Gingerbread Spice Cake Recipe

To make the candied orange peels:

Peel the 2 oranges and put them in a sauce pan with 1 ½ cups cold water - bring to a boil and then let simmer for 5 minutes. 

Strain out the water, leaving the peels in the sauce pan. Add in the orange juice. Bring up to a boil, reduce the heat and let simmer for 5 more minutes. The orange peels should be soft and tender at this point.

Strain out the orange juice and mix the orange peels in a food processor or chop very finely.

Strain out any excess liquid until you are left with just the orange peel paste.

 

To make the spice milk:

In a large saucepan over medium-low heat, warm the milk, coffee, salt, honey, the ¼ cup of sugar, ground ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and star anise as well as the orange peel paste. Heat until warm. Turn off the heat just as it begins to bubble - you don’t want to burn the milk.

Remove the star anise and discard it.

 

To make the caramel:

In a dry saucepan add the ½ cup of sugar and the orange juice. Bring it up to a simmer over medium heat. Stir non stop with a silicone spatula. Do not stop stirring and do not leave the kitchen for any reason! Caramel can burn quickly so keep an eye on it.

Once it starts to turn an amber color (just past light brown), remove from the heat and pour in the spice milk mixture. Careful as you do this - the caramel will splatter a little. Mix quickly with the silicone spatula.
 

To make the batter:

Sift together the all purpose flour and the rye flour together with the baking powder in a large mixing bowl (or in a stand mixer with the bread paddle attachment)

Whisk together the 6 eggs until they are fully emulsified (no visible separation of egg whites) and add to the flour mixture.

Pour in the spice milk and caramel mixture.

Mix on medium for 3 minutes until fully blended. 

Cover the bowl and set in the fridge overnight (or at least for a few hours until the batter fully rests)

 

TO COOK THE GINGERBREAD SPICE CAKE:

Heat the oven to 300 degrees

Butter the inside of the terrine baking dish and add a light dusting of flour to the inside to keep the batter from sticking.

Pour in the batter (it should be about a half inch from the top of the terrine)

Tap the terrine a couple times on the counter to let the batter settle.

Place on the middle rack of your hot oven without the lid 

Cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the crust is fully risen and a cake tester comes out without wet batter on it (a little batter on the cake tester is ok - the cake will continue to cook a little in the terrine and you don’t want it to get dry)

Let the cake cool in the terrine on the counter.

Once cooled, dust with a little icing sugar and serve directly in the Terrine - it makes a beautiful centerpiece for your holiday table! 

The lid of the terrine is great for keeping the cake moist for a couple days on your countertop.

Bon Appétit!