Gingerbread Loaf Cake

It’s the holiday season, so why not make use of those festive flavours and enjoy this gingerbread loaf cake.

I know that gingerbread is a hit or miss flavour but undeniably it screams the holidays. Festive, warming and little spiced – its the perfect cake to warm you through this winter – get the kettle boiled and make yourself a drink as this isn’t one you’ll want to turn your nose up at.

It starts with a gingerbread loaf, which if made days ahead, will taste even better. Topped with a rich vanilla Italian meringue buttercream and finished with crystalised ginger, gingerbread people and sprinkles – what’s not to like?!

Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?

 

Ingredients:

Cake:

335g plain flour.

2 1/4 tsp baking powder.

3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda.

2 1/14 tsp ground ginger.

130g butter.

130g light brown sugar.

130g black treacle.

130g golden syrup.

1 egg.

225ml whole milk.

 

Buttercream:

125g granulated sugar.

31ml water.

35g egg yolk.

1 egg.

250g butter.

1 tsp vanilla extract.

 

Gingerbread:

350g plain flour.

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda.

3 tsp ground ginger.

100g butter.

175g light brown sugar.

70g golden syrup.

1 egg.

 

Method:

Before you get started on the recipe, you can go ahead and do some prep. Start by weighing up all of your ingredients, preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f and get any equipment you may need, such a stand mixer, palette knife and saucepan.

To start, make the loaf cake.

Take a saucepan and place in the butter, light brown sugar, golden syrup and black treacle. Then place the pan onto the heat over a medium-high, allowing everything to melt, then stir u anti, everything is combined.

In a medium bowl, place the milk and egg, whisking together until combined and you’ll also want to grab a large bowl and add I the dry ingredients, passing them through a sieve first to remove any bits that may not be so fine.

Now you have the 3 separate elements, you can go ahead and make the cake batter. Into the saucepan, slowly and steadily add in the milk mix, whisking together until combined. Then add the west ingredients into the dry and whisk until you have a smooth cake batter.

Take a 2lb loaf pan and line with some parchment paper or a parchment case, either will work well. Then pour in the cake batter and level it out, if needed. Bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre.

While the cake is in the oven baking, you can make the buttercream and gingerbread for the decoration.

For the buttercream, I used my Italian meringue buttercream – the recipe is so simple and straight forward. It’s butter rich but no where as sweet as standard buttercream. For there gingerbread, I’m using my usual gingerbread recipe but instead of keeping typing up the same method – I’ll link my gingerbread house recipe, which is the same process the only difference is to bake at 180˚c/350˚f for 12-15 minutes or until slightly spread, well coloured and can be moved away from there parchment without breaking.

To decorate, place the buttercream on top of the loaf and spread out until level all over the top of the cake.

When it comes to the decoration, I placed on the gingerbread people – feel free to use as many or as few as you’d like, it’s up to you. I also scatter over a small amount of roughly chopped crystallised ginger, some festive sprinkles from the Halo brand. Keeping things simple.

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.