Gingerbread Cake ~ A Doctored Cake Mix Recipe
This easy Gingerbread Cake from cake mix recipe is moist, so flavorful, and so EASY to make!
We love this recipe year-round, but I especially crave gingerbread in fall and winter months! The taste is amazing, and when paired with our Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting! (You can find it at the end of our post!)
We've made many gingerbread cakes over the years, including our Gingerbread Cake from scratch, Pumpkin Gingerbread Cake, Gingerbread Pound Cake, and Gingerbread Bundt Cake.
However, this is the only recipe that starts with a simple mix! You will love it.
Table of Contents
How to Make Easy Gingerbread Man Cake Toppers!
In the photo above, we added a few fun little gingerbread men toppers! They give our cake a little added height and cuteness.
I used a few Pepperidge Farm Ginger Men cookies to make them. Simply flip them over, pipe a little melted candy melts or chocolate on the back, place a lollipop stick into the chocolate, and pipe a bit more chocolate on top.
Chill for 5-10 minutes in the freezer until firm.
Next, I angled my gingerbread men at various angles when gluing on the anchors so that they almost look like they're dancing! I just love simple decorations!
You can see below that white candy melts probably wasn't the best choice for a subtle "glue" against the dark gingerbread...maybe I'll use plain (brown) chocolate candy melts next time! Ha!
I outlined them in buttercream for added cuteness but you can see that I kept things very simple! Anyway, they make me smile. When you're ready to place them into the cake, the lollipop sticks make great great anchors.
Ta da! Now this is a happy cake!
How Many Cake Layers?
For our gingerbread layer cake pictured above, we made two thick 8 inch cake layers, which we torted into four layers. It would have worked great as a two layer cake also, but we wanted a bit more filling!
Delicious Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting
Our FAVORITE frosting for gingerbread cakes and all things spiced is our Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting! So simple to whip up in minutes and the flavor is fantastic!
Gingerbread House Cake!
Not only is this a delicious recipe, but it is sturdy enough for fondant as well as light carving. This was the recipe that we used for our Gingerbread House Cake Video Tutorial in our member cake video section.
Scratch Version of Gingerbread Cake
Finally, if you are looking for a fabulous scratch Gingerbread Layer Cake Recipe, we have a great one!! You can find it here: Scratch Gingerbread Cake Recipe. We love them both!
More Holiday Cakes
Looking for even more Doctored Cake Mix recipes for the holidays? Don't miss our Doctored Red Velvet Cake recipe or our Doctored Eggnog Cake Recipe! These easy and DELICIOUS recipes are sure to please any crowd!
For a full roundup of our FAVORITE Christmas and winter cakes, don't miss our Roundup of Christmas Cake Recipes, Tutorials, and Ideas!
We Have More Cake Mix Recipes to Share!
If you love working with doctored cake mix recipes, we've made many over the years that we just love! Scroll through this quick list and pick out a few more to try!
Thanks for stopping by! We hope that you enjoy this delicious Gingerbread Doctored Cake Mix Recipe!
Gingerbread Cake ~ A Doctored Cake Mix Recipe
This easy and delicious Gingerbread Layer Cake starts with a simple cake mix! This recipe is a fantastic choice for fall and winter gatherings! We love it with our Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting!
Ingredients
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour two 8 inch cake pans (We torted our layers to make 4)
- Do not follow ingredients on the back of the cake mix box, use the ingredients listed below.
- 1 box Spice Cake Mix, sifted
- 1 cup (121g) all purpose flour
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- ½ (3 g) teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (242 g) sour cream
- ½ cup (118 g) water
- ½ cup (161g) Molasses,
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon (3 g) cinnamon
- 1 ½ teaspoon (3 g) ginger
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- *For our Cake Toppers we used store-bought Gingerbread men and attached them to lollipop sticks with melted candy melts!
Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting
- 1 cup (2 sticks) (226g) unsalted butter, softened (do not soften in microwave)
- 3 (8 ounces) (226g) per package full fat cream cheese, (total 678g) cut into 1 inch pieces and softened.....do not use reduced fat cream cheese or cream in tub containers (do not soften in microwave)
- 3 cups (343g) powdered sugar
- 2 teaspoons (4g) Pumpkin Pie Spice * (we list substitution below)
- 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract
Instructions
In the bowl of your mixer combine the dry ingredients and whisk 30 seconds to throughly combine.
To this add the remaining ingredients and mix on medium speed for 1 minute ( a bit longer if using a hand held mixer). Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and mix 1 minute more.
Makes approximately 7 cups of batter.
Pour into prepared pans and bake at 325 degrees. Check at 35 minutes, the cake will be slightly pulled away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center should pull out clean or with only a few crumbs.
For the Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting
Put the softened butter in the bowl of your mixer and mix until smooth.
Add the powdered sugar, vanilla, and pumpkin spice. Beat on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes (longer if using a hand mixer) until light and fluffy. Scrape the bowl midway through.
Add the pieces of softened cream cheese to the mixing bowl. The cream cheese should be soft enough that it combines easily into the butter/powdered sugar mixture. Beat on low/medium speed about 1 minute or until the cream cheese is blended in.
Makes 6 cups
Use immediately or refrigerate. If you have beaten too long and it is too soft to pipe, just refrigerate a while and let it firm up.
**No pumpkin spice? You can use 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, ½ teaspoon ground ginger, ¼ teaspoon cloves. There is some "wiggle room" with this if you prefer a stronger flavor of one spice over another.
Notes
This gingerbread cake recipe is delicious, and works great with the carving necessary for our Gingerbread House Cake Video Tutorial in our member library. I hope that you enjoy it!
followed measurements and directions exactly, but my cake didn't rise :( really bummed out about the results, wasted time and extra money spent on now a store bought dessert contribution.
Hi Stevi Ann, I'm sorry to hear that. I wonder if you could have mistakenly used self rising flour (rather than all purpose)? This would have resulted in too much leavening which would cause the cake to fall. That is the only reason I can think of (other than misreading an ingredient amount) as to why your layers wouldn't have risen. We've had lots of great feedback on this recipe over the years.
Hi there! If there’s no spice boxes cake mix available would you recommend an alternative/sub? Thank you!
Hello can this cake be baked in loaf pan? Can you give time adjustments please.
Thanks,
Cookie
Hi Cookie, I don't see why not! That should be fine (as long as you leave room for the cake to rise- general rule of thumb is not to fill pan with batter past 2/3 full). I would just google the baking times for your size of loaf pan and peek in as the time approaches, adjusting as needed.