I’m posting my Martha Mondays results a day early this week since I’ve got something that has to go up tomorrow. This week’s assignment was Molasses Spice Cake. (This is also in Martha’s Halloween special edition magazine that’s on stands now). A very fall-like selection by Pru Singer of Pru Singer: My Life. On first glance, this looked to be like gingerbread. Further reading revealed it to be much more.

The cake batter is interesting – the usual butter, brown sugar, flour and eggs (4 eggs – quite a few) but also sour cream, mace (which I have never used and had to go buy), cinnamon, lemon zest and fresh ginger (not dried, which I found to be a very interesting idea).

I didn’t soften my butter enough and ended up with some very small lumps. I just closed my eyes and ignored that! This cake baked in exactly the time Martha said (a first for me I think).

The next step was the frosting – cream cheese frosting. Although this was more cream cheese with a tiny bit of powdered sugar thrown in, as well as some sour cream.

That’s not all folks. Martha then wants you to do a glaze. I have to say this glaze, which was butter, sugar, cream and vanilla, tasted like a very decadent and wonderful caramel sauce. I forced myself to put the pot and rubber scraper in the sink and turn the water on so I wouldn’t keep sampling it!

Around here we say that someday I will open The Butt Ugly Bakery: Where Everything Looks Like Crud But Tastes Great. I’m really not into the finer points of cake decorating. I’ve spent too many hours crying over crumbs in my frosting and frosting smeared around the edge of my cake plate. Life is too short to cry over imperfect frosting. If I am making something for a special occasion, I will exert some Martha effort and try very hard to make it look good. But for every day, if it tastes good, I’m not too concerned with how it looks. Thus, my photo of this cake. A bit messy. And yes, I put the cake on a dinner plate that is concave, so the center of my cake is lower than the edges, meaning my glaze puddled in the middle.

I liked the cake – it was very moist and dense with a complex flavor. The edges were crunchy, which was really interesting. I did not care for the cream cheese frosting at all. It was almost sour (since it had very little sugar). If it was real cream cheese frosting, it would have been good, but very sweet. The glaze was good and the only thing that saved the frosting at all in my opinion. I would love try this with a lemon sauce.  Mr. MarthaandMe is Mad About Gingerbread so he gave this a major thumbs up. Teen Martha did not like it, but doesn’t like spice cakes in general.