Erin Mann is baking a new cake every week for a year from the "All Cakes Considered" cookbook and shares her adventures here on AnnArbor.com. Read past columns here.

Compared to the basic gingerbread, ATF Gingerbread is a totally different animal.  Consider it a lion to last week's lamb. After reading that the recipe contained dark beer, crystallized ginger and a gingery cream cheese frosting, I couldn't wait to get in the kitchen and start a-bakin'.

My dark beer of choice is Bell's Double Cream Stout. I'm familiar with the taste of this particular beer and know it pairs well desserts. I was eating a slice of Black Forest cake the first time I tried this Bell's brew.  It's like the poor (wo)man's dessert wine!

Melissa Gray issued a "wallet warning" for the crystallized ginger. I purchased a small box at Whole Foods made by Ginger People that contained the perfect amount of sugary ginger bits for the recipe for $3, which I didn't think was too pricey.  If you're feeling ambitious, David Lebovitz tells you how to make your own online.

I creamed the butter and brown sugar. Then I added the beer, molasses and egg at the same time and beat for a couple minutes per the recipe's instructions.

What happened next was unexpected and a little worrisome. The batter, if you can even call if that, was a mass of curdled butter floating in a pool of dark liquid. It resembled something that rhymes with grommet.

I was hopeful things would sort themselves out when I added the dry ingredients. I added the dry ingredients in thirds, beating after each addition. Slowly the batter went from a bowl of chunky slop to a smooth light brown mixture. Phew! I folded in the bits of crystallized ginger, poured the batter in the pan and popped that baby in the oven for 45 minutes.

It was close to bedtime when I made this cake, so I allowed it to cool overnight. The following day after work, I frosted the cake and topped it with chopped crystallized ginger.

I had high expectations for the taste of this cake.  Sadly, they were not met. That's not to say it's not a wonderful cake - it's just not my cup o' tea.

I thought the gingerbread was too rustic. The texture was tougher and the flavor less sweet and more pungent than last week's gingerbread.  The frosting provided some added sweetness but was still over-powered by stronger flavors of the molasses, dark beer and spicy crystallized ginger.

The folks at Etsy, an online marketplace for handmade goods, published the recipe in the How-To Tuesday section of their blog, The Storque.  Click here to find it online.

Erin Mann is a contributor for AnnArbor.com and ruining diets one cake at a time. E-mail her at SheGotTheBeat@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter.