Celebrate the holidays in style with this incredible Christmas Gingerbread Cake. Three layers of moist gingerbread are covered with a cream cheese frosting for an amazing Christmas dessert that will impress everyone!
Do you love gingerbread? We sure do! We look for ways to add our favorite winter flavor in everything we make, all winter long! Cookies, breads, even lattes! We simply can’t get enough. This gingerbread cake fits in with our gingerbread theme with the most amazing gingerbread flavor. The combination of ginger, cinnamon, and cloves will leave you salivating! It’s all topped off with a cream cheese frosting to make the ultimate Christmas cake. This stuff is what Christmas dreams are made of!
Buttermilk in Christmas Gingerbread Cake:
The batter for this cake calls for buttermilk. The acid in the buttermilk will react with the baking soda and baking powder to help this cake rise, creating a fluffy crumb. If you don’t have buttermilk, be sure to read our Buttermilk Substitutes post to pick something that works for you. Please don’t just use milk or water. It will impact the results of the cake.
Cupcake Instructions:
Would you prefer gingerbread cupcakes to a gingerbread cake? No worries, this recipe works for cupcakes too! They are baked at 325 degrees for 20-22 minutes and this recipe makes about 36 cupcakes.
Can I make gingerbread cake into only two layers?
Is a 3 layer cake too much for you? We get a lot of requests for instructions on how to make a smaller version of the same cake. Simply divide the recipe by 2/3rds for a two layer cake or use the scaling feature on our recipe card below.
Frosting Options:
We highly recommend cream cheese frosting with this cake. It is the perfect pairing with the gingerbread! You can always use regular buttercream frosting if you don’t like cream cheese frosting or if you don’t have the space in your refrigerator for storage.
Storage Instructions:
Due to the cream cheese frosting, you’ll need to store this cake in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. It will begin to dry out the longer it is left in the refrigerator, however it never lasts long enough in our home for that to happen!
If you like this recipe, you may be interested in these other delicious cake recipes:
Watch the video below where Rachel will walk you through every step of this recipe. Sometimes it helps to have a visual, and we’ve always got you covered with our cooking show. You can find the complete collection of recipes on YouTube, Facebook Watch, or our Facebook Page, or right here on our website with their corresponding recipes.
This cake is absolutely amazing♥️
And Beautiful!…,,
Thank you for this recipe. Easily the best gingerbread I’ve ever had! I used dark brown sugar and baked for 30 minutes. Perfect flavor and texture. It was the biggest hit at the dessert table on Christmas.
Instead of frosting I kept all the layers separate and made a few different flavored whipped creams ( eggnog, molasses, and plain) for people to choose from
Made for Christmas, very good. Was wishing I had spice gum drops for decorating.
I’ve made this cake and love it! Has anyone tried making cupcakes with this recipe? If so did it work well?
These are moist and delicious. I used Christmas tree and gingerbread people shaped cupcake tins and they are perfect! I am going to frost them with cinnamon buttercream as my kids do not like cream cheese. Thank you for this!
I made this cake on Christmas and decorated it yesterday. I made different decorations. A gingerbread cookie house and gingerbread cookie trees decorated my cake. It looked great until everything fell! I was able to fix it and it still looked good and tasted good too. A bit dry. I think I left in the oven a bit too long. Loved the cake and will definitely make it again
I have been looking for a recipe like this for years. My Gammy used to make a cake similar to this one and she served it with caramel sauce. So glad I found this recipe. This is an excellent recipe, moist and flavorful and the whole family loved it, THANK YOU!
Just a suggestion—strange though it may sound, I’ve never baked with molasses and did not know there is more than one kind or grade. I somehow had blackstrap in the pantry and poured in two cups; it did not work out well, but I didn’t realize the problem until it was fully frosted and done. I think it would help to specify the optimal molasses grade or type? I can’t rate this because of my mistake, so the lack of stars should not reflect anything about the cake if done properly.
I couldn’t do molasses, I substituted the molasses for honey, it was amazing!…..