Gingerbread Cakes
December 24th, 2008
Stumble it!
It’s Christmas Eve, and so my husband and I are about to hop in the car to visit his side of the family. I’m brining along these cute little gingerbread cakes to share for dessert.
These cakes are spicy and dense (in a good way) with just a tad of lemon cream cheese frosting to complement them. They have the consistency of a cake-y brownie but the flavor of gingerbread cookies. The petite cakes are about the size of cupcakes, but with a touch more style.
Frosting the sides of the cakes turned out to be a disaster. Feel free to try it, but all the cake crumbs made for a messy finish, even with a crum layer of icing to minimize them. I prefer the look of these bare-sided cakes, which has the extra benefit of better proportion of frosting to cake. If you like frosting but are easily overwhelmed by it, leaving the sides unfinished might be a good solution for you, too.
I baked these as 8×8 sheet cakes and then used a biscuit cutter to punch out small rounds after the cake had baked and cooled. You can also just make cupcakes if you don’t want to deal with the assembly.
Gingerbread Cakes
Makes 9 small layer cakes
2 Cups Flour
2 tsp Ginger
2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 Cup Molasses (unsulphured, like Grandma’s brand)
2/3 Cup Hot Water
1/2 Cup Earth Balance Margarine
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 Ener-g Egg, optional
Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese
1/4 Cup Earth Balance Margarine
1 lb Confectioner’s Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
Zest from 1 Lemon
Preheat oven to 350º F.
Mix the flour, ginger, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl until well combined.
Prepare two 8×8 baking pans as follows: grease the pans with margarine. Lay a square of parchment paper down in the inside of the pans, cut to fit the bottoms. Grease the paper as well. Use some of the try mixture you just made to flour the pans, shaking/tapping out any extra.
Whisk molasses and hot water together.
Cream the margarine and sugar. Whip the mixture with the optional Ener-g egg until light and fluffy.
Add part of the molasses mixture and part of the margarine and sugar mixture to the dry ingredients. Begin to combine. As the ingredients come together, add more of the margarine mixture and more of the molasses mixture until everything has been incorporated. Whisk to remove lumps, but to not over-mix.
Pour the batter evenly into the two prepared pans. Bake at 350º F for 30-40 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean, or the top of the cake, when touched, springs back. Let cakes cool completely, then remove from the pan. You may need to use a knife to loosen the edges, but the parchment paper should keep the bottoms from sticking.
Once the cakes have cooled and have been removed from the pans, use a small biscuit cutter to cut 9 rounds from each cake.
Prepare frosting by beating all of the frosting ingredients in a stand mixee until well combined and fluffy.
Place a small amount of frosting on 9 rounds.
Stack the rounds.
Place the rest of the frosting in a piping bag and frost the top of each cake.
I garnished them with green and red nonpareils, but maraschino cherries would be awesome! Keep in an airtight container until ready to serve.
I hope you all have a great holiday season!
Entry Filed under: Uncategorized
39 Comments Add your own
1. Shelby | December 24th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
ADORABLE!!! These are perfect for Christmas =)
2. Larissa | December 24th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
great pictures! definately have to try them!
3. VeggieGirl | December 24th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
MERRY CHRISTMAS, LOLO!!!
4. Jenny | December 24th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
So pretty! Lovely presentation and photos! Have a great holiday!
5. Amy | December 24th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
These look amazing! I LOVE gingerbread, and now I’m making gingerbread cupcakes! Thank you!
6. Jain | December 24th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
I have an underdeveloped sweet tooth and I’m not wild about frosting so I ~love~ the naked sides!
7. JessieG | December 24th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Beautiful! Happy Holidays to you
8. Gina | December 24th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
These sound fantastic!! Merry Christmas
9. Mandee | December 25th, 2008 at 12:05 am
Lovely! I am enjoying all the holiday posts at the moment, especially anything with ginger in it!
10. Chris | December 25th, 2008 at 2:39 am
Looking great. These pictures are marvelous! And the cake itself sounds like it is packed with holiday flavor (if there is such a thing).
Biscuit cutters are definitely going on my post-Christmas list
11. ina | December 25th, 2008 at 8:44 am
May you have a blessed Christamas and a happy new year! Kisses! Ina
12. Lynn | December 25th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
These are cute as a button! I might nudge my husband to try making them with some non-wheat flour — what the hey!
Merry Christmas from a mostly-lurker!!
13. bex | December 25th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Super cute and great presentation. I love ideas that let you make something impressive looking without taking loads of time or strange single use equipment. Happy Holidays!
