Gingerbread

Yesterday I was chatting with my boss (the owner of the uber-cool, eco-friendly baby store, The Giggling Green Bean) about gingerbread. Her three year old daughter just started asking for it randomly, so I said I'd get her my recipe. If you've never had real gingerbread before, you should try this. It's like molasses-y cake. So yummy! (The original recipe is below, with my changes in parenthesis).

Gingerbread Recipe
1/2 cup shortening (or solid coconut oil)
2 Tbs sugar (or coconut sugar)
1 egg
1 cup molasses
1 cup boiling water
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (1 cup unbleached white and 1 1/4 cups whole wheat)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
fresh whipping cream for serving

Heat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9x9 pan or round bundt pan. Mix shortening, sugar and egg. Blend in molasses and boiling water. Sift dry ingredients together and blend into the wet mixture. Beat until smooth. Pour into prepared pan and bake 40-50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. If it's in a 9x9 pan, you can just leave it in there, cut into squares and serve. If it's in a bundt pan, let it cool about 10 mins then turn out and slice. Serve with either fresh liquid cream drizzled on top or you can beat your cream into whipped cream and dollop on top. Either way it's delicious!