Gingerbread Cake

Easy to make, this gingerbread cake has old-fashioned flavors of ginger and molasses. A rich, fluffy, and moist spiced cake to enjoy this holiday season.

Gingerbread cake reminds me of my grandmama. I believe I get my love for gingerbread from her. It wasn’t a holiday treat for her; she would make gingerbread any time she felt up to making it.

I don’t have much of a sweet tooth and usually crave salty snacks, but my one weakness in this world is gingerbread. I love gingerbread anything! However, I don’t have as much self-control as my grandmama did because I would eat my weight in glorious gingerbread cake! I only allow myself to have it around the holidays. It is my all-time favorite holiday treat.

I wish I could say this was my grandmama’s gingerbread cake recipe, but it isn’t. She always used the box kind since she was making it for herself most of the time, and the kind she got didn’t have large servings.

Easy to make, this gingerbread cake has old-fashioned flavors of ginger and molasses—a rich, fluffy, and moist spiced cake to enjoy this holiday season. Enjoy as a dessert or with a cup of morning coffee, like David enjoys his.

Let me show you how to make the gingerbread cake!

What is Gingerbread?

Gingerbread is any baked good that is flavored with the combination of spices of ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon and sweetened with honey, sugar, or molasses. Gingerbread baked goods can vary in texture, from a soft, moist cake to hard gingerbread cookies and crisp like ginger snap cookies.

What is the difference between gingerbread cake and ginger cake? since the texture of gingerbread is a broad range of soft the crisp. Many refer to gingerbread cake as ginger cake as not to mislead anyone about its soft, moist, cake-like texture.

What Goes Into Gingerbread Cake?

A detailed list of ingredients is provided in the recipe card at the end of this post.

• Dry Ingredients: all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground cloves.
• Wet Ingredients: melted unsalted butter, dark brown sugar, molasses, boiling water and egg.
• For Serving: Confectioners’ sugar gives the cake that snow-covered Christmas feeling, but it’s totally optional. Or dollup with some whipped cream.

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How to Make Gingerbread Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9-in square pan with butter and lightly flour and set aside. Use parchment paper for easy removal.
   The recipe is pretty versatile, so if you don’t have a square 9-inch cake pan, you can use a round, rectangle, or even a cupcake pan to make cupcakes. Just make sure you grease the pan generously and coat lightly with flour.
   
2. Sift the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
   
3. Whisk together the butter, dark brown sugar, molasses, and boiling water in a large bowl.
   The molasses is very thick, and the butter needs to melt so it can be blended. The hot water is added to thin the molasses and melt the butter. Whisk until the butter has melted completely. This may take a minute or two.
   
4. When the mixture is lukewarm to touch, whisk in the egg until thoroughly combined. Adding the egg too soon will cause it to cool and solidify.
   
5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients a little at a time, whisking until smooth after each addition. When all the dry ingredients have been added to the wet ingredients, and there are no lumps, pour the batter into the prepared pan.
   
6. Bake in the preheated oven for 35 minutes or until the edges are dark and a toothpick comes out clean.
   
7. Remove the pan from the oven. Set the pan on a wire rack to cool for at least 10 minutes. Cut into squares and serve warm, sprinkled with powdered sugar (optional).

Note: It’s important to know that you cannot sift the gingerbread cake with powdered sugar and expect it to stay powdered and white. The cake is so moist that it soaks up the powdered sugar and melts it as though you had never even sifted it, so sift right before serving.

FAQ’s

What kind of molasses do I need?

Cooking molasses such as Grandma’s is the most common molasses. You can use blackstrap molasses also. The flavor is more intense, and it is very dark in color.

Regardless make sure you use unsulfhured molasses, which means the molasses is not treated with sulfur dioxide as a preservative. The sullphuring process can cause a strong chemical taste and is not as sweet.

How do you store gingerbread cake?

Store tightly sealed for up to 2-3 days at room temperature. It may keep a little longer in the refrigerator, but it will dry out faster.

Can I freeze gingerbread cake?

Absolutely. Wrap the cake in plastic wrap, and seal it tightly inside a freezer bag. Freeze for up to 3 months.

This glorious gingerbread cake is so fluffy and good. I need to bake another cake before the season is out.

I hope you will bake this gingerbread cake and share it with your loved ones this holiday season. If you do, let us know what you think! Rate the recipe, comment below or even share a photo with us!

p.s. Want to add icing to you your gingerbread cake? Get a recipe for Orange Cream Cheese Frosting; click HERE!