Spiced Gingerbread Cake (Many Sizes)

This deeply spiced and moist gingerbread cake is fantastic any time of day, whether or not served plain or dressed up with spiced cream cheese frosting. You can also make it as a single layer spherical or sq. cake, or attempt the layer cake model detailed within the Notes. Irrespective of the way you bake and serve it, this can be a traditional gingerbread recipe the entire household will love through the vacation season!

Reader MK commented: “Soooo scrumptious! My grandma used to make gingerbread yearly and by no means used a written recipe. That is the closest factor I’ve tasted to it in years. ★★★★★”

Nothing tastes extra like the vacations than the nice and cozy, cozy flavors of gingerbread. The odor of ginger, cloves, and molasses can immediately transport anybody’s mindset to December.

Each vacation season, I make my favourite gingerbread cookies, and gingerbread waffles are quick changing into a favourite winter weekend custom in my home, too. However what about simply, merely, gingerbread? A candy, spiced stick-to-your-fork-moist cake that may do double-duty as Christmas morning breakfast and dessert… welcome to my quintessential gingerbread recipe!

Whereas including a layer of cream cheese frosting makes it a beautiful vacation dessert, this cake could be simply as welcome as a particular vacation breakfast, snack, or late-night last-minute gift-wrapping gasoline.

Gingerbread has no time-of-day limitations. 😉

Why You Will Love This Gingerbread Snack Cake

• A 1-layer cake, excellent for once you aren’t feeding an enormous crowd
• You possibly can even make it as an the other way up pear gingerbread cake
• Heat, comforting vacation flavors of molasses, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves
• Moist cake crumb, not dry or dense in any respect
• Prime with spiced cream cheese frosting, take pleasure in it plain, with whipped cream, or with a dusting of confectioners’ sugar
• Adaptable to different pan sizes—see under
• Fast and straightforward prep makes for a low-maintenance vacation dessert

Components You Want:

• Flour: The bottom of the gingerbread cake recipe.
• Baking Soda: As you might have learn in my baking powder vs. baking soda publish, molasses and brown sugar are each acids. So we want baking soda to provide the cake its carry!
• Spices: Floor ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and salt—the gingerbread mainstays.
• Molasses: Along with the spices, molasses is the opposite signature taste in most gingerbread recipes. I like to recommend utilizing unsulphured or darkish molasses, not blackstrap, which has a extra intense taste that’s a bit an excessive amount of in baked items. (I at all times use Grandma’s model molasses.)
• Scorching Water: As you’ll examine under, whisking the thick, sticky molasses with scorching water earlier than including it to the batter makes every thing come collectively simply. The water additionally provides supreme moisture to each chew.
• Butter: You simply can’t beat the flavour of this baking staple!
• Brown Sugar: Sweetening with brown sugar gives additional moisture + additional molasses taste.
• Egg: 1 egg serves to bind the elements collectively, and provides richness.
• Vanilla Extract: As a result of, you realize, cake. 🙂

Methods to Combine Sticky Molasses Into Cake Batter

Whisk the molasses with scorching water earlier than including it to the batter. Why? As you realize, molasses may be very thick. The thick goop, for lack of higher phrases, doesn’t combine simply into cake batter. It’s superb for cookie doughs resembling iced gingerbread oatmeal cookies and gingerbread cookie bars, however scorching water helps loosen the viscous consistency of molasses, which helps incorporate it right into a thinner cake batter.

The ensuing cake is dense, but delicate. Buttery and tender. Completely spiced and impeccably flavored.

The remainder of the prep work is fairly easy, too. You’ll cream the butter and brown sugar collectively, so an electrical mixer is undoubtedly useful (you’ll want it in the event you make the frosting, too). Because the recipe instructs under, add the dry elements and water/molasses combination to the moist elements in separate additions.

The batter is a bit of thick, and a few small lumps are OK:

Completely different Pan Measurement Choices

This can be a versatile gingerbread cake recipe. It may be made a mess of how: as a 1-layer spherical, sq., or 11×7-inch rectangle cake; as a gingerbread loaf cake; or as a layer cake. I initially revealed this recipe in 2015, and when testing this recipe once more this yr, we tried all of those variations so we might inform you which pans do and don’t work. We went via a LOT of molasses, and had a LOT of cake to provide away.

Right here’s what we all know: The recipe as written makes about 3 cups of batter, and weighs about 850–890g. A 9-inch springform pan is finest as a result of this gingerbread cake rises fairly excessive. It doesn’t matter what measurement pan you employ, bake the cake at 350°F (177°C). Insert a toothpick within the middle of the cake to check for doneness. If it comes out clear, the cake is completed.

Topping Gingerbread Cake

This gingerbread snack cake is completely improbable by itself—you don’t even want frosting! However if you wish to make it a bit of extra particular, slather on some candy and tangy spiced cream cheese frosting. (Included within the recipe card under.) It’s like absolute heaven on this not-too-sweet cake.

You can too give it a easy dusting of confectioners’ sugar, a dollop of whipped cream, or attempt the lemon glaze I pair with these just-as-tasty gingerbread muffins.

I additionally like to garnish it with recent cranberries for shade. Sugared cranberries are particularly festive, and see my notes in that tutorial for sugared rosemary. Right here’s a slice from my 9-inch springform pan:

And right here’s the gingerbread cake baked in a 9-inch sq. pan with festive Christmas sprinkles. The little holly decorations are by the model Wilton, and I can’t appear to search out them on-line anymore. These Christmas timber are comparable, although!

