Spiced Gingerbread Cake Recipe

This deeply spiced and moist gingerbread cake is wonderful any time of day, whether served plain or dressed up with spiced cream cheese frosting and sugared cranberries. You can make it as a single layer cake, or try the 3 layer cake versions detailed in the Notes. No matter how you bake and serve it, this is a classic gingerbread recipe the whole family will love during the holiday season!

Nothing tastes more like the holidays than the warm, cozy flavors of gingerbread. The smell of ginger, cloves, and molasses can instantly transport anyone’s mindset to December.

Every holiday season, I make my favorite gingerbread cookies, and gingerbread waffles are fast becoming a favorite winter weekend tradition in my house, too. But what about just, simply, gingerbread? A sweet, spiced stick-to-your-fork-moist cake that can do double-duty as Christmas morning breakfast and dessert… welcome to my quintessential gingerbread recipe!

While adding a layer of cream cheese frosting makes it a wonderful holiday dessert, this cake would be just as welcome as a special holiday breakfast, snack, or late-night last-minute gift-wrapping fuel.

Gingerbread has no time-of-day limitations. 😉

Why You Will Love This Gingerbread Snack Cake

• A 1-layer cake, perfect for when you aren’t feeding a big crowd
• You can even make it as an upside down pear gingerbread cake
• Warm, comforting holiday flavors of molasses, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves
• Moist cake crumb, not dry or dense at all
• Top with spiced cream cheese frosting, enjoy it plain, with whipped cream, or with a dusting of confectioners’ sugar
• Adaptable to other pan sizes—see below
• Quick and easy prep makes for a low-maintenance holiday dessert

Ingredients You Need:

• Flour: The base of the gingerbread cake recipe.
• Baking Soda: As you may have read in my baking powder vs. baking soda post, molasses and brown sugar are both acids. So we need baking soda to give the cake its lift!
• Spices: Ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and salt—the gingerbread mainstays.
• Molasses: In addition to the spices, molasses is the other signature flavor in most gingerbread recipes. I recommend using unsulphured or dark molasses, not blackstrap, which has a more intense flavor that’s a bit too much in baked goods. (I always use Grandma’s brand molasses.)
• Hot Water: As you’ll read about below, whisking the thick molasses with hot water before adding it to the batter makes everything come together easily. The water also adds supreme moisture to each and every bite.
• Butter: You just can’t beat the flavor of this baking staple!
• Brown Sugar: Sweetening with brown sugar provides extra moisture + molasses flavor.
• Egg: 1 egg serves to bind the ingredients together, and adds richness.
• Vanilla Extract: Because, you know, cake. 🙂

How to Mix Sticky Molasses Into Cake Batter

Whisk the molasses with hot water before adding it to the batter. Why? As you know, molasses is very thick. The thick goop, for lack of better words, doesn’t mix easily into cake batter. It’s fine for cookie doughs such as iced gingerbread oatmeal cookies and gingerbread cookie bars, but hot water helps loosen the viscous consistency of molasses, which helps incorporate it into a thinner cake batter.

The resulting cake is dense, yet soft. Buttery, perfectly spiced, and impeccably flavored.

The rest of the prep work is pretty simple, too. You’ll cream the butter and brown sugar together, so an electric mixer is undoubtedly helpful (you’ll need it if you make the frosting, too). As the recipe instructs below, add the dry ingredients and water/molasses mixture to the wet ingredients in separate additions.

The batter is a little thick, and some small lumps are OK:

Different Pan Size Options

This is a versatile gingerbread cake recipe. It can be made a multitude of ways: as a 1-layer round, square, or 11×7-inch rectangle cake; as a gingerbread loaf cake; or as a layer cake. I originally published this recipe in 2015, and when testing this recipe again this year, we tried all of these variations so we could tell you which pans do and don’t work. We went through a LOT of molasses, and had a LOT of cake to give away.

Here’s what we know: The recipe as written makes about 3 cups of batter, and weighs about 850–890g. A 9-inch springform pan is best because this gingerbread cake rises high. No matter what size pan you use, bake the cake at 350°F (177°C). Insert a toothpick in the center of the cake to test for doneness. If it comes out clean, the cake is done.

Topping Gingerbread Cake

This gingerbread snack cake is absolutely fantastic on its own—you don’t even need frosting! But if you want to make it a little more special, slather on some sweet and tangy spiced cream cheese frosting. (Included in the recipe card below.) It’s like absolute heaven on this not-too-sweet cake.

You can also give it a simple dusting of confectioners’ sugar, a dollop of whipped cream, or try the lemon glaze I pair with these just-as-tasty gingerbread muffins.

Or keep it plain so you can warm your slice up and top it with vanilla ice cream. Maybe a little salted caramel sauce on top there, too? Why not!?

I also love to garnish it with cranberries for color.. Here’s a slice from my 9-inch springform pan:

Here’s the layered cake, detailed in the recipe Notes below:

And here’s the gingerbread cake baked in a 9-inch square pan with festive Christmas sprinkles. The little holly decorations are by the brand Wilton, and I can’t seem to find them online anymore. These Christmas trees are similar, though!

If you love smaller-scale cake recipes like this, try this small chocolate cake or my easy 1-layer sprinkle cake.