This recipe is an actual original from my Grandma ☺️ . It was tradition that she would bake those every December. However these are way too good to be just baken in December. Glazed with chocolate and topped with some nuts they are literally one of my favorite of pastries.

My grandma was not vegan but the only non-vegan ingredient in this original recipe was the eggs and well that's an easy thing to replace 😎.

I also enhanced the taste of the original recipe a bit by adding 1 teaspoon of Ground Coffee ☕️ and 5g of Orange Zest 🍊.

Prep Time ~15 minutes
Cooking Time ~30 minutes
Result ~20 Brownie Cakes
Glutenfree not glutenfree

Prerequisites

I used to have no kitchen machine for more than 7 years. But having one is really improving fun in cooking and baking and is relieving the frustration of sticky ingredients.

The consistency of these lovely gingerbread cakes will make you crazy without a proper kitchen machine. As usual I am recommending the Kitchen Aid Artisan.

Ingredients

The cake dough

  • 500g Flour
  • 125g of grounded Hazelnuts
  • 125g Margarine
  • 500g artificial honey (this is not a honey replacement!) [1]
  • 3tbsp Cacao Powder
  • 1 pack of Gingerbread Spice
  • 1tsp ground Coffee (optional but recommended)
  • 5g Zest of an Orange
  • 1tsp Baking Soda
  • 1tsp Baking Powder
  • 60g Sugar
  • Egg Alternative for 3 Eggs [2]

[1] Artificial Honey is also called "Inverted Sugar". Even though it has "honey" in its name it is not to be simply confused as a honey alternative. It is and has always been a baking ingredient that allows the dough to become sticky - my grandma used it in this recipe already 40 years ago.

[2] There is a lot of things that can replace egg. In this recipe I am using a premixed one from the supermarket for convenience but please check my article to learn more about egg alternatives: Egg Alternatives.

Instructions

The gingerbread cakes

  1. Put the flour into a pan and roast it for 3mins until it starts to have a soft delightful smell
  2. Put the flour aside
  3. Roast the hazelnuts in a pan
  4. Put the hazelnuts aside
  5. Liquify the artificial honey slowly and let it cool for 1min
  6. Add the roasted hazelnuts to the liquified sugar mass and put the mix aside
  7. Now the roasted flour, the cacao powder, Gingerbread Spice, the coffee, the Orange Zest, Baking Soda, Baking Powder and Sugar all into one bowl and mix it
  8. Add the Egg Alternative and the margarine and mix thoroughly
  9. Now add the Hazelnut-Sugar-Mix and another round of mix time until the mass is a gluey, sticky mixture
  10. Grease a flat ovenproof baking dish
  11. Add the mixture to the baking dish and flatten its structure a bit e.g. with a silicone scraper
  12. Bake in the oven for ~30-32mins at 150°C (302°F)
  13. Get the baked mass out of the oven and let it cool for 2 hours [3]

[3] Forget the "put a knife into the dough to check if its good"-Test here. The cooling phase will do its magic and give the dough its final form 👌

The delicious coating

For the coating of the little cakes I recommend couverture chocholate, walnuts and almonds. So first melt the chocolate on very low level slowly (if you do it too fast it becomes sandy/grainy). Pour some melted chocolate on the little cakes and add some nuts and maybe mandarine on top 😻