I am not sure if I said this before, but I love winter time baking.
The flavors are so rich and just layers upon layers of spice are to be found in so many sweet delights.
Perhaps my love of Gingerbread Cake has a lot to do with my love for winter, but I do love the cold weather too, so for me it’s a double win.
Imagine this luscious moist winter wonderland gingerbread cake loaded up with cream cheese icing and a hot cup of vegan hot chocolate on a cold snowy winter night!?
With a crisp gingerbread man cookie to dunk along the way!
I can almost taste it!
So actually, stop imagining it! MAKE IT!
Of course the gingerbread men and tree cookies and I used for decor are completely optional but how else do you get a winter wonderland scene without that little cutie standing in a forest of gingerbread and chocolate trees?
I had so much fun with this one and I know you will too!
PS- this is another sneak peak recipe from my new book: Modern Vegan Baking now available on amazon!
Winter Wonderland Gingerbread Cake
For this icing I added a bit of my aquafaba swiss meringue buttercream to it, but this is an optional step. If you prefer straight up cream cheese icing go for it!
Serves: serves 10 people
Ingredients
- For the Gingerbread Cookie Dough
- All Purpose Flour 3 cups (390g)
- Baking Soda 1 teaspoon (5g)
- Ground Cinnamon 1 teaspoon (2g)
- Ground Ginger 1 teaspoon (2g)
- Pumpkin Pie Spice ½ teaspoon (2g)
- Salt ½ teaspoon (3g)
- Black Pepper ¼ teaspoon
- Vegan Butter ½ cup (113g)
- Light Brown Sugar ½ cup packed (105g)
- Molasses ⅔ cup (226g) (158ml)
- Ground Flax Seeds 1 Tablespoon (8g)
- Hot Water 2 Tablespoons
- Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon (5ml)
- For the Gingerbread Cake:
- Vegan Butter 1 stick (113g)
- Light Brown sugar 1 cup (210g)
- Ground Flax Seeds 1 Tablespoon (8g)
- Warm Water 3 Tablespoons (45ml)
- Hot water 1 cup (237ml) *approximately 140° F
- Molasses 1¼ cup (425g) (300ml)
- Baking Soda 1 teaspoon (5g)
- Baking Powder 1 teaspoon (5g)
- Salt ½ teaspoon (3g)
- Ground Ginger 2 teaspoons (3.5g)
- Ground Cloves ¼ teaspoon (.5g)
- Ground Cinnamon 1½ teaspoon (3g)
- All Purpose Flour 2 ½ cups (325g)
- Natural Unsweetened Cocoa Powder 2 Tablespoons (12g)
- For the Vegan Cream Cheese Icing:
- Vegan Cream Cheese 2 Tubs (2cups) (454g)
- Vegan Butter 1 stick (½ cup) (112g)
- Confectioner's Sugar 2 cups (240g)
- Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon
- Vegan Buttercream 1 cup *optional
Instructions
- For the gingerbread cookie dough:
- Combine ground flax seed with hot water and whisk smooth
- Let stand for at least 5 minutes to thicken to a paste
- Sift the flour with the baking soda and all of the spices and the salt and pepper, set aside.
- Cream the vegan butter with the brown sugar until light and fluffy about 4-5 minutes,
- Add the molasses to the creamed butter mixture and mix well, scrape the sides of the bowl and then add the flax paste and vanilla extract.
- Add the sifted flour mixture while blending on low speed, mix until it is all incorporated evenly.
- Turn out the entire dough onto a large piece of plastic wrap.
- Wrap the dough tightly and press into a disc.
- Refrigerate for at least 3 hours, preferably overnight before rolling.
- Once out of the fridge you must re-roll this dough.
- Mash it all together and knead it back together, then RE-roll on a floured work surface until it is pliable.
- Cut your shapes, and place on a parchment lined sheet pan.
- Preheat the oven to 350° F, you will bake for approximately 12-18 minutes or until light golden brown. It is difficult to say how long exactly – as I do not know what shapes you are cutting or to what thickness you desire
- For the Cake Batter:
- Combine ground flax seed with hot water and whisk smooth
- Let stand for at least 5 minutes to thicken to a paste
- In the meantime, cream the softened vegan butter with the light brown sugar on medium -high speed until very light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.
- Scrape bowl periodically to ensure even mixing
- Sift together all the dry ingredients from the baking powder to the cocoa powder and reserve.
- Add the molasses to the hot water and then add the baking soda to that. It will bubble up as the baking soda begins to activate. Stir to combine
- Add the flax paste to the creaming vegan butter and sugar mixture, and mix well.
- Add ⅓ of the dry ingredients, blend well
- Then add ½ of the molasses/water mixture slowly while mixing on low speed
- Stop and scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl often
- Repeat the process with another ⅓ of the dry, the remaining liquids and then the last addition of dry ingredients
- Pour the batter into 2- 7" greased and parchment lined pans and bake immediately in preheated 350° F oven approximately 30 minutes or when they are springy to the touch when you gently press the centers.
- Cool the cake layers in the pan then turn out onto a cooling rack to cool the rest of the way while you prepare the cream cheese icing.
- For the Cream Cheese Icing:
- Smooth cream cheese and butter with a paddle attachment
- Add sifted confectioners sugar, blend on low just to combine
- Add extract then add optional vegan buttercream icing
- Mix smooth
Oh wow this looks delicious!! 🙂 I am going to give this a whirl tomorrow so will update you how I get on. I have also asked for your book to be preordered for Christmas yaaaaay! xx
awesome thankyou!!!
Hello Gretchen! I have only just got round to baking this cake and oh my goodness its bloody amazing!!!!!!!! Its so moist and melt in your mouth too. I just made a dairy free vanilla frosting (was feeling lazy!) for the filling and it complimented it so well as the actual cake was rich. I also added a touch more ginger and cinnamon but I don’t think it needed it. I would love to offer this cake to customers that I create wedding cakes for, my only worry is because its so so moist I wonder if it could be cut up like a wedding cake is rather then triangles. I have experienced vegan cake structures improving in time so maybe I will see tomorrow, what are your thoughts? Thank you so much, its made my Christmas much more sweeter 😉 Love Lucie xx
Thanks! Im so glad you loved it! Me too!!
I think it will work just fine for a wedding! Knife dipped into hot water before slicing will help it out too!
Thank you lovely!! My partner came home, enjoyed a slice and assumed it was ‘normal’ cake. He said it was very moist and so light too. I then reminded him it was vegan and was like ‘noooooo way!!’ haha. Thank you so much, going to add it to my vegan wedding cake flavour list, perfect for winter weddings as one of the tiers I think!! xxxx
Hi Gretchen,
Could I possibly adapt this recipe to fit 3 6inch cake tins? do you know of a way I can adjust the ingredient amounts?
Thanks 🙂
yes you can cut the recipe in half and then fill pans half full with batter
Thankyou! I just tried making this and my cakes sunk in the middle 🙁 didn’t open the oven during cooking or anything. Any idea why this happened?
Hmm Im sorry this happened, my first suspicion when I hear that cakes sink is that the pan was too small or the batter was overfilled? Is this possible?