We had a discussion, The Weather Man and I, prior to baking of this cake. Is it a ginger cake or a gingerbread cake? What is one and the other and how do you know?
I'd always thought ‘gingerbread’ referred only to cookies until I saw the cranberry gingerbread cake in NY Times Cooking, promptly reproduced here (this is actually a further variation on that good template). So gingerbread cake, though sounding like a tautology, seems to be a legit culinary term.
I guess the English (language and cuisine) struggle with ginger productions. Piernik is piernik after all; likewise in other, culinary conscious tongues who bake with honey and ginger: Honigkuchen, pain d’epices, panforte and peperkoek are all decisively cakes not biscuits. The only decisive English term I can think of is parkin, but if I tried calling my cake parkin, everybody would go: ‘ee ba gum’ while suppin’ t’ brew.
Our discussion ended with TWM claiming he’d be able to tell whether it’s gingerbread cake or ginger cake when he tastes it. Once it was ready, and I’d given him a very small piece as it felt wrong to slice a cake with an uncertain name, TWM decided it was far too small to be definitive about it. Another bit of cake followed, then another before I realised he was stringing me along for more cake. Gingerbread cake, incidentally, as we both agreed.