The Recipe: Chocolate Stout Gingerbread with Cream Cheese Frosting from Swerve magazine.

The Substitutions: Not a one, though I did sprinkle some crushed candy cane over the top for extra festive-ness.

The Verdict: Yum. My mom saw this recipe in the paper and asked me to make it for Christmas Eve dinner. Since the recipe was by Julie Van Rosendaal, a local blogger/food celeb who I really admire, I thought it was a pretty good idea. And it really did make for a yummy cake.

I am generally not a fan of cream cheese icing -- I think anything involving cream cheese is vile. But since this icing doesn't cover the entire cake, I could get behind it. And there's beer in the icing, which kind of makes up for the cream cheese, I guess. The cake itself was moist and dense. There's so many flavours in there -- stout, chocolate, and gingerbread -- but not a single one of them overpowers the rest. It's just a harmonious intermingling of deliciousness. This one will likely go into my regular Christmas repertoire and I don't think I'm going to get any complaints.