Gingerbread Cake

Why This Recipe Works

Cozy Spices: Gingerbread cake has all the coziest spices that you and your family love during the holiday season! Using cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves, along with deeply flavored molasses and brown sugar, you get all of the deep, bold flavors of gingerbread in one sweet and delicious cake! If you want a slightly lighter flavored cake, I have included some recipe variations in the instructions!

Decadent Yet Simple: This gingerbread cake is a decadent dessert recipe that is so much simpler to make than gingerbread cookies! If you love gingerbread, then you are definitely going to want to try this classic gingerbread cake. I love this cake as a sweet treat during the cold winter months because of its warming spices! Plus, it is easy to make but also so impressive to serve.

Ingredients

For the Gingerbread Cake

• Flour: All-purpose flour works well.
• Baking Soda: To help the gingerbread cake rise in the oven.
• Spices: To spice this cake up to perfection, you will need ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves! Cloves are optional and will make this even more boldly spiced.
• Salt: This helps balance all the flavors!
• Oil: For added moisture and a tender cake.
• Brown Sugar: To make things sweet!
• Molasses: Molasses lends the classic gingerbread flavor here.
• Eggs: Eggs add structure to the cake and help give it some extra rise!
• Orange Zest: Divide the orange zest to save some for the glaze, too!
• Water: Boiling water is added to help the molasses flavor and bold spices open up in flavor!

For the Orange Glaze

• Powdered Sugar: To make it sweet!
• Orange Juice: Use freshly squeezed orange juice from the orange you zested for the cake.
• Heavy Cream: To make it a little creamy!

Here’s How to Make It

Step by Step Instructions

1. Preheat & Prep: Preheat the oven to 350 F and line a 9×13 pan with baking parchment. (not pictured)
2. Combine Dry Ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and cloves. For a strongly flavored, European-style gingerbread, use the full amount of ginger and the cloves. For a lighter, milder (but still boldly spiced!), gingerbread cake, omit the cloves and just use 2 tsp of ginger. (photo 3)
3. Combine Wet Ingredients: In another bowl or large jug, whisk together the oil, brown sugar, molasses, eggs and 3/4 cup of orange zest. (photos 1-2)
4. Mix: Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until you have a thick batter. Whisk in the boiling water until the mixture is smooth and glossy. (photos 4-6)
5. Transfer to Tin & Bake: Transfer the batter to the prepared tin. Drop it down on the countertop a few times to knock out any air bubbles, and bake for 30-35 minutes until a wooden skewer or the tip of a sharp knife inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. (photos 7-8)
6. Cool: Once the tin is cool enough to touch, remove the cake from the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack. (not pictured)
7. Add Glaze: To make the glaze, whisk together the powdered sugar and orange juice until smooth, then stir in the heavy cream and the reserved orange zest. Pour over the cake once it is completely cool and enjoy! (photos 9-12)

Expert Tips

• Not a fan of molasses? Whether you don’t have molasses on hand, or you don’t like molasses, you can use a molasses substitution of 2 tbsp of maple syrup and 2 tbsp dark brown sugar!
• To store, keep leftover gingerbread cake in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
• The batter will be runny! After you add the boiling water, the cake batter will seem runny, but don’t worry! It will bake up great in the oven and be perfectly moist and flavorful.