Faithful Place and Guinness Gingerbread

Tana French's Faithful place is her third book about hardscrabble detectives (with a mysterious past) in Dublin and it is definitely my favorite. While her books so far have all followed the same formula - some heinous crime, a detective from the undercover squad of the Dublin police is called in to solve the crime, and the detectives past coming in to play somehow in the story.  In Faithful Place, Frank Mackey is the central character in the book - he was a smaller character in French's previous books - he is an intense supervisor in the undercover squad who runs investigations and pushes his officers right up to if not over the proverbial line.  Here, Frank's past comes back to haunt him when the skeleton of his high school love is found in an abandoned house on "Faithful Place", the street where he grew up and his family still lives.  More on this and the insanely delicious Guinness Ginger Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting I made after the jump...

At the start of Faithful Place, Frank gets a call from his sister Jackie, saying he better get back to Faithful Place quick cause something awful has happened.  At this point, we know that Frank is divorced, has a frosty relationship with his ex wife Olivia and is close with his young daughter, who he spends weekends with.  When he gets the call from Jackie, he interrupts his ex-wife's date to drop off his daughter and heads back to his family home, where he hasn't been in 20 years.  We don't know immediately why he has never been home in 20 years, despite living in the same city as his family (Dublin), but  we soon understand - his family is a mess.   Frank grew up with a lot of violence  - his father is a violent abusive drunk, his mother allowed this too happen and added emotional abuse to the menu.  Frank's Dad was mostly out of work and the five kids had to work to put food on the table.  Frank left home as a teenager and has only spoken with his sister Jackie during this time.  What brings him back?  A report that in an old derelict house on the street where he grew up, a suitcase of his old high school girlfriend Rosie was found.  Rosie and Frank had planned to run away together when they were 18 - they were in love and decided to move to England where they could get away from their families (who hated each other).  Those many years ago, Frank waited for Rosie at their designated meeting place, and she never showed up.  Rather than go home and resume his normal life, Frank split, moved to the other side of Dublin and eventually became a cop, which from where he came from, was not a favored profession.  Once Frank goes back to Faithful Place to examine the suitcase, the book gets going as a tightly wound thriller - what happened to Rosie?  In addition, Frank is forced to deal with his family.  Frank is desperate to discover the truth, but must scheme his way there and must confront a reality of his family that is even darker than he imaged.  This was fast pasted and engaging on both the suspense level and the more emotional family level, a great read. For the folks living on Faithful Place, a steady job at the Guinness factory was a ticket to more stability and respectability.  The shadow of the Guinness factory loomed large, so I went with this spicy Guinness fortified gingerbread.

Guinness Gingerbread with Brown Sugar Glaze
This Gingerbread recipe is from Gramercy Tavern - it is nice and spicy. Some of the reviews on epicurious.com said the cake was not sweet enough, so since I was giving this to people with a real sweet tooth,  I decided to add a handful of chocolate chips and coat it in an insanely yummy brown sugar glaze.  It came out really fabulously and I would make it just as I suggest below. 

Guinness Gingerbread with Brown Sugar Glaze

Adapted from Epicurious.com (Gramercy Tavern Gingerbread) and SouthernLiving.com

(printable recipe)

Ingredients

(Cake)

1 cup Guinness stout

1 cup molasses
1/2 tablespoon baking soda
3 large eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup grapeseed or vegetable oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 tablespoon grated, peeled fresh gingerroot
1 cup chocolate chips

(Glaze)
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup powdered sugar

Directions for Cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Butter a bundt pan or two loaf pans (I couldn't find my bundt pan, this made 1 full loaf and a very short loaf).
2. Bring Stout and Molasses to a boil and remove from heat.  Whisk in baking soda. Let sit till cool and the bubbles from the baking soda calm down.
3. Mix or sift together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and spices) in a large bowl.
4. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugars, then the oil then the molasses mixture.
5. Add the wet to the dry, mix till combined. 
6. Add the fresh ginger
7. Stir in the chocolate chips.
8. Pour into pan and bake for 50 minutes or so, till cake springs back when touched and a toothpick type implement comes out clean.  Let cool on rack for 20 minutes and remove from pan.

For Glaze:

1. Bring brown sugar, butter and milk to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat, whisking constantly.  Boil 1 minute.
2. Remove from heat, add vanilla.
3. Gradually whisk in powdered sugar till smooth.  As you see, I should have sifted the powdered sugar to remove lumps - I recommend you do this.
4. Whisk 3 - 5 minutes to cool down and thicken and then immediately pour over cooled cake.