Super Moist Gingerbread Cake

A wonderfully spiced gingerbread cake that is super easy to make and so delicious! This cake combines the classic flavours of ginger, cinnamon and molasses and is topped with a fluffy cream cheese frosting.

I know what you’re all going to say “Linda, gingerbread cake in March, you’ve gone all backwards!” 😂. See I know this kind of cake isn’t seasonal but what happened was that I really really felt like eating a gingerbread cake so you know, I made one 😋

This was no easy task I tell ya. I’m not very familiar with gingerbreads because I haven’t had the chance to make them often. For my first few tries I wanted to follow a tried and true recipe before creating my own one.

This proved to be a little troublesome because I couldn’t find one that was authentic using molasses, ginger and fits into a regular 9 inch cake tin. They were mostly recipes for a loaf tin or a deep springform tin and even some that make layer cakes but only 6 inch ones. There was nothing with the right amount of batter for a good ole 9 inch cake tin!

That was my first issue. Secondly, I couldn’t find a recipe that would give me that super moist and tender texture that I sought. The recipes that included water and oil were great but the ratio of liquids to dry was a little off for my liking because it would have made the cake too sponge-y. Which I really don’t like.

Whenever you’re making a cake that has a super moist and velvety crumb, you need the batter to be thin. Not runny but on the thin and liquidy side just like with my ultra moist chocolate cake and cupcakes, these red velvets and even this vanilla cake.

This was the kind of texture I wanted for this gingerbread cake and since I couldn’t find one I like, I decided to roll up my sleeves (take off my friendship bracelet there is nothing worse than getting flour in your friendship bracelet) and create one myself.

I started off by writing down the base of my recipe and then figured I’d just go with the flow and see what happens. Really wish all of my bakes went this way and turned out perfect!

Either way I’m super happy with how this cake turned out and proud of myself too! I never give myself enough credit for my baking because I always think “wait what if I mess up” or “ahh is anyone even going to be able to eat this!”. I have become alot more confident with my baking skills recently and this cake really pushed me into the “Oh yeah I got it 😎” mind set.

This cake starts by whisking the molasses with some boiling water and baking soda. Just like we do here with this date cake. We need to thin out the molasses slightly so it melds well with the rest of the ingredients.

Key Ingredients

• Dry mix: flour, baking powder and salt.
• Brown sugar to complement the molasses-y and ginger-y flavours.
• Egg and some oil to give that desirable delicate crumb.
• Molasses: the classic flavour that gingerbread bakes call for. I use unsulphured molasses like this one.

Of course we’re going to spice the flour because we are making a spice cake after all. In goes the ginger, cinnamon and some cloves and nutmeg if you like. I use a tablespoon of ginger powder which may seem like alot but honestly it isn’t. I wanted this to be a ginger molasses cake not a molasses ginger cake. You could scale this down to two teaspoons if you like and it’ll be just as fabulous.

I topped this cake off with some candied ginger but that’s completely optional. Of course no spice cake is complete without some cream cheese topping!

I really want another slice of this cake right now! So delicious, super moist and a perfect way to bade the wintery weather goodbye 💛