Ann Hodgman's Beat That! is a cookbook that I return to again and again. Why? Because everything I've made from it (with the exception of some pickled shrimp which I found to be more trouble than they were worth) has been beyond excellent. And, any cookbook that was a gift from everyone's favorite JOB GODDESS Kimm Walton has to be a winner.
As the sugar and butter holidays are upon us, the very least that BakeManiacs can do is to put a modestly delusional nutritional spin on gifts from the kitchen, and I can think of few things that are better than my version of Ann's Ginger Squares. Ginger is good for you, don't-cha know?
I have doubled her recipe, added more candied and dried ginger AND grated fresh ginger, switched out lemon for lime juice and added ginger juice to the glaze. Resist the temptation to bake this in a 9x13 pan. The outside will be done long before the middle. If you ignore this advice, finish cooking the gooey unbaked middle pieces in the microwave at 10 seconds on high power until you are satisfied. This makes a ginger candy rather than a ginger bar. Not that ginger candy is a bad thing...
* A note on brown sugar: I grew up in the Washington DC area, and when I moved to Minnesota, I thought that there was something wrong with the dark brown sugar here. It is noticeably pale. However, for my first decade in the frozen north, Pale Brown Sugar was less than a Burning Issue of Our Time. I was right, though, and I now regularly return from DC with pounds of molasses-rich mahogany-colored dark brown sugar. In this recipe though, you are on your own with the brown sugar of your neighborhood. Ginger trumps all!
Ginger Squares -- a lot of them
SQUARES
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup packed light brown sugar*
1 cup packed dark brown sugar *
2 large eggs
1 T vanilla
1 T grated fresh ginger
1-1/2 cup all purpose flour
8 ounces crystalized ginger slices
1 T ground ginger
1 tsp salt
GLAZE
4 T fresh lime juice
1 tsp grated fresh ginger juice
1 c sifted confectioners sugar
1. Preheat the oven to 350. Butter two 9-inch square pans. If you have parchment or silicon pan liners, nothing will stick. Use them.
2. Melt the butter over medium low heat in large non-stick low-sided pan. Add the brown sugar and stir until it dissolves. This might take 10 minutes, which is why the large, low-sided pan works better than a saucepan. Use a silicon spatula if you have one, and stir very frequently or this will either boil over or burn. Remove from the heat and when it is cool enough so that the eggs won't scramble, beat in the eggs, vanilla and grated fresh ginger.
3. Process the flour, the candied and ground gingers, baking powder and salt until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Stir this into the butter and sugar mixture, and scrape into the prepared pans. It is a nice idea at this point to weigh the pans to make sure that they are more or less equal.
4. Bake for 30 minutes, reversing the pans halfway through the baking period. Ginger squares are baked when they bubble a bit and have a glazed look on the top.
GLAZE
Stir the lime and ginger juice into the confectioners sugar. Pour over the squares when they come out of the oven. Cool the pans on a rack, and cut when they are cool.
Packed between parchment or wax paper, Ginger Squares ship well.
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