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Home » Recipes

Gingerbread Loaf Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Published: Dec 18, 2016 · Modified: Dec 15, 2022 by Emma · This post may contain affiliate links · 5 Comments

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This Gingerbread Loaf is a moist, sticky cake full of festive spices and topped with cream cheese and cinnamon frosting. Scroll down for the recipe.

Alternative Christmas Cakes

Is there anything more festive than gingerbread?! OK, cinnamon and cranberries also come to mind but you can't celebrate Christmas without a little ginger. You'll find ginger in a traditional Christmas cake but for this recipe I wanted to make ginger the star of the show.

Although this gingerbread loaf looks pretty simple from the outside, there are actually a lot of ingredients that go into it. Beyond the usual butter, flour and eggs there's golden syrup, treacle, brown sugar, dried spices such as ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg not to mention candied stem ginger and fresh root ginger too! They all come together in a sticky, moist sponge cake that is perfect with a hot chocolate or Christmas coffee.

Despite the long list of ingredients it's very simple to make. You'll only need a mixing bowl, saucepan and a spatula (minimal washing up is very important at this time of year). You can even keep your loaf tin clean like I did by using loaf tin liners.

What I love most about this cake is that it is the perfect alternative to a slice of Christmas cake. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't rich, but it is still much lighter than your usual slice of fruit cake. The cream cheese icing is sweet, but not as sickly as marzipan and royal icing that usually adorns a Christmas cake. This makes it ideal for a treat while you're snuggled up on your sofa watching a film or two over the holiday season.

Ginger is the perfect, warming spice for the winter months. You'll find three types of ginger in this Gingerbread Loaf Cake topped with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting! Get the recipe at Supper in the Suburbs.

The Recipe

Ginger is the perfect, warming spice for the winter months. You'll find three types of ginger in this Gingerbread Loaf Cake topped with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting! Get the recipe at Supper in the Suburbs.

Gingerbread Loaf Cake with Cinnamon and Cream Cheese Frosting

This Gingerbread Loaf Cake with Cinnamon and Cream Cheese Frosting is the perfect festive treat to enjoy with a hot drink on a cold day.
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Prep Time 45 minutes mins
Cook Time 1 hour hr 30 minutes mins
Total Time 2 hours hrs 15 minutes mins
Course Dinner
Cuisine British
Servings 12 slices
Calories 475.18 kcal

Ingredients
 
 

For the cake

  • 175 g self raising flour
  • 1 tablespoon ground ginger
  • 2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 0.25 nutmeg grated
  • 1 inch root ginger peeled and grated
  • 5 tablespoon water roughly 75ml
  • 2 tablespoon treacle
  • 2 tablespoon golden syrup
  • 75 g light brown sugar
  • 75 g butter
  • 1 large egg beaten
  • 2 tbsp. milk
  • 2 pieces stem ginger in syrup, diced

For the decoration

  • 225 g unsalted butter
  • 225 g cream cheese
  • 1 vanilla pod seeds only
  • 500 g icing sugar
  • 1 ½ tsp. cinnamon
  • stem ginger to decorate

Instructions
 

  • Pre-heat the oven to 170C and line a 2lb loaf tin.
  • Weigh out your dry ingredients and spices into a large mixing bowl.
  • Place the water, treacle, golden syrup, sugar and butter into a saucepan and place on a low-medium heat. Warm the mixture gently until the sugar and butter have dissolved and formed a sticky syrup.
  • Stir the syrup into the dry ingredients and beat well until smooth.
  • Allow the mix to cool slightly if it hasn't already done so and begin to beat in the egg and milk.
  • Finally stir in the stem ginger before pouring the cake mix into the lined loaf tin.
  • Place low in your oven (so that the top of the loaf tin is in the centre of the oven) and bake for 1hr 15mins - 1hr 30mins or until the cake is risen and springy to the touch.
  • Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before removing.
  • Store the cake in its liner until you are ready to decorate (best done on the day of serving).
  • To make the icing, beat the butter with an electric mixer until light, smooth and fluffy. Add the cream cheese and vanilla and beat until well incorporated.
  • Still beating, add the icing sugar a little at a time along with the cinnamon.
  • Beat well until the icing is smooth and light.
  • Spread the icing over the top of the cake and decorate with diced or thinly sliced pieces of stem ginger (optional).

Nutrition

Calories: 475.18kcalCarbohydrates: 66.19gProtein: 3.92gFat: 22.67gSaturated Fat: 13.61gTrans Fat: 0.62gCholesterol: 77.37mgSodium: 80.5mgPotassium: 132.5mgFiber: 0.93gSugar: 53.37gVitamin A: 760.44IUVitamin C: 0.07mgCalcium: 60.15mgIron: 0.68mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Ginger is the perfect, warming spice for the winter months. You'll find three types of ginger in this Gingerbread Loaf Cake topped with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting! Get the recipe at Supper in the Suburbs.

More alternative Christmas cakes

Is there a festive cake recipe you prefer to traditional Christmas Cake? Over the last few years I've had great fun coming up with alternatives. Check them out:

Vegan White Chocolate and Cranberry Cake

Vegan White Chocolate and Cranberry Cake

Chocolate and Orange Fruitcake Squares are a great alternatiev to slices of traditional Christmas Cake Find the recipe at Supper in the Suburbs

Chocolate Orange Fruitcake Squares

Cinnamon Loaf Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Cranberry Compote

Cinnamon Loaf Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Cranberry Compote

This Fig and Walnut Cake from Supper in the Suburbs is a wonderful alrernative to the traditional English fruitcake

Fig and Walnut Cake

More Christmas recipes

For the full range of Christmas recipes check out the Christmas recipe archive.

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    Vegan Beetroot Smørrebrød
  • A plate topped with Kartoffelmad a type of Danish open-faced sandwich made of rye bread, potato slices, vegan creme fraiche, fried onions and chives.
    Kartoffelmad (Potato Smørrebrød)

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Angela says

    December 20, 2016 at 12:14 pm

    This looks delicious, I'm not familiar with spare cake either! This gingerbread loaf looks like such a perfect cake.

    Reply
  2. Gingey Bites says

    December 09, 2017 at 2:34 pm

    Yum! I love ginger cake - in fact, anything with ginger in! I'm rubbish at baking but would like to give this one a go!

    Reply
    • Emma Walton says

      December 10, 2017 at 4:42 pm

      You can definitely crack this one 😉 I believe in you! Enjoy!

      Reply
  3. Kavita Favelle | Kavey Eats says

    December 09, 2017 at 3:48 pm

    Oh I loooove ginger cake, the stickier the better! And where did you get those teeny tiny gingerbread men?

    Reply
    • Emma Walton says

      December 10, 2017 at 4:42 pm

      I think ebay or amazon?! Just googled gingerbread sprinkles!!! The beauty of the internet lol!

      Reply

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Welcome!

Hi, I'm Emma. I'm a UK based food blogger who's been sharing recipes with the world since 2011. I'm passionate about eating a plant based diet using local, seasonal ingredients.

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