TWD: Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread

I love ginger. I love the way it tastes and I love the way it smells. I love that it's perfect for sweet things, such as gingersnaps, and savory, such as peanut sauce. And, as much as I adore ginger, it doesn't even begin to compare to the love affair that I have with chocolate. I love chocolate in any and all forms (most particularly in the form of Crispy M&M's, which, much to my everlasting chagrin have been discontinued. I used to be able to eat an entire bag of them in one sitting -- scary, I know. So, in the absence of crispy M&M's I stick to plain or peanut these days). I was lucky enough to spend my 23rd birthday in Brussels and my brother and I spent all day visiting chocolate shops and, at the end of the day, we had an extra suitcase full of chocolate to lug around.

Suitcase packed with chocolates:

So, the point of these random musings? TWD this week, chosen by Heather of Sherry Trifle, is Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread. I was pretty excited about this, given my love of gingerbread and my love of chocolate.

I followed the recipe almost exactly. Almost is the operative word. First, I cut it in half which was easy enough to do. Second, I substituted half butter, half greek yogurt because the recipe calls for a lot of butter. Third, I omitted the stem ginger because I couldn't find it very easily and it just wasn't that important to me. I baked it in two mini loaf pans and it worked out quite nicely. You'll notice that I didn't frost the gingerbread. I was going to . . . but then I took a bite of the gingerbread and I really didn't like the flavor of the chocolate interfering with the flavor of the gingerbread so I decided to omit the chocolate frosting. I tried to make a white chocolate glaze but it seized on me because I wasn't paying attention so I didn't do that either. Unfortunately, the end result wasn't quite what I was looking for. It wasn't really a magical combination of two great things. It was sort of, meh. I didn't find it spicy enough and I didn't really like the way that the chocolate interfered with the ginger-spice flavor. I also thought that the molasses flavor remained pretty strong, I'm not sure if that's just me though. I have been eating this warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for dessert and I think that is my prefered way to eat it. I can definitely understand why Dorie promotes using the ginger whipped cream as an accompaniment to the gingerbread -- the cream definitely adds the overall experience. As far as gingerbread goes, I think that I'll stick to Fanny Farmer's recipe in the future. If I do make it again, I will for sure make the ginger infused whipped cream that Dorie suggests. That sounds like an amazing combination!