G is for Ginger Squash Cake (Jessica)

Dear Ginger Gurus,

This week, I grated a lot of ginger. In picking a recipe to bake for the letter G, I knew what I wanted. I chose ginger as my key ingredient and scoured the internet for ginger recipes. My kitchen was yearning for something sweet after being dessert-less for a few weeks; it was time for cake. The folks at my office helped by voting on the best sounding recipe and I settled on one for Ginger Squash Cake!

It turns out this recipe required 2 days. Day 1 was shopping (two grocery stores) and prepping. Day 2 was baking. After day 1, I felt a little deflated. I prepped the squash, ginger, and hazelnuts for (what felt like) a whole evening and had nothing to show for it! Grating the ginger honestly felt too much like cooking and not enough like baking for my taste. :)  Regardless, eventually I made it through!

I'm including in this recipe the directions I used for removing the skins from the hazelnuts and toasting them. Hazelnuts are featured prominently in this recipe, but don't worry, I'm not double counting it as a G and an H recipe, I've got something else in mind for H. ;)

Ginger Squash Cake with White Chocolate Glaze
(makes an 8x8 cake, cut into 16-20 pieces), from this bon appetit recipe

Ingredients:
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup finely shredded peeled butternut squash
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 egg
2 tablespoons finely grated fresh ginger
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract, divided
3/4 cup chopped toasted hazelnuts, divided
3 tablespoons whipping cream
3 ounces high-quality baking white chocolate, chopped

Directions:
Hazelnut Prep:
My prior experience with hazelnuts consisted basically only of Nutella (which my kitchen smelled like, by the way, mmmm). The friendly produce guy at Bristol Farms pointed out what I needed when I couldn't find anything labeled 'hazelnuts'. Apparently they were labeled only with the type of hazelnut....yeah....I would have been lost without him.
"Do people eat the skins?" I asked. "No. Not usually" he said. "Oh, ok...I knew that..."
This not at all embarrassing exchange indicates my oh so minimal knowledge of hazelnuts.
After coming home and staring at the package for a while,

 I used the power of the internet to guide me. Here are the directions I found online (and then followed) from some yahoo answers forum for how to prepare hazelnuts:
1. Boil 2 cups of water with 3 tablespoons baking soda.
2. Drop hazelnuts into solution and let them cook for about 3 minutes.
3. Transfer nuts to ice water bath and let stand for a couple minutes.

 4. Slide husks off of nuts by rolling them in your hands or a towel, or just peeling them off.

5. Dry nuts and then chop into desired size.
6. Toast in the oven (I used the toaster-oven) for 10-15 minutes at 350 degrees or until a light brown color. Stir occasionally.

Cake:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 9x9x2 metal pan with nonstick spray (I used an 8x8x2 glass dish and it was fine).
2. Whisk flour and next 5 ingredients together in a medium bowl.
3. Using electric mixer, beat squash, brown sugar, butter, egg, ginger, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract in large bowl to blend.
4. Fold in flour mixture and 1/2 cup hazelnuts.
5. Transfer to pan and spread batter out to the edges.

 6. Bake until a cake tester comes out clean (25-30 minutes). Let cool and turn out of pan.

Glaze:
1. Bring cream just to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat. Add white chocolate and remaining 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract and whisk until smooth.
2. Let stand at room temperature until thick enough to spread (about 20 minutes).
3. Spread glaze over cake in whatever thickness is desired (I only used about half of the glaze, if you don't want to make this cake too sweet, consider halving the cream, white chocolate, and vanilla from the beginning, that way you don't waste any ingredients like I did).
4. Sprinkle remaining hazelnuts onto cake. Cut into squares.

Review:
This cake came out tasty, but with stronger flavors than I was expecting. When Jennifer tried it, she noted that she could really taste the high quality ingredients. I agree with that---the ginger flavor came through well, it tasted exactly like fresh ginger, none of that powdered ginger stuff! I thought the hazelnuts were a little overpowering when I first tasted it, but after eating another piece the next day, I liked the flavor combination better. The glaze is the only thing that makes this cake sweet. If served unglazed, it could be a breakfast cake without any trouble! This cake was good, but I still have 'meh' feelings about it. Don't get me wrong, I know I'll finish the leftovers, but I didn't fall in love with it. Considering how labor intensive it was (very labor intensive), I don't think I would make it again. So, reader, if you are picking a recipe from our blog to try out for the first time, let me politely guide you to something else we've posted!

Gingerly,

-Jessica