This was the quick, delicious anniversary dinner I prepared and served with garlic parmesan rice.
| Servings: | 16 |
| Yield: | 16 servings |
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups bleached all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 cup milk
- 3 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened until easily spreadable
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 1 cup molasses
Instructions
- Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and lightly flour a metal or disposable foil 9-by-13-inch pan. Whisk dry ingredients and spices in a large bowl. Mix milk, eggs, molasses and vanilla extract in a 2-cup measuring cup.
- Beat softened butter into dry ingredients, first on low, then medium, until mixture forms pebble-sized pieces. Add about 1/3 of the milk mixture and beat on low until smooth. Add remaining milk mixture in two stages; beat on medium speed until batter is just smooth. Add the sugar; beat until just incorporated, about 30 seconds. Pour batter into cake pan.
- Bake until a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the cake’s center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Set pan on a wire rack; let cool for 5 minutes. Run a knife around the pan perimeter and turn cake onto rack. Let cool.
- For an elegant touch, dust the cake with powdered sugar sprinkled through a sieve or strainer.
- Can be double-wrapped in plastic a day ahead. Return to pan to transport. Also, the batter can be divided and baked in two 8-inch square cake pans. Take one on the picnic; freeze one for later.
- Copyright 2004 USA WEEKEND and columnist Pam Anderson. All rights reserved.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 299 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 42 g |
| Cholesterol | 67 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 4 g |
| Saturated Fat | 8 g |
| Sodium | 214 mg |
| Sugars | 21 g |
| Fat | 13 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
So delicious!! Made some homemade whipped cream. So yummy!!
Delicious and smells so good! Reminds me of my growing up years. Directions have you putting multiple wet ingredients into a 2 cup measuring cup. That doesn’t work. It will overflow when you already have a cup of molasses and a cup of milk in it! Using a mixer for initially cutting the butter into the flour didn’t work in my bowl. Even with the mixer on low, flour flew everywhere. I’d recommend using two knives acting as scissors to cut the butter in. Then when you start adding the liquid ingredients to the dry, you can use the mixer. I enjoy serving this gingerbread warm with a generous topping of whipped cream.
Having read some of the reviews, I adjusted to a tried and true blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger and cloves. I also substituted flour for corn starch on the 2:1 ratio recommended , however I did not adjust the liquid to reflect that and the batter was very thick, and I doubt the cake with rise. That said, I love the consistency of the batter, while heavy, it was still smooth as silk. The flavor was perfect with the adjustments, and is a lovely dark spicy molasses cake, which is what I wanted
I adjusted it to make it perfect! I didn’t add allspice or vanilla. Decreased brown sugar to only a 1/2 cup. Double the amounts of ginger and cinnamon and added 1 tsp of ground cloves. Once done, I rubbed real butter over the top or you could brush on melted butter. Totally perfect!
The cornstarch in this recipe seemed odd — and it (I think that is what threw it off) gave the cake the weirdest consistency. Also, it said to put it in a 9×13 pan…I think 9×9 may have made a difference. It just didn’t rise very much and was thin and flat. I wanted to like this recipe because the flavor was good — but the consistency was just to chewy/dry/flat.
Way too dense and gingery.
I’ve made this 3 times by request from my kids, did not change a thing. Will definitely keep making as long as they keep asking for it.
I like odd tastes, but should have used less molasses. It overpowered this cake, even though I used a bit more ginger and a bit of nutmeg as well. I also subbed additional flour for the cornstarch. Not very moist, but not too dry. Again, if I liked traditional tastes better I probably would not have liked this cake at all, but I made the Cream Cheese Icing II and that redeemed it a bit.
Even though I cut back on the ginger and added nutmeg, there was a sort of odd flavor that other reviewers commented on. I’m wondering if it’s the combination of butter and cornstarch. I’ve never seen cornstarch like this in a baking recipe, and I think my old standby recipe called for oil. I think I’ll keep looking for a better gingerbread, and get rid of this one.
1st-This is not a recipe I would make for myself, as I didn’t like the outcome. 2nd – This recipe is for some of my elder friends from down south (the poor south) and they absolutely love it! I made changes to the amount of ginger I used. Other than that no changes. As I stated, My Elder Friends Love It!
Yum ! I used the caluculator and recalculated this recipe to 27 servings and it made 1 Nordic bundt cake plus 6 wilton mini bundt cakes the only thing different in my caluculation/recipe was to increase the recalc. from 1 2/3 milk to 2 cups of milk and I used the blender to tork up the batter for a perfect blend. 🙂
I thought this recipe was great.I topped it with a fresh pear and caramel sauce . Great for the holidays!
I love gingerbread, and was really looking forward to this cake. It was moist but not very flavorful, and very heavy. (I did not frost it, and everyone kept saying “this would be good if it had some cream cheese frosting.”) It also takes a LOT of ingredients, and I was really disappointed with the result. I will not be making this one again.
Made no changes to the recipe. A little too much molasses for my taste.
I split the recipe into 5 mini loaf pans. I divided it evenly and probably should have used 6 mini loaf pans as the batter spilled over. Silver lining is that I got a bowl full of gingerbread “droppings” for myself, as all the loaves were to give away. 🙂 I will definitely try the sheet cake method next time.
I thought this recipe was just ok. It has a slightly strange taste to me and I think it has to do with the spices. I think I should have used less ginger and added some cloves and nutmeg. I made the cake in two loaf pans and baked them for 50 minutes. They didn’t rise very much and once I cut into the cake, it dried out very quickly. I frosted the cake with cream cheese frosting and that really improved it. Next time I make gingerbread, I will probably try a different recipe.
My son and his bride wanted a gingerbread cake for their wedding cake, so I tried this recipe. Wonderful choice! Very moist, full of flavor and everyone loved it. I made it with a lemon curd filling, frosted with whipped cream buttercream frosting and covered with marshmallow fondant.
I made this recipe exactly as stated with the exception of using light brown sugar rather than dark (because that’s all I had). The cake was dry and tasteless. I doubled checked my ingredients to be sure because of all the marveleous reviews the recipe had gotten. I don’t think I’ll try this one again.
Very good in loaf pans, the recipe made two and I had to up the bake time to about 50 minutes. Didn’t have any allspice so I used pumpkin pie spice in equal measure plus a sprinkle of ground clove. Delicious uniced for breakfast or frosted with cream cheese icing for dessert.
This gingerbread spice cake was wonderful! I didn’t make any changes to the recipe, and followed it to a “T”. It came out tender and moist, not crumbly or dry. The flavor was perfect. After cooling it completely, I served it with a lemon sauce. My family raved about it, and everyone wanted seconds. Thanks for a delicious recipe. It’s a keeper!
This was wonderful! I am not a huge gingerbread fan, but this was delicious. I just finished it with a dusting of confectioners’ sugar. It would be delicious served ala mode with vanilla ice cream, or a dollop of whipped cream. We are vegans so I had to “veganize” it and it still came out perfectly!