Gingerbread Pound Cake

It's the season for gingerbread, and this amazing Gingerbread Pound Cake is incredibly moist, soft, and bursting with flavor!

We've made several gingerbread cakes over the years, including our Gingerbread Layer Cake, Gingerbread Cake Mix Recipe, Pumpkin Gingerbread Cake, Gingerbread Cupcakes, and Gingerbread Bundt Cake. There's always room for one more!

How to Make Gingerbread Pound Cake

This pound cake recipe comes together very quickly. It is similar to some of our other favorite pound cake recipes, but with brown sugar, warm spices, and molasses.

Just as with most pound cake recipes, it has a finer crumb and is a bit more rich (thanks to the extra butter and cream) than our other gingerbread layer cakes. It truly melts in your mouth- you are going to love this recipe!

You can find the full, printable recipe card further down in this post. Here is a quick rundown of our steps!

• Preheat and Prepare Pan: Heat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease (we do this with vegetable shortening) and flour a bundt pan (ours was a 10 inch).

• Flour Mixture: In a medium bowl whisk the cake flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt to combine, set aside for later.

• Molasses & Cream: In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine ½ cup molasses with ¾ cup heavy cream. set aside.

• Butter: Add the softened butter to the bowl of your mixer and mix on medium speed until smooth. 

• Sugar: Gradually add the white and brown sugar and mix 3 to 5 minutes or until the mixture has lightened in color and is fluffy.

• Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each until the yellow of the yolk is blended. Add the vanilla extract.

• Add Dry and Wet Ingredients Alternately: With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the heavy cream/molasses mixture to the mixture of butter, sugar and eggs.  Begin and end with the dry ingredients.  There will be three additions of dry and two additions of wet. After the last addition, mix just until blended.

• Fill the Pan! Scoop cake batter into the prepared bundt pan.

• Time to Bake: Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 5 minutes (adjust as needed). If the cake springs back when lightly touched, or an inserted toothpick is removed with just a few moist crumbs attached, it is done.  

• Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes before turning out.  I placed the pedestal upside down on top of the cake pan and carefully flipped the whole thing over as one (with pot holders protecting my hands from the heat).

For the Caramel Icing

The caramel icing that we used for today's cake complements the gingerbread flavor perfectly, and it is a great way to dress the cake up a bit too!

You could certainly skip the glaze altogether as the gingerbread cake is so moist and flavorful all on its own, but if you're looking for a simple glaze, this cooked caramel icing is a great one.

We used this caramel icing for our Sweet Potato Bundt Cake and Brown Sugar Pound Cake recipes as well.

You can find the full, printable instructions in the recipe card below.

• To make this icing, combine butter, milk, salt, corn syrup, and brown sugar in small saucepan. Stirring constantly, bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat.

• Once it begins to boil, remove from heat and continue stirring until sugar dissolves. Cool for 10-15 minutes. (We cooled ours in the refrigerator).

• Gradually whisk in the sifted confectioners sugar a little at a time-- we found it easier to do this with a wire whisk. Allow the caramel icing to cool to desired consistency, it thickens as it cools.

Decorating the Gingerbread Pound Cake

Once your cake has cooled, and the caramel icing has cooled to the desired "dripping consistency", it is time to decorate the cake!

I applied the caramel glaze by the spoonful. The more caramel that you scoop into your spoon, the longer the drip will be ;0).

Also, if the consistency of the icing is thinner, it will travel further down the cake as well.

If you prefer to apply the glaze with a piping bag, that is fine too- simply add to a disposable piping bag (or ziplock bag) and snip the tip (or corner) away.

If your glaze is too thick/cool, warm it for just a few seconds at a time in the microwave to desired consistency. This glaze does firm up once cooled.

Recipe FAQs

More Spice Cakes to Try

If you love spice cakes like today's gingerbread pound cake, don't miss these other favorites! Some of our most popular are our Applesauce Spice Cake, classic Spice Cake, and Pumpkin Spice Cake!

**We also have popular roundups for Favorite Pound Cake Recipes, Bundt Cake Recipes, and 50+ Christmas & Winter Cake Recipes too!

Thanks so much for stopping by! We hope that you enjoy this gingerbread pound cake! Make sure to check out our other cake recipes, including favorite cake recipes from scratch as well as cake mix recipes!

We also have hundreds of cake decorating tutorials to share with you!

We have decorating tutorials for how to make a cake, how to frost a cake, how to pipe simple buttercream flowers, themed birthday cake ideas, elegant cakes, and so many more!

