Easy Gingerbread Cake Recipe

Name: Easy Gingerbread Cake Recipe
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 170 min
Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned into a measuring cup and leveled off with a butter knife); 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1/2 teaspoon baking soda; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon ground ginger; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 1/2 teaspoon ground clove; 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg; 8 ounces light cream cheese (softened); 1 cup unsalted butter (softened); 1/2 cup brown sugar (packed); 1/2 cup fancy molasses; 1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract; 4 large eggs; Baking spray or butter (to grease pan); Festive sprinkles (garnish to taste (optional)); 1.5 cup icing sugar; 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons orange juice (less if you want thicker consistency or more if you want a thinner consistency)

Published: November 25, 2018 Updated: August 8, 2019 / By: Dawn | Girl Heart Food 54 Comments

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Make your holidays extra festive with this easy gingerbread cake recipe! There are loads of warming flavours like cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and rich molasses. The whole gingerbread cake is topped with a simple icing sugar glaze and plenty of fun sprinkles!

A gingerbread cake with an icing sugar glaze and sprinkles.

Now that my American friends have had their Thanksgiving and we are on the last week of November, bring on all the holiday inspired goodies, like this gingerbread cake recipe!

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be sharing this one! I want to thank my fam jam, though, because over the past few weeks they’ve enjoyed their fair share of this cake while I was recipe testing.

Cake for you and you and you! Cake for everyone!

The things we do, am I right?

All the testing was worth it, though, because this gingerbread cake is really good. As my sister-in-law said, it has all the warming flavours of the holidays, but it’s totally suitable for year-round eating. I wonder, is she trying to tell me something, LOL.

This gingerbread is not too sweet and literally takes minutes to whip up. It’s made with some simple ingredients that you probably have on hand. The hardest part? Waiting for it to bake and cool.

If you’re a fan of gingerbread, you may enjoy this homemade gingerbread coffee creamer!

Ingredients for a gingerbread cake recipe.

How To Make Gingerbread Cake

Full details are in the recipe card below, but here are the basics:

In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients together and set aside.
Place butter, cream cheese and brown sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer (or use a bowl with a hand mixer).
Blend until smooth, combined and fluffy.
Add molasses and vanilla extract and blend.
Next, add eggs (one at a time), blending in.
Mix in reserved dry ingredients.
Pour batter into prepared pan and bake.
In a bowl or large measuring cup, mix the ingredients together for the icing sugar glaze.
Pour the icing sugar glazed over the cooled gingerbread cake and add some festive sprinkles.

Collage of steps to make a glazed gingerbread cake.

Icing Sugar Glaze for Cake

For this gingerbread cake recipe, I kept the icing simple. The acronym I regularly use (and you may have heard me say it before) is K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid).

The cake itself is, like I said, not overly sweet so this icing sugar glaze adds some sweetness and a pretty factor (along with those sprinkles, of course).

The glaze is literally two ingredients. I used icing sugar and orange juice. While recipe testing I tried with various quantities of icing sugar:

½ cup of icing sugar (just enough to drizzle some lines of icing sugar along the top of the cake)
1 cup of icing sugar (enough to drizzle over top but not quite enough for my liking)
1.5 cups (what I was happy with)

Tip: To make this easy icing sugar glaze, start with 1.5 cups of icing sugar and add 2 tablespoons of orange juice. Stir, stir, stir.

Slowly add additional orange juice, if needed (1 teaspoon at a time), to get your desired consistency. I used 2 tablespoons, plus 2 teaspoons.

A little bit of juice goes a long way and you don’t want the glaze too thin. It should be thick, almost thick like honey.

A spoonful of icing sugar glaze above a measuring cup, dripping into it.

Tips for Making This Recipe

Make sure your butter and cream cheese are softened before making this cake. The ingredients blend better and you get the most oomph out of them. To quickly soften both butter and cream cheese, cut into squares and place on a plate for 10 to 15 minutes or until softened.
When measuring the molasses, grease a measuring cup with baking spray before pouring in the molasses. It helps it to come out more easily.
Once the batter is poured into the greased pan, tap it down on a hard surface a bunch of times to remove any excess air bubbles before baking.
Ensure that the gingerbread cake is fully cooled before icing. Otherwise, the icing sugar glaze will just melt (or soak) right into the cake and it won’t “pop.”
I mixed the icing sugar glaze in a measuring cup (to make things easier). Just pour and let the icing sugar glaze flow naturally over the cake.
As soon as the icing sugar glaze is over the cake, decorate with sprinkles. Because this is a holiday cake, sprinkles are definitely recommended.

A piece of gingerbread cake on a plate with the full cake behind it.

More Easy Holiday Baking Recipes

If you want to be extra indulgent, serve a big hunk of this gingerbread cake with some vanilla ice-cream and an eggnog latte. So good!

If you make this homemade gingerbread cake recipe, be sure to leave a comment below!