Gingerbread Spice Cake Recipe With Apple and Cream Cheese Frosting

Gingerbread Spice Cake Recipe With Apple and Cream Cheese Frosting

With a warm spice blend, molasses, and apple, this gingerbread cake recipe is soft, moist, and luscious topped with velvety cream cheese frosting.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword Apple Spice Cake, Apple Spice Cake Recipe, Gingerbread Cake, Gingerbread Cake Recipe, Spice Cake, Spice Cake Recipe

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 1

Other Time: 1

Servings servings

Calories 517kcal

Author Faith Gorsky

Equipment

9-inch round cake pan

Ingredients

Ginger Spice Cake Ingredients:

3/4 cup vegetable oil use a mild or neutral-flavored oil, such as light olive oil, avocado oil, vegetable oil, etc.
1 cup light brown sugar packed
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
2 large eggs
1 cup peeled and shredded sweet/tart apple packed (such as Honeycrisp; about 230 grams shredded)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon (see Notes)
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger (see Notes)
1 teaspoon ground allspice (see Notes)
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg (see Notes)
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves reduce to 1/4 teaspoon if you find cloves a bit strong (see Notes)

Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:

6 tablespoons unsalted butter on the soft side of room temperature (not melted)
4 ounces cream cheese on the soft side of room temperature (not melted)
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/16 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

For the Ginger Spice Cake:

Prep. Preheat the oven to 350F. Generously butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.
Make the cake batter. Add the oil, sugars, molasses, shredded apple, and vanilla to a large bowl, and whisk until well-combined. Sift in the four, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and spices. Stir just until combined, being careful not to over-mix.
Bake and cool the cake. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and spread it out evenly. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs, about 50 to 60 minutes. Let the cake cool for 15 minutes in the pan, and then carefully invert it onto a cake rack to cool completely, about 45 minutes more.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

Add all ingredients to a large bowl. Use a handheld electric beater to mix until smooth and creamy. (TIP: If your butter or cream cheese was at all melted, you'll need to chill the frosting just until it's not so runny, and then beat it again before frosting the cake.)

To Finish:

Spread the frosting evenly on top of the cake (and on the sides if desired). Decorate the top with sugared rosemary, sugared cranberries, candied ginger, sanding sugar, or any festive decorations you like. (TIP: You can eat this cake today, but like many kinds of gingerbread and spice cakes, this is even more delicious the next day after the spices have blended.)

Video

Notes

Spices: Fair warning, I prefer gingerbread-type cakes like this to be richly spiced, especially when they're frosted (because the frosting mellows out the spicy flavor). Additionally, I developed this recipe with this spice level to work well with the amounts of sweeteners (brown sugar, white sugar, and molasses) listed. If you want your cake a little less well-spiced, you can cut all the spice amounts in half, but know that your cake will be on the sweet side. Or if you're sensitive to cloves, which a few people have mentioned to me that they are, you can reduce the amount to 1/4 teaspoon.
Decorating the Top: To make it extra festive, you can decorate the top with sugared rosemary, sugared cranberries, candied ginger, sanding sugar, or any festive decorations you like.
Storage: If you use the cream cheese frosting on this cake, store leftovers wrapped well in the fridge for up to 5 to 7 days. If you don't frost the cake (or use a glaze or a frosting without cream cheese), you can store it wrapped well at room temperature for up to 2 days.
Recipe Yield and Serving Size: If you frost the cake with cream cheese frosting, I recommend cutting this into 12 servings because the frosting makes it quite rich. If you don't frost the cake, I'd suggest cutting it into 8 or 10 slightly larger servings.
Nutrition Information: The nutritional information includes both the cake and the frosting and was calculated based on this recipe making 12 servings.

Nutrition