Gingerbread Latte Cake Recipe
'Tis the season for snuggling up with a warm and spicy Gingerbread Latte, and as it turns out, it's also the season for snuggling up with a slice of this AMAZING new Gingerbread Latte Cake!
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The Perfect Combination
We have always been huge fans of gingerbread, and we have two fabulous versions of Gingerbread Cake in our recipes section (a scratch gingerbread cake as well as a doctored gingerbread cake mix recipe ) -BUT, last week I had my first gingerbread latte and realized that I had been missing out on a flavor match made in heaven! We had to make this drink in cake form!
In this recipe, we've incorporated coffee into moist and delicious gingerbread cake layers, which we've also glazed with an espresso syrup and frosted with a luscious Espresso Cream Cheese Frosting. SO good!
You would think from my description that the coffee may overshadow the gingerbread flavor, but it really is the perfect balance of both.
Most of the espresso flavoring comes from the glaze as well as the espresso cream cheese frosting, but I do really like the hint of coffee in the cake layers as well.
We hope that you will enjoy this recipe as much as we have! Gingerbread Latte Cake would be perfect for any fall or winter occasion.
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Thanksgiving and Winter Cakes
If you are on the hunt of even more ideas for Thanksgiving or Christmas, or just cozy seasonal recipes in general, make sure to check out our Fall & Thanksgiving Cakes as well as our Winter & Christmas Cakes for inspiration.
More Spiced & Coffee Flavored Cakes
Love all things Spiced, Coffee flavored, or both? Here are a few other recipes for you to place on your "Must-Make" List! Some of our favorites are Spice Cake, Mocha Toffee Crunch Cake, and Pumpkin Spice Cake .
Here are a few more cakes with coffee:
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Gingerbread Latte Cake Recipe
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 1 ½ cups white sugar (300g)
- 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, slightly softened (170g)
- 3 large eggs, room temperature (If in a hurry, place the eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes.)
- 3 cups all purpose flour (375g)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder (4g)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda (5g)
- ½ teaspoon salt (3g)
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger (4g)
- 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon (6g)
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg (1g)
- 1 cup hot water (236g)
- 1 ½ teaspoon instant espresso granules or 2 teaspoons (4g) instant coffee (3g)
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil (65g)
- ½ cup molasses (160g)
For the Coffee Simple Syrup
- 1 Tablespoon instant espresso or 1 Tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons instant coffee
- ¼ cup white sugar (50g)
- ¼ cup boiling water (60g)
For the Espresso Cream Cheese Frosting
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, slightly softened (226g)
- 16 oz cream cheese (full fat), softened
- 1 Tablespoon espresso granules dissolved in 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract (6g)
- 6 to 6 ½ cups 690g to 747g more if needed, powdered sugar
Instructions
For the Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Grease and flour three 8 inch pans, add a circle of waxed or parchment paper to the bottom of each pan.
- In a separate bowl, combine flour, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk at least 30 seconds. Set aside.
- In another bowl, add the hot water, instant coffee, oil and molasses. Stir and set aside.
- Do not mix the ingredients above medium speed.
- In the bowl of your mixer, beat the butter until smooth. Add the sugar and mix 4 to 5 minutes until lightened in color and fluffy.
- Add the eggs one at a time mixing just until the yolk is blended in.
- Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture alternately with the wet ingredients. Begin and end with the flour mixture (3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of wet ingredients). Mix until just blended in, scraping the bowl a couple of times. Do not over mix. Divide evenly between your three 8 inch pans.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 22 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.
For the Coffee Simple Syrup
- In a small saucepan add the sugar and water. Bring to a boil and remove from the heat. Stir until sugar dissolves. Add the espresso powder and stir.
- Let this cool before brushing onto the cake. You can store leftover syrup in the refrigerator for 2 weeks. Do not put too much on the cake layers or they will become soggy.
- If you'd like to you can use a fork or toothpick to make holes in the top of the cake layers before brushing (preferably with a pastry brush) the simple syrup onto each layer.
For the Espresso Cream Cheese Frosting
- Cut the butter into slices and add to the bowl of your mixer. Beat on low to medium speed until the butter is softened.
- Cut the cream cheese into pieces and add to the butter, beating at low to medium speed until blended. If using a hand mixer, you may need to soften the cream cheese a bit more.
- Add the espresso that has been mixed with the vanilla
- Gradually add the powdered sugar beating on low to medium speed until blended. Do not over mix or it will become too soft. If it does become too soft, just refrigerate for a few minutes, then continue.
- This frosting will pipe best if used while somewhat chilled. You can make this in advance, refrigerate and when ready to use, let soften to spreading consistency (do not microwave) and stir or remix with mixer.
- Will fill and frost a 3 layer 8 or 9 inch cake
To Assemble the Cake
- Put your first cake layer on your cake base or pedestal. Lightly brush with your coffee syrup. You don't want to make your cake soggy, so just a light coating is what we are going for.
- Spread on the espresso cream cheese filling
- Repeat for the other layers.
- Frost the cake with espresso cream cheese frosting however you like. (After frosting, we used a bench scraper to smooth the frosting as we rotated it on the turntable, and then used a tapered rounded spatula to gently press into the frosting as we rotated it, working from bottom to top for a ridged effect .) We decorated with a triple shell border around the base, and a reverse shell border on top.
My goodness that looks and sounds wonderful! Adding it to my list :-) Thanks ladies :-)
Hello Melissa & BeBe, I don't see the amount of cinnamon for the frosting. Cannot wait to try!
Thanks MsGF!
@GuppyLove- Thanks for pointing that out! I've corrected. There's actually no cinnamon in the frosting--it's just espresso cream cheese frosting (but it's so similar to our cinnamon cream cheese frosting recipe that I copied & pasted, forgetting about the mention of cinnamon in the instructions)--
By the way, if you'd like to go with cinnamon espresso cream cheese from our pumpkin spice latte cake, that would be good also!
Ok Melissa!! I have made the cinnamon espresso frosting & the pumpkin spice latte cake before & it was wonderful! I'm sure this will be too? thanks for all you & BeBe do!
Had to make this last night. It was delicious and we LOVED the espresso cream cheese frosting. I made mini cupcakes. Wonderful!
Melissa, I was not able to print the recipe, even though the option to print was there, it would not let me print the recipe. Please check that out for me, because this recipe sounds wonderful.
@Terri- Thanks so much for your feedback, I'm so happy that you loved it!
@Jeraldine- I'm sorry, I don't know what could be causing this issue for you. I just checked and I am able to print as usual from my computer. You could try highlighting & printing the selection, copying & pasting to a word document, taking or printing a screenshot as alternatives until it starts cooperating for you!
I made this yesterday for my husband's Christmas family get-together. Everyone raved about how good it was! The cake was so light and moist and just the perfect "gingerbread" flavor. Not overpowering. Will be making this again often!
Hi Cathy, That is wonderful, I'm very happy everyone enjoyed the cake. Thanks for posting!
Merry Christmas!
I was wondering if you could sub the all purpose flour and baking powder out for self raising flour and if so what quantities?
Hi, recipe sounds fantastic, my favourite coffee drink. Here in the biggest cul- de- sac in the UK, I've found dry mollases not liquid. Do I still use in the way?
Look forward to your reply and making this wonderful cake.
Hi Carmen, I am sorry but we are not familiar with dry molasses or how to use it. If you could find a recipe online that might be helpful. I hope you will find the information you need.