Eating crow

Remember how I was saying just this month I couldn't wait to be bored?  Yep I said it.  I guess I've been working night and day for too long because I don't remember nothing to do being... well, this boring in the past.

I am working on changing about 1/2 of the dessert menu in early June.  We are having a blast with it.  It's amazing how time to tweak and redo makes the creative process more fun. I am playing with fruit bruschetta right now.  I want the final product to lean more towards a sampling of flavor combinations than just one bread and one topping.   At first I was thinking, chocolate, ginger, nut something and angel food as the bases with mixed berries, stone fruit, apples and tropical fruit salsa.  The longer I play the more I'm afraid the chocolate cake just doesn't fit.  I think it is going to get replaced with a polenta pound cake?

I spend quite a bit of time on any given day looking at recipes - on the web, in cookbooks & in trade magazines.  I have a couple of fav sites but epicurious (from the editors of bon appetit & gourmet mags) has a broad range of professionally tested recipes that always capture my interest.  When I came across the recipe for lemon ginger pound cake a while back I just sorta filed it away in the back of my mind for later.  Later has arrived!! The first batch was good but that is just never enough for me...we played with it and now it is FABULOUS!
Lemon Ginger Pound Cake  Rebecca's way

• 6 tablespoons finely chopped peeled fresh ginger  
• 1 3/4 cups  granulated sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour 
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt    
• 1 teaspoon vanilla       
• 2 sticks  unsalted butter, softened
• 2 lemons zested       
• 4 large eggs                                                      
• 2oz fresh lemon juice  

1 - 9" X 5" loaf pan, sprayed with pan spray and lined with parchment if you have it.

Preparation

Preheat oven to 325°F.

Finely grind together fresh ginger and 3/4 cup sugar in a food processor or blender (mixture will be wet).

Whisk together or sift flour, baking powder, ground ginger, and salt.

Beat together butter, remaining sugar and lemon zest in a large bowl with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in ginger sugar until just combined, then lemon juice and vanilla extract. Add the flour in 2 batches, mixing until just combined.

Spoon batter into pan, smoothing top, and bake in middle of oven until golden brown on top and a tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let cool in the pan 10 mins then carefully tip out and allow to finish cooling on a rack or flat surface.

If you want to pretty it up you can add glaze (powdered sugar and lemon juice) but the cake really doesn't need the extra sugar.

Serve with fruit, barely sweetened whip cream or ice cream.