Thank God I realized it before baking my heart out with basically the same recipe deja-vu.  And also- thank God I made Kahlua glaze, because it’s Kahlua.  I need not say more.
    • Enjoy!

     

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    December 21st, 2013 | More Sweets Please | No Comments | Tags: ,

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