Gingerbread Cake

The first time I ever made gingerbread cookies from scratch was during my senior year of college.

The day after finals, before leaving for semester break, I gathered a handful of recipes, jotted them onto cards and headed to my friend Alison’s apartment for an afternoon of baking.

It’s a day I remember clearly, but not at all.

I can vividly see the plastic, yuletide-pattern plastic Christmas cookie bins that we’d picked up from Wal*Mart to share the goods with our friends.

I remember the double date we went on later that night with her boyfriend and a guy I’d been dating.

I remember what I had to drink at dinner and what I was wearing.

I remember that it was snowing and I was afraid to drive, even around the corner to the pub where we ate.

Yet, I only remember one of the cookies we baked.

Naturally, one of those batches of cookies – and the only one that comes to mind when I think of the holiday-spirited day back in college – was gingersnaps.

That cookie kicked off a love of gingerbread that has waxed and waned since then. While there’s nothing like a good molasses cookie dunked in milk or with hot coffee, sometimes chocolate chip cookies are the only thing that does the trick.

However, gingerbread cake is the loophole.

There’s no rule saying that you can’t have cake and cookies for dessert at your holiday party or dinner.