One-Bowl Homemade Gingerbread Snacking Cake

If you love snack cakes, this easy, festive ginger cake will be your next one-bowl favorite. This homemade gingerbread is judiciously spiced with ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves and allspice with just enough molasses to give the pillowy confection its telltale holiday aroma. This easy gingerbread recipe produces a soft, ultra-moist snacking cake and only needs a dusting of powdered sugar for garnish (but a dollop of fresh whipped cream or scoop of vanilla would be delicious too).

Leading up to the holidays, everyone wants a little taste of something to “get them in the mood,” and for me, that’s homemade gingerbread.

Not the “involved“ type that has you making and rolling dough, cutting out shapes and then decorating. No, that’s not my baking style.

I want a quick and easy gingerbread recipe. A snacking cake that doesn’t require any hand-holding. The kind of cake where you lop off a slice and then go back for just another little nibble five minutes later. This is it.

Easy Gingerbread Recipe Ingredients

• Light Brown Sugar
• Molasses
• Maple Syrup
• Butter
• Vegetable Oil
• Eggs
• Flour
• Baking Soda
• Ground Ginger
• Ground Cinnamon
• Salt
• Ground Allspice
• Ground Cloves
• Boiling Water
• Cranberries

Sidebar: I know cranberries aren’t usually found in ginger cake and I’m not going to force you to put them in, but if you like jammy pockets of fruit in your snack cakes, fresh cranberries are my pick.

They will float to the top of this gingerbread recipe and add wrinkly red pops over the snacking cake’s dome.

Instructions:

1. Use a hand mixer to combine the brown sugar, molasses, maple syrup, melted butter, vegetable oil and eggs in a large bowl.
2. Stir in the spices and dry ingredients with a spatula until well mixed.
3. Add the boiling water and stir to combine.
4. Lightly dust the fresh cranberries with flour and stir them into the batter.
5. Pour the ginger cake batter into a prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

What did I tell you? Easy. No, SUPER-EASY!

Pro-Tips:

I bake this snack cake in a glass baking dish, which needs more baking time than a tin pan because the glass doesn’t conduct heat as quickly. If you have metal baking pans, start checking for doneness about 8 minutes before the timing indicated in the recipe using a toothpick or cake tester.

Swaps and Variations:

• You don’t need to use the cranberries if you want a simple gingerbread cake.
• No decorations or icing is needed, but if you want some, try this not-too-sweet ermine frosting or this classic cream cheese frosting.

Honestly, this dessert doesn’t need any embellishment. I carved out a wedge of homemade gingerbread 5 minutes after it came out of the oven and shoved it unceremoniously into my mouth…

You can do the same thing (I won’t judge). However, if you want to gild the lily (for your neighbors or a hoity-toity mother-in-law), these are my suggestions…

What To Serve With Ginger Cake

• Powdered Sugar (it’s reminiscent of falling snow and reinforces that holiday mystique.) I would add powdered sugar to each piece as its being served because this cake is so moist the sugar will “disappear” into the crumb if it sits too long.
• Fresh whipped cream – you can do plain whipped cream (no sugar or anything), but to me, adding a spoonful of powdered sugar and a tablespoon or two of brandy beaten into pillowy dollops is a thing of beauty on this easy gingerbread recipe.
• Ice Cream – plain vanilla will do the trick, but other faves include butter almond, cinnamon, egg nog and rum raisin.
• Creme Anglaise is a bit fancier, but this rich, eggy custard drizzled over a thick slice of ginger cake is swoon-worthy.
• Sugared Cranberries – to highlight the cranberries baked into the batter, whisk an egg white until frothy and add a handful of cranberries. Use tongs or a fork to transfer the tacky fruit to a bowl of superfine sugar. Transfer the sugared berries to a mesh rack to dry and then stack them in a pile in the center of the ginger cake.

The cranberry conundrum

The only “d’oh” moment I had with the ginger cake was slicing it… because of the cranberries.

Despite my sharpest knife, the sliced cake didn’t come out in neat little squares as I’d anticipated.

The homemade gingerbread snacking cake is soft and delicate, and I found that the cranberries yielded less efficiently than I’d hoped, leaving divots and depressions instead of a perfect square.

This is the problem with food blogging — you want it to look just so, but since I’m also eating the recipe, I like to add my faves… ah, well. So, you can add cranberries — or not. I’ll leave it to you to decide.

More Homemade Gingerbread Recipes:

• Gingerbread Coffee Creamer via Dawn at Girl Heart Food
• Gingerbread Gin and Tonic from Leah and Jay at The Gastronom Blog
• Homemade Gingerbread with Fresh Ginger via Trish at Rhubarbarians
• Gingerbread Latte Recipe by Melissa at My Wife Can Cook

More Easy Snack Cakes

• One Bowl Applesauce Walnut Cake
• Cinnamon Walnut Loaf
• Meyer Lemon Blackberry Swirl Loaf

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