Recipe: Frosted Chocolate Gingerbread with Banana Buttercream Frosting

FROSTED CHOCOLATE GINGERBREAD

1 cup butter
1 cup hot strong coffee
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup dark molasses
2 squares (1 oz. each) semisweet chocolate, melted
4 eggs
2 1/3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
Banana Buttercream Frosting (recipe follows)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and lightly flour a 9x13-inch baking pan.

Combine butter with hot coffee. Stir in sugar and molasses. Mix in chocolate and eggs.

Combine flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir into wet mixture. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake for 45 minutes, or until tested done in the center. Cool on a wire rack.

Spread Banana Buttercream Frosting over cooled gingerbread. Cut into 2x3-inch squares to serve.

BANANA BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

6 Tbsp. butter, softened
2 2/3 cups confectioners' sugar, divided use
1 banana, mashed

Cream butter until light. Blend in 1 cup confectioners' sugar. Add banana. Gradually add the remaining 1 and 2/3 cups confectioners' sugar until of spreading consistency.

Source: Gwen Campbell, Sterling, Virginia in Home Cooking magazine, December1998