Mmmmmmmm….Gingerbread Cake! Now that fall has arrived, my cravings for all things cozy and spiced are in full swing! Are you having those cozy cravings too?
I think you’re going to LOVE today’s scratch recipe for Gingerbread Cake with Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting!!
This homemade cake recipe is amazingly moist, flavorful and delicious. The spiced aroma alone is almost reason enough to bake the cake! Ahhhhh.
Before we made this recipe, I had always associated gingerbread with cookies or a holiday treat, but not an actual cake. I didn’t realize what I was missing!
What I love about this dessert is that it incorporates all of the flavors of gingerbread into fluffy cake layers. The Spiced Cream Cheese filling and frosting pair beautifully with the gingerbread cake layers. It’s a match made in heaven.
This is a welcome dessert at my house year-round, but I especially love it for Thanksgiving and Christmas, when our cravings for spiced deliciousness are at their highest! YUM!
We hope that you enjoy this fabulous scratch recipe!
Gingerbread Cake with Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 sticks (12 T) (170 g) unsalted butter, slightly softened
- 1 cup (217 g) firmly packed brown sugar (I used light brown sugar)
- 1 cup (200g) white sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 3 cups (363 g) all purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon (12 g) baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon (3g) salt
- 1 tablespoon (5g) ground ginger
- 2 teaspoons (4g) ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon (1g) nutmeg
- 1 cup (322g) molasses
- 1 cup (236 g) water
- 1/3 cup (69g) vegetable oil
FOR THE FROSTING
- 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) (339g) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 1/2 packages (339 g) cream cheese (no need to soften to room temp)
- 2 teaspoons (4g) cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon (1g) nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger (2g) *sift if clumpy
- 6 to 6 1/2 cups (690g - 748g) more if needed confectioners’ sugar, sifted
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Grease and flour three 8 inch cake pans
- In a separate bowl, combine flour, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder and salt. Whisk for at least 30 seconds, set aside.
- In another bowl, blend the molasses, oil, and boiling water, set aside.
- In the bowl of the mixer, beat the butter until fluffy and then gradually add the sugar, beating for about 2 minutes until lightened and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition until the yolk is blended in.
- Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture alternately with the wet ingredients, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Beat until combined after each addition, scraping the bottom of the bowl a couple of times.
- Pour into greased and floured 8 inch cake pans. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (or with just a few crumbs attached.) 8 cups cake batter
- FOR THE FROSTING: Using your mixer beat the butter and cream cheese until well blended. Add the and spices. With the mixer on low speed gradually add the confectioners’ sugar and mix until it is a good piping consistency.
- This cake bakes flat with no dome. It will hold up to fondant. This recipe will work for cupcakes (which also bake with no dome.)
Do you prefer to work with doctored cake mixes? If so, you are in luck. We have an amazing Gingerbread Cake (Doctored Cake Mix) Recipe also! Moist, fluffy, and DELICIOUS cake layers with the perfect blend of spices! This recipe works wonderfully with cupcakes too!
For members of our site, you may be interested in our 3-D Gingerbread House Cake Video Tutorial!:
I have never seen a layered Gingerbread cake! This one looks amazing, can’t wait to try it!!!!!
Thanks Anniejoe!! xo
Looks delicious! :)
Looks delicious!
Once a week I make treats for our local Senior Center. This next week I will be making your gingerbread cake; but instead I will make cupcakes out of it and put a little gingerbread cookie on the top of the cupcake. Thank you for the
beautiful start to fall. Anna Lombard
Hi Anna, That sounds great!
Since the icing has cream cheese, does this need to be refrigerated?
Hi MELISSA, YESTERDAY MADE THE GINGERBREAD CAKE. ITS’ DELICIOUS. CONCERNING THE RECIPE FOR THE ICING IN THE LIST OF
INGREDIENTS THERE WASN’T ANY VANILLA MEASUREMENTS BUT IN YOUR DIRECTIONS IT CALLED FOR IT. I USED 1 TSP. A CONTINUED FAN. ANNA
Hi Anna and Barbara, Thanks for pointing that out. The cream cheese frosting is based on our basic cream cheese recipe and I decided to leave out the vanilla so the flavors of the 3 spices would be stronger. I am sorry for the confusion, but I just added it in the instructions as I usually do. Now, I think the frosting would still be very good with the addition of 1/2 teaspoon or 1 teaspoons vanilla, you just can’t go wrong. Taste test while you are making it and see which you prefer. I hope you like the recipe!
