This super moist gingerbread layer cake is bursting with bold flavors of ginger, molasses, and cinnamon, all topped with a tangy, spiced cream cheese frosting. It’s the perfect cozy dessert and an irresistible holiday treat that your family and friends will love!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Inspired by my easy gingerbread cake, this recipe takes things up a notch! Here’s why it’s bound to become a favorite:
1. Bold, Spicy Flavors:
Packed with generous amounts of ginger powder and a medley of warm spices, this gingerbread cake delivers all the rich, nostalgic flavors of a perfectly spiced gingerbread cookie.
2. Incredibly Moist:
Using oil as the primary fat ensures the cake layers are irresistibly moist, staying tender and flavorful for days.
3. Effortless to Make:
This recipe is wonderfully simple—no electric mixers or complicated techniques required. Just mix, bake, and enjoy!
Perfect for cozy gatherings or holiday celebrations, this gingerbread cake is as easy as it is impressive.
For more spiced cake recipes, check out my spiced apple cake, spice cake, carrot cake and pumpkin cake recipes.
How to Make a Gingerbread Layer Cake
You can find the full list of ingredients for this gingerbread cake recipe in the recipe card at the end of the blog post (for easy navigation, hit the ‘jump to recipe’ button at the top of the blog post). Here is a quick visual breakdown of the recipe (recipe video is also provided in the recipe card below).
Gingerbread Cake
Preheat oven to 180 °C (350°F) conventional and grease two 8-inch cake pans (I use my homemade cake release). I don’t usually line the bottoms with parchment paper for this recipe, however you can if you’re worried about the cakes sticking to the pan.
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Using a whisk, mix until well combined. Set aside.
In a large bowl combine light brown sugar, vegetable oil, blackstrap molasses, egg and vanilla. Using a whisk mix until well combined and smooth.
Add flour mixture to the wet ingredients, and using a whisk, mix until just combined. The batter will be very thick.
Finish off by adding in hot milk, and using a whisk, mix until well combined and smooth. Do not overmix.
Distribute the batter evenly into the prepared cake pans. Drop the cake tins lightly on the counter to release any large air bubbles and bake for 28-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs on it.
Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for 20 minutes, before turning them out onto a wire rack to completely cool. While cooling, prepare the frosting.
Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting
To a large bowl add in unsalted butter and using an electric mixer, cream for a few minutes on a medium high speed until it’s light and fluffy.
Add in the powdered sugar in 3 batches while mixing on low. Ensure that each batch of powdered sugar is mixed into the butter well before adding in the next batch.
Next add in your cold cream cheese, vanilla and fresh lemon juice and mix on a medium speed, just until the frosting is smooth. Avoid over-mixing. If using a stand mixer, you may need to mix on a high speed with the whisk attachment to get everything nice and smooth.
Assembly
Begin by levelling the tops of the cake layers. They’re already quite flat, so I only trim off a small amount.
Place the first cake layer onto your cake stand/serving plate and spread out a generous amount of frosting (I use my offset spatula).
Place your next cake layer on top and spread out a generous amount of frosting on the top and sides. You can use a cake scraper to smooth out the sides (see video demonstration).
Place the remaining frosting into a piping bag with a 1M piping tip on it and pipe swirls around the top of the cake. Slice and enjoy!
How to Store Gingerbread Cake
This cake can be left out at room temperature for about half a day, but due to the cream cheese, it will need to be refrigerated after that/overnight.
Place in an airtight container before putting it in the fridge to prevent the cake from drying out. For more tips on how to best store a cake in the fridge and prevent it from drying out, check out my blog post on 3 uncommon baking tips.
Moist Gingerbread Layer Cake
Print Pin VideoIMPORTANT: For accuracy, I would recommend using the gram measurements provided, as those are the exact quantities I use. Cup measurements are given as estimates (based on US cup measurements) to make it easier for those who do not have a scale.
Ingredients
Gingerbread Cake
- 2¼ cups (270 g) all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup (30 g) cornstarch
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ¾ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 3 tsp ginger powder - ground ginger, can reduce to 2 tsp for a less spiced/more kid friendly cake
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 cup (200 g) light soft brown sugar - firmly packed (see note 1)
- 1 cup (215 g) unflavoured vegetable oil - I use canola oil
- ½ cup (140 g) blackstrap molasses - see note 2 for using light molasses
- 2 large egg - room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla essence/extract
- ¾ cup (180 g) hot milk - make sure it's hot (not just warm) and use whole milk
Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting
- 1 cup (225 g) unsalted butter - room temperature
- 4½ cups (570 g) powdered sugar - also known as icing/confectioners' sugar
- 1½ cups (335 g) cream cheese - cold, firm type (see note 3)
- 1½ tsp vanilla extract/essence
- 1 tbsp lemon juice - freshly squeezed (not artificial)
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
Instructions
Gingerbread Cake
- Preheat oven to 180 °C (350°F) conventional (see note 4 if using a convection oven) and grease two 8-inch cake pans (I use my homemade cake release).
- Sift together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Using a whisk, mix until well combined. Set aside.
- In a large bowl combine light brown sugar, vegetable oil, blackstrap molasses, egg and vanilla. Using a whisk mix until well combined and smooth.
- Add dry ingredients to the wet mixture, and using a whisk, mix until just combined. The batter will be very thick.
- Finish off by adding in hot milk, and using a whisk, mix until well combined and smooth. Do not overmix.
- Distribute the batter evenly into the prepared cake pans. Drop the cake tins lightly on the counter to release any large air bubbles and bake for 28-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs on it.
- Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for 20 minutes, before turning them out onto a wire rack to completely cool. While cooling, prepare the frosting.
Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting
- To a large bowl add in unsalted butter and using an electric mixer (hand or stand mixer are both fine - use the paddle attachment if using a stand mixer) cream for a few minutes on a medium high speed until it's light and fluffy.
- Add in the powdered sugar in 3 batches while mixing on low. Ensure that each batch of powdered sugar is mixed into the butter well before adding in the next batch.
- Next add in your cold cream cheese, vanilla, fresh lemon juice, ginger and cinnamon and mix on a medium speed, just until the frosting is smooth. Avoid over-mixing. If using a stand mixer, you may need to mix on a high speed to get everything nice and smooth (see note 5 if your frosting is lumpy).
- Once the cake layers are completely cool, assemble the cake. See blog post above or recipe video to see how I assemble mine 🙂
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information are estimates only as they are automatically calculated by a third party application. Actual values may differ based on brands and types of products used.
23 Comments
Hi MK,
Thank you for posting this recipe. The cake and frosting tasted delicious! However, the cake was a little dry when I cut it. Do you know why? Also, are the moist Gingerbread layer cake and Easy Gingerbread cake the same? Is the second cake modified? Please explain. Thank you.
Hi Yolanda! 🙂
Sorry to hear the cake turned out a little dry, that should not be the case! Did you use two 8 inch cake tins? If so, then it could be either due to overbaking (I would check the cake a little earlier next time as your oven may run a little hotter than mine), or not enough liquid or fat in the better. For best results, I would recommend using the gram measurements if you didn’t already 🙂
Yes the two recipes are slightly different – this layer cake has more fat in the batter and makes a more moist cake, whereas the easy gingerbread is not as moist (it’s still moist enough though) as it has the sauce that goes on top which adds a lot of moisture to the cake 🙂
Hope that helps for next time!