Gingerbread Bundt Cake
This moist, tender Gingerbread Bundt Cake is the perfect dessert for fall and winter gatherings!
We've made a few gingerbread cake recipes over the years (including our layered Gingerbread Cake) and always come back to them again and again. I love that today's cake is such a simple recipe to make, yet so flavorful. If you love gingerbread, you will love this recipe.
It is soft and light, with wonderful gingerbread flavor from the molasses and warm spices in the recipe. We've topped it with homemade caramel sauce (one of our go-glazes for fall and winter)!
Table of Contents
Why we Love It
There are so many reasons to love this gingerbread bundt cake! Here are just a few:
- Simple ingredients, easy to make
- Soft cake with a fine crumb
- Big flavor from ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and molasses
- As an added bonus, bundt cakes are so easy to decorate. Today, we used our favorite caramel glaze.
Ingredients for the Recipe
Here's a quick look at the star ingredients for today's recipe! You can find the full recipe at the bottom of this post.
Unsalted Butter- We prefer unsalted butter so that we know exactly how much salt is in the recipe. Some brands of salted butter contain more sodium than others.
Sugar- We used both brown and white sugar in today's recipe. The brown sugar adds even more moisture to the recipe as it contains molasses.
Buttermilk- We use whole buttermilk. It not only adds richness to the cake, but the boost of acidity also softens the gluten in the cake batter, making for a more tender cake.
Cake Flour is a staple in our kitchen. Many of our cake recipes call for cake flour rather than all purpose flour. Its lower protein content means that less gluten will develop in the batter, which makes for a softer cake.
How to Make Gingerbread Bundt Cake
You can find the full, printable gingerbread cake recipe at the bottom of this post. Here is a quick look at our steps!
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour bundt pan.
- In a medium sized bowl, add cake flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and salt. Whisk for 30 seconds to blend and set aside.
- In another bowl or measuring cup, add the buttermilk, vegetable oil, and molasses. Set aside.
- In the bowl of your mixer, add the softened butter, and mix until smooth. Gradually add the white sugar and brown sugar and mix at medium speed for 3-5 minutes, until lightened in color and fluffy.
- Next, add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition until the yolk has blended in.
- With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk mixture- beginning and ending with dry ingredients. That will be three additions of dry ingredients, two additions of wet ingredients. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl as needed. After last addition, mix just until blended and smooth. Mix on low speed.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared bundt pan and smooth the top with the back of a spoon.
- Bake at 325 degrees F for 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Baking times may vary. It should spring back when lightly touched.
- Allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes before turning out.
Allow the cake to cool completely before applying the glaze.
Caramel Glaze
We used our favorite caramel glaze for today's recipe. Caramel and spices are such a delicious combination!
Making this homemade caramel sauce involves heating butter, light brown sugar, heavy cream vanilla extract, and a bit of light corn syrup in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then down to a simmer for 6 minutes. It will thicken as it cools.
We've used this recipe on our Butter Pecan Pound Cake, Maple Pound Cake, and many more!
Another glaze option is the cream cheese glaze that we used for our Hummingbird Bundt Cake (which would require refrigeration).
Applying the Caramel Glaze
After the cake has cooled and the glaze has cooled to the desired thickness, you can apply it to the cake by spooning it over the top, or you can apply it with a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away.
Recipe FAQs
More Fall and Winter Cakes!
We have so many more fall cakes and winter cakes to share with you. Some of our favorites are carrot cake, pumpkin cake, caramel cake, and black forest cake!
Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!
Gingerbread Bundt Cake
Ingredients
- 1½ sticks unsalted butter, softened (170g) (Should still be firm enough that it holds its shape, but soft enough that it dents when pressed.)
- 1½ cups granulated sugar (300g)
- ½ cup light brown sugar (106g)
- 4 eggs, room temperature (place in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes)
- 3 cups cake flour (342g)
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger (4g)
- 3 teaspoons cinnamon (6g)
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg (1g)
- 3 teaspoons baking powder (12g)
- ½ teaspoon salt (1g)
- ½ cup molasses (160g)
- 1 cup buttermilk (235g)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (4g)
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil (64g) (We use canola oil)
For the Caramel Sauce
- ½ stick unsalted butter (57g)
- 1 cup light brown sugar (packed into measuring cup) (217g)
- ½ cup heavy cream (126g)
- ½ teaspoon salt (2g)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (4g)
- 1 Tablespoon light corn syrup (18g)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour bundt pan.
- In a medium sized bowl, add cake flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and salt. Whisk for 30 seconds to blend and set aside.
- In another bowl or measuring cup, add the buttermilk, vegetable oil, and molasses. Set aside.
- In the bowl of your mixer, add the softened butter, and mix until smooth. Gradually add the sugar and mix at medium speed for 3-5 minutes, until lightened in color and fluffy.
- Next, add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition until the yolk has blended in.
- With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk mixture- beginning and ending with dry ingredients. That will be three additions of dry ingredients, two additions of wet ingredients. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl as needed. After last addition, mix just until blended and smooth. Mix on low speed.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared bundt pan and smooth the top with the back of a spoon.
- Bake at 325 degrees for 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Baking times may vary. It should spring back when lightly touched.
- Allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes before turning out.
- This recipe makes approximately 7 cups of batter
For the Caramel Glaze
- Using a medium size saucepan (deep enough to prevent boil over) melt the butter over medium heat.
- Add the brown sugar and the remaining ingredients and heat on medium high heat.
- Stir to blend, try to keep mixture off the sides of the pan. Once the mixture begins to boil, reduce the heat to low.
- Simmer for 6 minutes, checking often to make sure that it is not going to boil over. It should still be bubbling. After 6 minutes, remove from heat.
- Keep in mind that the caramel with thicken up a bit as it cools. You can pour it into a long glass casserole dish if you want it to cool more quickly. We often refrigerate to cool it off as well.
- Makes about 1 cup caramel sauce. It can be kept in the refrigerator in an airtight container up to 2 weeks.
Looks great! Perfect Fall cake.
can you use self rising flour
Hi Michelle, unfortunately it needs to be cake flour (or all purpose as listed in the notes) with this recipe, since self rising already contains leavening. (You may be able to find substitutions online, I just haven't experimented with this).