Holiday Baking – Gingerbread Cake

We’ve been working from home a couple of months now … let’s be honest it’s been almost a year … and I decided to take up my hobby of baking again ! I use to bake a lot in college and it slowly teetered off when I started working. But I’ve now had time to set up a Pinterest board so the inspiration is flowing!  When I think of Christmas baking I think of gingerbread cookies, but I’m not a huge fan of cookies so I wanted to make a cake! Then I could also take advantage of some cream cheese frosting!

Normally, I’m not a make-it-from-scratch type of girl, but today I was because finding a gingerbread cake mix was hard!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flower
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup unsulphured molasses
• 3/4 cup hot water
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temp
• 1/2 cup light or dark brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 container of Pillsbury Cream Cheese Frosting

Okay, I didn’t make the frosting from scratch but you get the point 🙂

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF (177ºC) and grease 2 9-inch circular pans.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and salt together.
3. In a separate, smaller bowl, whisk the molasses and hot water together.
4. In a large bowl, use a handheld or stand mixer to beat the butter on high speed until creamy. Add the brown sugar and beat until mixed. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract until combined.
   1. make sure to scrape down the sides with a rubber spoon!
5. Add in the dry ingredients and molasses by adding in three alternation sections. You should begin and end with the dry ingredients, and mixing each portion until it’s completely mixed.
   1. add in 1/3 of dry ingredients
      • mix
   2. add in 1/2 of molasses
      • mix
   3. add 1/2 of dry ingredients
      • mix
   4. add remaining molasses
      • mix
   5. add remaining dry ingredients
      • mix
6. Pour half the batter into one 9-inch pan and the other half into another 9-inch pan.
7. Bake for 25 minutes, or until cake is baked through.
8. Let it cool completely, typically takes about an hour.
9. Frost!