For those who love smaller-scale cake recipes like this, do that small chocolate cake or my simple 1-layer sprinkle cake.

Extra Gingerbread Recipes

Print

Spiced Gingerbread Cake

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  Creator: Sally
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  Prep Time: 20 minutes
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  Cook dinner Time: 35 minutes
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  Whole Time: 3 hours, 55 minutes (contains cooling)
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  Yield: serves 8-10
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  Class: Cake
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  Methodology: Baking
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  Delicacies: American

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Description

That is my timeless traditional gingerbread. You possibly can take pleasure in it plain or with a dusting of confectioners’ sugar or dollop of whipped cream. You can too prime it with spiced cream cheese frosting (recipe included under). You can also make it as a single layer spherical or sq. cake, or attempt the layer cake variations detailed within the Notes.

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Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting (optionally available)

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Directions

1. Alter the oven rack to the decrease third place and preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Grease a 9-inch springform pan, 9-inch sq. pan, or 11×7-inch rectangle pan. Put aside.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and salt collectively till mixed. Put aside.
3. In a separate bowl or in a liquid measuring cup, whisk the molasses and scorching water collectively.
4. In a big bowl utilizing a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on excessive velocity till clean and creamy, about 1 minute. Add the brown sugar and beat on excessive velocity for 1 minute till creamed collectively pretty properly. Scrape down the perimeters and up the underside of the bowl with a silicone spatula as wanted. On medium-high velocity, beat within the egg and vanilla till mixed. Scrape down the perimeters and up the underside of the bowl with a silicone spatula as wanted. With the mixer on low velocity, add the dry elements in three additions alternating with the recent water/molasses, starting and ending with the dry elements, and mixing every addition simply till integrated. Keep away from over-mixing. Give it a whisk by hand on the finish to verify there are not any giant lumps (just a few small lumps are OK). Batter is barely thick.
5. Pour batter into ready pan. Bake for round 35 minutes, or till the cake is baked via. To check for doneness, insert a toothpick into the middle of the cake. If it comes out clear with solely a pair moist (not moist) crumbs, it’s completed.
6. Enable cake to chill utterly within the pan set on a wire rack. The cake should be utterly cool earlier than frosting.
7. Make the frosting: In a big bowl utilizing a handheld mixer or stand mixer fitted with a whisk or paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese and butter collectively on medium-high velocity till creamy and no lumps stay, about 2 minutes. Add confectioners’ sugar, vanilla extract, milk, and pinches of spices. (Notice that the video doesn’t embrace the spices within the frosting, however the footage do!) Beat on low velocity for 20 seconds, then enhance to excessive velocity till every thing is totally mixed and the frosting is creamy. Style. Add a pinch of salt if frosting is simply too candy. Unfold on prime of cake. Unfold across the sides in case you have additional frosting.
8. Slice and serve.
9. Cowl leftover cake tightly and retailer within the fridge for as much as 5 days.

Notes

1. Make Forward & Freezing Directions: Put together cake via step 6. Wrap the baked and cooled cake tightly and maintain at room temperature for 1 day or freeze as much as 3 months. Carry to room temperature (if frozen) then proceed with step 7. Frosting may also be made 1 day forward of time. Cowl tightly and refrigerate in a single day. Beat the frosting on medium velocity for just a few seconds so it’s creamy once more, if wanted. Frosted cake freezes properly, as much as 3 months. Thaw in a single day within the fridge, then carry to room temperature or serve chilly. See Methods to Freeze Muffins.
2. Particular Instruments (affiliate hyperlinks): 9-inch Springform Pan | Glass Mixing Bowl | Whisk | Electrical Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Silicone Spatula | Cooling Rack | Offset Icing Spatula
3. Completely different Measurement Pans: It doesn’t matter what measurement pan you employ, bake the cake at 350°F (177°C). A 9-inch springform pan or 10-inch springform pan is finest as a result of this gingerbread cake rises fairly excessive. 9-inch cake pans are too quick. You can too use a 9-inch sq. pan or 11×7-inch rectangle pan. For all of those pans, the bake time shall be about 35 minutes. Insert a toothpick within the middle of the cake to check for doneness. If it comes out clear, the cake is completed. There may be not sufficient batter for a 9×13-inch cake pan or a Bundt pan.
4. Gingerbread Cupcakes: For about 14 cupcakes, fill liners midway and bake for 20–22 minutes. Or attempt my barely totally different recipe for gingerbread cupcakes.
5. 9-Inch Layer Cake: You can also make this as a 3-layer 9-inch cake. I counsel making the batter twice, and lowering the molasses to 1/2 cup (150g) in every (for 1 cup (300g) whole within the layer cake). Don’t double it—make it twice after which mix the batters; the batter is simply too heavy to double all of sudden. You should have about 6 cups or 1745g of batter. Grease three 9-inch spherical cake pans, line with parchment paper rounds, then grease the parchment paper. Fill the cake pans midway (about 575g batter in every). Bake the layers for 22–25 minutes. The very best quantities/ratio of elements to make use of for the frosting could be the identical cream cheese frosting from this carrot cake recipe. Be happy to nonetheless add a pinch of cinnamon, ginger, and cloves to it if desired.
6. 6-inch Layer Cake: You can also make the batter as written above and divide it between 3 6-inch spherical cake pans, to make a 3-layer 6-inch cake. The cream cheese frosting written above is sufficient for the 3-layer 6-inch cake.
7. Tailored from Gingerbread Muffins.

Key phrases: gingerbread cake