Nothing is quite as warm and festive as gingerbread, right? Today I’m sharing my recipe for a gingerbread cake.
It may not be your traditional style of cake but I wanted to still make something gingerbread flavoured and well, this is the end product. This is the perfect alternative to a traditional fruit cake (which many don’t really like).
The cake consists of three layers of gingerbread cake, sandwiched and coated with a spiced vanilla French buttercream. The buttercream is what ties this cake all together, its vanilla but with a slight hint of cinnamon and ginger.
This takes a little time but when its on the christmas table, it will stand out but in the right way.
Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?
Ingredients:
Cake:
450g plain flour.
3 tsp baking powder.
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda.
3 tsp ground ginger.
175g butter.
175g black treacle.
175g golden syrup.
1 egg.
300ml whole milk.
Buttercream:
250g light brown sugar.
62ml water.
70g egg yolks.
1 whole egg.
500g butter.
2-3 tsp vanilla extract.
1 tsp ground ginger.
1 tsp ground cinnamon.
Decoration:
Blonde chocolate spread – for the drip.
Halo gingerbread sprinkle mix.
Method:
To get started on the recipe, you’ll want to do some prep work. I like to start by weighing up all of my ingredients, lining my 3×6 inch cake tins with parchment paper and get any equipment I may need such as a stand mixer and spatula ready. Don’t forget to preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f.
To start on the cake, simply take a saucepan and place in the butter, light brown sugar, black treacle and golden syrup. Place this on the hob on a medium heat and allow the butter to melt, then start stirring this until smooth and melted.
While the saucepan comes does its job, into your mixing bowl, place the plain flour, raising agents and ground ginger. Mix together until they are well combined.
In a separate bowl, add in the milk and egg. Whisk well together until combined – set aside until needed.
Allow the liquid mix in the saucepan top cool for 5-10 minutes before using.
Taker your mixing bowl with he dry ingredients in and start the mixer on a medium speed, then gradually and carefully add in the liquid mix. Mix until everything is well combined.
Now add in your milk and egg mixture and mix together until well combined.
Give the bowl a good scraping down, just to incorporate any bits that may not be fully worked in from earlier on.
Divide the cake batter between the 3 cake tins, I eyeballed it but you can actually measure and weigh to ensure more accuracy.
Bake for the oven for 25-30 minutes (or until a tester comes out clean when inserted into the centre of the cake).
While the cakes are in the oven baking, you can go ahead and make the buttercream, which is a French spiced vanilla buttercream.
To get started on the buttercream simply place the light brown sugar and water into a saucepan and mic together until combined. Place on the hob over a medium-high heat, it should reach 121˚c – it takes a little time.
While you’re waiting for the sugar mix to come up to temperature, you can take your mixing bowl and place in the egg yolks and whole egg. Whisk on a high speed, until they are well combined. They should have increased in volume, quite considerably and be much paler in colour.
Once they are both ready, you can go ahead and turn the mixer speed down to low/medium and steadily add in the sugar mix – this is extremely hot. Please be careful while working with it. After it has all been added, crank the speed up to high and whisk until the bottom of the bowl can be touched with he back of your hand.
Now you can touch he bowl, gradually add in the butter, mixing well in-between each addition. As you add the butter towards the end, it should thicken, this is usual with my recipe.
Add in the vanilla extract and mix well, then the ground spices and mix until they have been fully worked in.
Scrape down the sides and bottom of your bowl, incorporating any bits that may not have been fully incorporated – set aside into a bowl and chill until needed.
Once you have everything made and ready, you can start the decorating.
Simply take your board/stand/plate and pipe a small amount of buttercream into the centre of it and place the first layer of cake, pressing it down to secure it in place. Pipe a ring of buttercream around the outer edge of the cake, then fill the centre and smooth it out as best as you can, ensuring it’s level. Then repeat the process with the layers of cake, not forgetting to pipe the buttercream around the sides and on top of the cake.
Smooth and level out the buttercream as much as you can, use a small offset palette knife to create a swirl on top of the cake.
Around the bottom edge of the cake, use some of the sprinkles to create a small border that will add colour and dimension.
Chill in the fridge for 10-15 minutes, just to allow it all to firm up a little.
Then warm up some blonde chocolate spread and make a drip all around the top edge, try to make them of varying lengths. On top, around the same edge, pipe rosettes,a s many or as few as you’d like. Don’t forget to top the rosettes with the same sprinkles and you’re done!
That’s all for today guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back soon with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my other social’s – Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. The YouTube tutorial will be linked down below.
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