Gingerbread Layer Cake Recipe

4.80 from 5 votes

This Gingerbread Cake is rich and delicious. It's flavored with ginger and molasses then frosted with cream cheese frosting.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American/Southern

Keyword cake, ginger, gingerbread, holidays, layer cake, molasses

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 25

Servings servings

Calories 634kcal

Author Paula

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease two 8-inch round cake pans with solid vegetable shortening and flour or Wilton Cake release.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking powder, baking soda together.
In the bowl of your electric mixer, beat butter and brown sugar together until creamy. Add molasses and eggs. Beat until well combined. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides.
With the mixer on low, add the flour alternately with the water. (I add 1/3 flour, 1/2 water, 1/3 flour, 1/2 water, and final 1/3 flour.) Mix well between each addition. Stop mixer and scrape sides, mix again to combine everything.
Pour into prepared cake pans. Bake for 27 to 32 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean or with dry crumbs. Cool on a wire rack.
Cool cake in pans for 10 minutes before inverting on wire racks to cool completely.

In a medium mixing bowl, beat cream cheese with butter until combined.
Add maple syrup, vanilla, and cinnamon. Beat on low until well combined.
With the mixer on low add the powdered sugar one cup at a time. Mix until well combined and creamy before adding the next cup of sugar. If it starts to get too thick to be spreadable you can cut back on the sugar or you can add a little whole milk or (I prefer) heavy cream.