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This gingerbread cake recipe is all at once cozy, familiar, and a little bit special, thanks to the unexpected addition of an elegant almond glaze.
A classic gingerbread cake recipe or gingerbread loaf is a comforting holiday baking staple. This recipe works beautifully for quietly festive breakfasts with a cup of chai tea, or to serve to a group for an afternoon snack in between holiday activities. If you like a loaf cake that is not too sweet, but filled with all the spicy, aromatic goodness of your favorite gingerbread cookies, you’ll love making this treat for your friends, your family, and yourself this holiday season. You can omit the almond glaze, but I highly recommend that you include it. The glaze adds the perfect hint of sweetness and creates such a beautiful presentation for this simple spiced loaf.
Ingredients Needed for the Gingerbread Cake Recipe
You’ll need:
- All-purpose flour
- Gingerbread spice blend (this is my recipe to mix up your own at home)
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Butter (or a non-dairy substitute)
- Brown sugar
- Molasses
- Vanilla extract
- Eggs (or a plant-based alternative)
- Milk (or any unsweetened non-dairy milk)
- Almond glaze (optional but not optional because it’s so good)
Gingerbread spice is a blend of common spice cabinet staples like ground cinnamon, ground ginger, nutmeg, ground cloves, and allspice. You can purchase it pre-made, but you may find that you already have everything you need to whisk up your own and use up what you already have.
Light brown sugar or dark brown sugar will both work well for this recipe, so just use what you have. Did you know that you can even make your own brown sugar using basic granulated white sugar if you find that you’re out? Alternatively, if you’ve found that your supply has turned into a solid rock, here’s how to quickly soften brown sugar.
The soft and chewy version of your favorite old-fashioned gingerbread recipe: The Best Ginger Molasses Cookies
Preparing the Gingerbread Loaf Cake
In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, gingerbread spice, baking soda, and salt. Mix well and set aside. Prepare your loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray or line it with parchment for easier removal if necessary. This is the loaf baking dish that I use, and not only is it beautiful, but it’s also the best nonstick dish I’ve ever used, and I don’t think I’ll ever go back to regular tin baking pans. Cakes release from it easily with no spraying, buttering, or lining necessary, and it cleans up effortlessly every time. It’s a bit of an investment, but I promise it’s the last loaf baker you’ll ever need to buy. Unless you decide you need all the beautiful colors. 🙂
Anyway, once you’ve got your dry ingredients and your loaf pan situation sorted out, get out your stand mixer. Add your softened butter and brown sugar to the bowl of your electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and cream both ingredients together. Next, add the molasses and vanilla extract and whip everything until you have a smooth, even mixture. Add the eggs and stir things up for a few moments more.
With the mixer running on low, add about half the flour mixture, then the milk, then the other half of the dry ingredients. Continue mixing until you have a smooth, fragrant batter.
Pour the batter into your baking dish, using a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of your bowl. Bake your gingerbread cake for about an hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Once your cake is baked, let it cool completely on a wire rack. Once it’s cooled, you’ll be ready to decorate with my simple 3-ingredient almond glaze made with powdered confectioner’s sugar. Add about 1/2 teaspoon of gingerbread spice to the icing sugar before you mix up the glaze to give it a bit of spice and a bit of color. Allow the glaze to set for about 20 minutes before serving.
Easy-to-make holiday cookies to share with everyone: 21 Vegan Christmas Cookies Everyone Can Enjoy
Easy Gingerbread Cake Variations
This gingerbread loaf recipe would also make decadent muffins for Christmas morning topped with fluffy cream-cheese frosting and served with a fresh fruit salad.
You can also try this recipe as a spiced Christmas fruit cake in a decorative bundt pan. Mix dried fruit, raisins, orange zest, and pecan pieces into the batter before baking and finishing it off with a sprinkling of icing sugar.
Here’s the full printable recipe. Print it out to add to your recipe binder, or pin it on Pinterest to save it for later.
This gingerbread cake recipe is all at once cozy, familiar, and a little bit special, thanks to the unexpected addition of an elegant almond glaze.
- 2 cups All-purpose flour
- 3 tsp Gingerbread spice blend
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Baking soda
- 1/2 cup Butter or a plant-based substitute, softened
- 1/2 cup Brown sugar
- 1/2 cup Molasses
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- 2 Eggs or a plant-based alternative
- 1 cup Milk of an unsweetened non-dairy substitute
- Almond glaze + 1/2 tsp gingerbread spice to drizzle, optional
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In a medium bowl, combine the flour, gingerbread spice, salt, and baking soda. Set aside. Prepare your loaf pan with cooking spray or parchment paper for easy removal if necessary. Preheat oven to 350°.
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In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the softened butter and the brown sugar. Add in the vanilla and the molasses, and then the eggs. Continue mixing until you have a smooth, even mixture.
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With the mixer running on low, add half the dry ingredients, the milk, then the rest of the dry ingredients. Mix just until everything comes together into a uniform batter.
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Transfer the batter to the baking dish and bake for about one hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool completely on a wire rack before decorating.
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Once the cake has cooled, prepare the almond glaze, adding 1/2 teaspoon of gingerbread spice into the icing sugar before mixing. Drizzle the glaze over the cake and allow it to set for about 20 minutes before slicing and serving.
Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.