Gingerbread Pound Cake

BY Melissa and Bebe

This amazingly moist, flavorful Gingerbread Pound Cake has a velvety soft texture and amazing flavor! You will love this easy recipe- especially in the fall and winter months!

Course: Dessert

Servings: 15

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Ingredients

• ▢ 3 sticks (339g) unsalted butter, softened
• ▢ 2 cups (400g) light brown sugar, packed into cup
• ▢ 1 cup (200g) white/granulated sugar
• ▢ 5 large eggs, room temperature (If in a hurry, place eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes.)
• ▢ 3 cups (342g) cake flour *see notes
• ▢ ½ teaspoon (2g) baking powder
• ▢ ½ teaspoon (3g) salt
• ▢ 2 ½ teaspoons (5g) ground ginger
• ▢ 3 teaspoons (6g) ground cinnamon
• ▢ ½ teaspoon (1g) nutmeg
• ▢ ¾ cup (172g) heavy cream *see notes
• ▢ ½ cup (160g) molasses
• ▢ 2 teaspoon (8g) vanilla extract

For the Caramel Icing

• ▢ ½ stick (57g) unsalted butter
• ▢ ½ cup (100g) packed light brown sugar
• ▢ ¼ cup + 1 T heavy cream
• ▢ 1 cup (120g) confectioners sugar (measure, then sift)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon (3g) salt
• ▢ 1 tablespoon (18g) light or dark corn syrup. (We used light. Corn syrup prevents graininess.)

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.   Grease and flour a bundt pan (ours was a 10 inch)
• In a medium bowl whisk the cake flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt to combine, set aside for later.
• In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine ½ cup molasses with ¾ cup heavy cream. set aside.
• Add the butter to the bowl of your mixer and mix on medium speed until smooth.  Gradually add the white and brown sugar and mix 3 to 5 minutes or until the mixture has lightened in color and is fluffy.
• Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each until the yellow of the yolk is blended. Add the vanilla extract.
• With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the heavy cream/molasses mixture to the mixture of butter, sugar and eggs.  Begin and end with the dry ingredients.  There will be three additions of dry and two additions of wet. After last addition, mix just until blended.
• Pour cake batter into the prepared bundt pan.
• Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 5 minutes.  Bake times may vary and so it's best to check your cake at about 50 minutes. If the cake springs back when lightly touched, or an inserted toothpick is removed with just a few moist crumbs attached, it is done.  
• Allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes before turning out.  
• Allow the cake to cool before adding the caramel icing.

For the Caramel Icing

• Combine butter, milk, salt, corn syrup, and brown sugar in small saucepan. Stirring constantly, bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat. Once it begins to boil, remove from heat and continue stirring until sugar dissolves.
• Cool for 10-15 minutes. (We cooled ours in the refrigerator) Gradually whisk in the sifted confectioners sugar a little at a time-- we found it easier to do this with a wire whisk.
• Allow the caramel icing to cool to desired consistency, it thickens as it cools. Spoon over the cooled cake. (If glaze is too thick, add a bit of milk. If it's too thin, add a bit more powdered sugar.)

Glazing the Cake

• Allow the cake to cool before glazing, as the heat will effect the consistency of the caramel icing.
• I added the drips one by one with a spoon, but if you'd rather, you can scoop the icing into a disposable piping bag and snip the tip away (or do the same with a ziplock bag).
• The icing should be soft enough that it drips down a bit. It thickens as it cools. If your icing is too thick, you can warm it very slightly in the microwave (a few seconds at a time). If your icing is too thin, you can allow it to cool longer, or stir in a bit more powdered sugar (sifted).

Notes

• Substitution for Cake Flour: If you have no cake flour, here is a substitution: For each cup of flour in a recipe, remove 2 Tablespoons of flour and replace with 2 Tablespoons cornstarch (cornflour in the UK). This recipe has 3 cups of flour so you will measure out 3 cups of all purpose flour, remove 6 Tablespoons and replace with 6 Tablespoons cornstarch, whisk to blend.
• Cream vs. Milk: We used heavy cream in this recipe-- whipping cream is fine too! You could also use milk instead, but the additional fat from the heavy cream or whipping cream makes the texture extra velvety ;0)

• Bundt Pan: If you are using a smaller bundt cake or tube pan than our 10 inch one, keep in mind that you don't want to fill the pan more than ¾ full or you will run the risk of it overflowing.

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