Gingerbread Cake

This Gingerbread Cake comes from the first American Cookbook! It is light, fluffy, and moist with the perfect amount of spice! Gingerbread in its purest form.

Whether you frost this gingerbread cake with cream cheese buttercream frosting like I did here or you serve it with a red wine poached pear, warm salted caramel sauce, and vanilla bean ice cream, you can’t go wrong! This gingerbread cake will make all your winter blues disappear and become your new holiday staple. 

If you enjoy the bold flavors of gingerbread, you will also love my molasses cake, these soft gingerbread cookies, or these chewy ginger bars! If you want to lean into the season with every meal, start your day with this easy gingerbread oatmeal, too!

Ingredients & Substitutions 

• Baking Soda: The baking soda will react with the molasses when mixed into the cake. Once you mix the cake, you want to get it into the oven quickly to ensure you utilize the reaction. 
• Large Eggs: The eggs help emulsify everything together and keep everything texturally perfect.
• Molasses: I use unsulphered molasses. It has a lighter, milder flavor. This adds all the warm, winter notes without the bite of blackstrap molasses. 
• Butter: The unsalted butter needs to be at room temperature to ensure the cake mixes properly. 
• Granulated Sugar: The sugar complements the molasses and spices. It also helps create a tender and moist crumb. 
• Ground Ginger, Cinnamon, and Allspice: You can use a store-bought gingerbread spice mix if you prefer. I just found the ratios of these spices to create the best gingerbread flavor. 

See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.

Variations for Gingerbread Cake

• Add flavors through buttercream. You can try my caramel swiss meringue buttercream, lemon buttercream frosting, or this chocolate buttercream frosting recipe, or this ermine frosting recipe! 
• Make sheet cake or cupcakes. You can make this cake into beautiful Christmas cupcakes. You can also double the recipe and make it into a sheet cake perfect for larger gatherings. 
• Add some mix-ins. Add all the mix-ins of your dreams; take inspiration from these cherry orange molasses cookies and add toasted pecans or walnuts for some crunch. Dried cranberries or cherries would also be divine. You can also add fresh cranberries, as I do in my cranberry cake recipe!
• Add more spices. To up the spicy flavors of this cake you add ground cloves, nutmeg or cardamom!

Professional Tips 

• Stick to the mixing method. I’ve tried using the creaming method, and the cake doesn’t come out as fluffy. It is worth the extra trouble. I promise. I relied heavily on Anne Byrn’s adaptation in American Cake for this recipe. She did all the heavy lifting. I just tweaked it. [Side Bar: If you don’t have Anne’s cookbook, you need it. It’s delightful. I’ve read it cover-to-cover.]
• Make sure your butter is soft! Your butter needs to be at room temperature before adding it to the egg mixture. Otherwise, you will have many lumps of butter that won’t mix into your batter. If the butter is straight from the fridge, microwave it in 5-10 second intervals until soft.
• Allow the cake to cool before frosting. If you are using cream cheese buttercream frosting, make sure the cake is completely cooled. If the cake is even slightly warm, the frosting will melt! 

How to Make Gingerbread Cake

Use these instructions to make this moist and tender gingerbread cake! Further details and measurements can be found in the recipe card below.

Make cake batter: 

Step 1: Dissolve the salt and baking soda in 1 cup of boiling water, set aside.

Boil your water ahead of time, then measure out the hot water before adding your salt and baking soda. 

Step 2: Grease or butter an 8-inch square baking dish. You can prep with criss-crossing parchment if you prefer. 

Step 3: Mix dry ingredients. Whisk together the flour, ginger, cinnamon, and allspice (photo 1).

Step 4: Beat molasses and eggs. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or with an electric mixer, beat together the molasses and eggs until smooth (photo 2).

Step 5: Add the butter and sugar to the molasses mixture and beat until smooth (photo 3). 

There might be a few streaks of butter left. This is ok, and it is almost impossible to avoid some at this stage.

Step 6: Combine wet and dry. Alternately add the flour mixture and the water and salt mixture, starting and ending with the water. Allow all the dry ingredients to incorporate before you add the last bit of water (photos 4 & 5). 

Step 7: Pour into the prepared cake pan or baking dish (photo 6).

Bake the cake: 

Step 8: Bake at 350°F convection (375°F conventional) for 20-25 minutes, or until the top of the cake springs back to the touch (photo 7).

It might still look a bit wet in the largest crack in the center, but a cake tester or toothpick will come out with clinging crumbs and no wet streaks. If you bake until it looks dry, the cake will be dry.

Step 9: Cool then frost. Allow the cake to cool completely before frosting. You can cool the cake in the cake pan, or remove it and cool on a wire rack (photo 8). 

Recipe FAQs

Before You Go

I hope you enjoyed this American cake recipe. Check out our other delicious cake recipes like this St. Louis classic gooey butter cake or this pear upside down cake!