Gingerbread Bundt Cake

A beautiful Gingerbread Bundt Cake deliciously spiced with a sticky texture. It's perfect for the festive season and is sure to become a beloved family favourite.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Substitutions
• The bundt tin
• How to make it
• Tips for Gingerbread Bundt Cake Success
• Variations
• Storage and make ahead
• More festive recipes
• Recipe

In my kitchen, Christmas baking always involves plenty of gingerbread in one form or another. You will find me making oodles of Gingerbread men to put into cookie gift boxes. And these delightful Gingerbread Cupcakes are also brilliant for the holiday season.

There's nothing quite like a very special and beautiful bundt cake, though. I absolutely love making bundt cakes because they really have the show-stopping wow factor making them excellent centrepieces.

Plus, they are super simple to make. Gingerbread bundt cake is no exception.

Baking the best gingerbread cake is as easy as melting the wet ingredients and sugar together then pouring them into the dry ingredients and mixing together!

This cake is dense and sticky just like gingerbread should be. If you're looking for a light cake, then this is not for you. The flavour reminds me of a shop-bought Jamaica Ginger Cake that we used to have when we were kids. It's a sticky cake/pudding made by McVities and you can still buy it although I haven't eaten it in years.

My version isn't claggy like the Jamaica cake and won't stick to the roof of your mouth when you eat it! This is the texture of proper old school cake; sticky, dense and intensely flavoured, there's nothing quite like perfect ginger cake.

I decided to leave this Gingerbread bundt cake unadorned other than a mere sprinkling of icing sugar. You could add a more substantial frosting if you want to. Lemon or orange would work particularly well.

Ingredients

• Unsalted butter - it doesn't need to be softened as it's melted along with the other wet ingredients and sugar. The butter adds a richness to the cake. You can use salted if you prefer.
• Black treacle - here in the UK black treacle is easily found in supermarkets. In the US, it's called molasses. Look for un-sulphured molasses NOT Blackstrap.
• Golden syrup - again golden syrup is very common in UK supermarkets and we use it in our baking a lot. I often get comments from US readers asking about it. The closest thing to golden syrup in the US is maple syrup. You could also use dark corn syrup but it is sweeter than golden syrup. Or you could try making your own following this recipe from Bigger Bolder Baking. In a pinch, you can double the amount of black treacle/molasses although you will end up with a denser, less sticky cake.
• Dark muscovado sugar - for it's deep, roasted flavour.
• Eggs - use room temperature large eggs.
• Milk - for the best results use full fat cow's milk.
• Plain flour - to control the rise of the cake and texture of the crumb. Use all-purpose flour if you're in the US and not cake flour.
• Bicarbonate of soda - reacts with the acidity of the black treacle and golden syrup giving this bundt cake a perfect, even rise.
• Spices - A mixture of ground ginger, ground cinnamon and mixed spice is the perfect combination of spice for warm gingerbread.
• Icing sugar - A light dusting for decoration or leave the baked cake plain if you prefer.

Substitutions

• Dark muscovado can be substituted with any dark or light brown sugar although muscovado has a stronger flavour. You can also use white sugar but I would recommend you double the quantity of treacle/molasses and omit the golden syrup.
• Use a thumb-sized piece of grated fresh ginger in place of ground ginger.
• Black treacle is molasses in the US.
• Golden syrup can be substituted with maple syrup or dark corn syrup.
• To make this gingerbread bundt cake vegan, switch the butter and milk to dairy-free versions and use 2 flaxseed eggs (1 tbsp ground flaxseed to 3 tbsp lukewarm water per egg).

The bundt tin

Bundt cakes are really beautiful to look at, I have amassed quite a collection of bundt tins over the years and I can not stress enough how much difference it makes using a well-made tin.

In my opinion, the best quality bundt tins are made by Nordicware. This particular cake was made in the (affiliate link) Heritage Bundt Pan. The dimensions are 25.7 x 25.7 x 9.5 cm and it has a 10-cup capacity.

How to make it

Prepare your bundt tin by brushing it with a combination of butter and flour or use my preferred method of (affiliate link) Wilton Cake Release. This has never failed me and I've never had a cake stick!

Preheat the oven to 160ºC Fan/180ºC/Gas 4/350ºF

Step One: Put the butter, treacle, golden syrup and sugar into a medium-sized pan.

Step Two: Melt over low heat until the ingredients have dissolved and you're left with a dark brown, smooth runny mixture. Lightly whisk the eggs then tip them into the mixture along with the milk. Mix until thoroughly combined and uniform in colour. Set aside.

Step Three: Sieve the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices into a mixing bowl.

Step Four: Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well.

The batter is very runny so don't be alarmed or tempted to add more flour!

Step Five: Pour the gingerbread batter into the bundt tin. Bake in the centre of the preheated oven for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Step Six: Remove from the oven and cool completely in the pan before attempting to turn it out. When the bundt pan feels cool to the touch, invert it onto a serving plate or cake stand and dust the cooled cake with icing sugar.

Tips for Gingerbread Bundt Cake Success

• Sticky cakes are very prone to sinking because of the high proportions of sugar. You can eliminate problems by making sure you accurately measure the ingredients.
• I recommend you stick to the metric measurements and buy a scale. I have given cup measurements but it is so hard to be accurate with cups given the fact everyone measures differently with them. Please buy a scale!
• Be very careful with the bicarb, use too much and it will react very quickly causing the cake to rapidly rise and then sink. Likewise measure the treacle, golden syrup and sugar properly so that the proportions remain as written in the recipe.
• Ensure you grease the bundt tin with butter (or oil) and flour. Or use a shop-bought cake release as mentioned above. Inadequate greasing is the number one reason bundt cakes stick and lose their beautiful shape, so take care with it.
• You can check on the cake 30 minutes into the baking time, if it's looking too brown on top then cover it with tin foil for the remainder of the baking time.

Variations

• No bundt tin? No problem! Use a 20cm round tin or 18cm square tin instead and reduce the baking time to 40 minutes.
• If you fancy adding frosting instead of icing sugar then a simple lemon glaze like the one I use for this lemon drizzle cake would be perfect.
• Alternatively an orange flavoured cream cheese frosting would work really well. So check out the one I use in this Carrot Cake recipe.

Storage and make ahead

This gingerbread bundt cake will last at least 5 days so it is an excellent cake to bake ahead. Store it in an airtight container at room temperature.

It freezes really well, I cut it into individual slices, wrap in cling film and then tin foil. It can be frozen for up to 3 months. Defrost for an hour or so at room temperature.

More festive recipes