Would this fit in a 10×10 pan or larger? Thanks in advance.
HI Teresa, This recipe makes 8 cups of cake batter. Here is a link to the Wilton Wedding Serving Chart, link to wilton.com It recommends 6 cups of batter for a 10 x 10 pan 2 inches deep. Wilton Party serving Chart recommends 9 cups for a 10 x 10 pan 2 inches deep. Links to these charts are found on the homepage under Member Resources, click on Helpful Links. Hope this helps
Sweet and delicious.
link to winni.in
Sweetness reloaded.
link to winni.in
I made this cake yesterday – I didn’t have any molasses so I used Golden Syrup and I added a bit of ground cardamom.
Absolutely delicious. Thanks for the great recipe, and the frosting is just as good. Yum.
thanks for sharing this recipe. with use of this I made a very delicious cake.
@Elaine- Thanks! I’m so happy to hear that you were able to make it work without molasses!
@Deepu- Thanks so much for your post, I’m glad that you like the recipe!
Rajveer, Your cakes are beautiful!! Thank you for your comments!
Thank you so much for this recipe! Made it for my husbands birthday yesterday and it came out amazing! The only thing I did differef was I added a teaspoon of ground cloves to the batter and for the frosting I thinbed it out a tad with 3 tablespoons of milk. It was delicious!
Hi Crystal, We are so happy to like the recipe. Thanks for posting that you added ground cloves is case others want to try that, it sounds and looks delicious!!
Awesome!
I love the recipe. Well elaborated.
Is there any substitute for molasses. ?
Hi Rajula, I have read that you can use 1 cup maple syrup, or 1 cup dark corn syrup. I haven’t tried this, but I think it would work.
wonder how this would be with a lemon or orange curd filling between the layers?
Hi Teresa, I think either would be good as a filling. I vote for lemon curd just because it is my favorite.
Hello Melissa & BeBe! There are 2 spiced cream cheese frosting recipes. Do you have a preferred one over the other or does one make more than the other? As always, thank you for all your delicious recipes!
Hi GuppyLove, We like both of the recipes, the other recipe, here is a link link to mycakeschool.com is less sweet with only 3 cups of powdered sugar. It is also better for piping. I forgot to measure but I think both recipe make about the same amount……enough to fill and frost a 3 layer 8 inch cake.
This is definitely my new favourite cake recipe. Thanks Bebe for posting!
Hi, i like your recipe. Like always. Only i wonder why one time 1 tsp is just 1 gram and the next time 4 grams while it is all powder! The same happens with the 1 tbsp …there are diffrences too. And 1 more question….are you really sure that 3 cups flour makes only 363 grams?Cos in totall of 2 cups sugar is already 417 grams! Mayby i missunderstood since english’s not my speaking language. And we only use grams, no cups or tsp or tbsp! Mayby i’m mistaken that way, but will you please explain to me? Thank you very much in advance!!
Hi Marja, the most accurate way to measure your ingredients is by weight, as you are used to. The measurements in the recipe are correct. Ingredients weigh differently. For instance, a cup of sugar is heavier than a cup of flour, which is why you see a difference in gram weight despite the cup or teaspoon measurement being the same.
This recipe looks divine!! Wondering if it can be made into a bundt pan?
Hi Glenda, You should be able to make this in a bundt pan with no problem. The recipe makes 8 cups batter….fill the bundt pan 2/3’s full. Depending on the size of your pan, you might have leftover batter for a few cupcakes.
I love the GINGERBREAD CAKE I want to make a gingerbread cake your explanation of recipe made easy for me thanks a lot
Hi! We loved the flavour of the cake, lovely recipe! I substituted molasses for golden syrup and it was lovely and fluffy. The buttercream was too runny, I added extra icing but did not get the right consistency still, LOVELY!! See resulta.