14. DJ Karma (VegSpinz) | December 25th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I am putting on pounds as I write this… love the Holidays- haha! The cut-outs are a cute idea- you could even cut out other shapes like Christmas trees or stars. I am definitely one of those people who don’t like a lot of frosting, so you could even fill it and dust the top with some powdered or colored sugar. NICE!
15. Deesha | December 25th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
they look gorgeous. Merry Christmas
16. laci | December 25th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Those gingerbread cakes are just simply adorable! so petite and creative, it’s certainly book worthy! Maybe you could try the batter in cupcakes instead of cutting out little rounds so much of the cake doesn’t have to go to waste… thanks! =] Merry christmas and happy newyear!
17. ethan | December 26th, 2008 at 5:54 am
you are so extra-ordinarily talented! thank u for sharing.. truly inspiring
cheers!
18. joan nova | December 26th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Beautiful presents for all those around the dinner table…and a great holiday photo!
19. reader in memphis | December 26th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
You’re blog is so inspiring. I hope 2009 brings you many wonderful culinary moments captured for the internet to see.
20. DJ | December 26th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
So sweet and festive! Happy Holidays!
21. Sarah | December 26th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
you are an incredible photographer. the food looks great in all of your photos, this dessert included!
22. Harmony | December 26th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
dear lolo
if you have time to freeze your cakes beforehand, it makes icing them a crumb free affair. try it!
ht
23. anonymous vegan | December 27th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
your blog sucks. every recipe looks so good and tasty and when I make it its a big pile of sloppy mush. (actually your blog is amazing and I am the sucker)
24. kelley | December 28th, 2008 at 12:08 am
cute, as always! i like this presentation - a little more grownup than cupcakes. and the baker gets the scraps!
25. Kiersten | December 28th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Those look great! I am a little burnt out on sweets right now after all the Christmas cookies, but after it wears off I am going to try these. I love gingerbread.
26. Ed Coffin | December 28th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Ooooh!! These little cakeys are so cute!
27. Janet | December 31st, 2008 at 12:27 am
Absolutely lovely!
28. Chelsea | December 31st, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I really like the idea of using biscuit cutters to make mini cakes. And that way you get some easy samplings along the way. You’re very creative!
29. ling | December 31st, 2008 at 2:48 pm
these are adorable! i made a batch and got nothing but compliments on how cute they were. i decorated the top with crushed candy cane instead of nonpareils–still v cute/festive. thanks for the great recipe!
30. am | December 31st, 2008 at 4:28 pm
these were a hit. I used candy covered fennel seeds instead of nonpareils.
31. Beverly | January 1st, 2009 at 6:37 am
I just found your site by doing a search for homemade vegetable broth. I plan to use your recipe, but I am also bookmarking your site. Your pictures are beautiful and the recipes look so fun and yummy!
Thanks for sharing. Happy New Year!
32. maria | January 2nd, 2009 at 7:36 am
Thanks for your blog! You saved our first wholly veggie/vegan festive meal ever. The mini Napoleons were a hit. Thanks!
33. Tails | January 2nd, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Wow these look fantastic! I’m going to try them as soon as I’ve lost the weight I put on during Christmas time hahaha! I assume I can use non-vegan ingredients in place of the vegan ones?
34. River (aka Pat) | January 2nd, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Gingerbread cakes! It reminds me of childhood - but then of course the winter holidays always remind me of childhood. I like the sides bare btw - that way the taste of the ginger has its way with the taste buds! Five pounds to go and then . . . Have a wonderful 2009 - and I’ll be visiting here more often, you bet!
35. underfunded heiress | January 4th, 2009 at 12:15 am
Wow, that looks so good. Your photos are amazing. So crisp and bright.
36. Joe | January 4th, 2009 at 9:45 am
I would love to see what you are working on now!:)
37. Joanie | January 5th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Your blog makes me so happy. What a great inspiration. Hope the cookbook is going well!
38. Pre-Contest Results: Herb&hellip | January 31st, 2009 at 2:46 pm
[...] (10 cm) rounds with cookie cutters, but because I’m basically lazy (and I’m just not Lolo), I decided to cut the slab into squares. I have to admit that the rounds did look fetching, [...]
39. Heidi | February 18th, 2009 at 11:22 am
I know its way after Christmas, but I just noticed these. And mmmm do they look good. I wonder if it would be possible to make these in a muffin tin and then cut the muffins in half and put icing in between o.o Or maybe they’d stick too much :/ I don’t know, but either way I’m going to try them
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