Real gingerbread is not a cookie—it’s a delicious and moist spiced bread that’s quite a bit healthier than other cakes or bread you typically see. It’s made with real molasses, cloves, and cinnamon, and is both flavorful and filling. And homemade gingerbread will be a special treat for your family and guests–much better than any store-bought sugar-filled cake from the grocery store.
If you love this recipe, try these next time!
- Oatmeal-Chunk Cookie
- Best Pumpkin Pie Recipe
- Cream Puffs with White Chocolate Glaze and Dark Chocolate Cream Filling
Gingerbread Recipe (with Gingerbread Icing)
Gingerbread Recipe (with Gingerbread Icing) – for the Holidays or Anytime
Gingerbread Ingredients:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 cup melted butter
- 1 cup molasses
- 1 egg
- 1 cup buttermilk ((mix 1 teaspoon lemon juice and enough skim milk to make 1 cup))
- 1 Recipe for Gingerbread Icing
Gingerbread Frosting Ingredients:
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 1/2 pint heavy whipping cream
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tsp genuine vanilla extract
Gingerbread Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large mixing bowl, stir together all dry ingredients.
- In the middle of the dry mixture, make a depression down to the bottom of the bowl. Pour molasses into the depression, then add the egg and whip together (by hand), avoiding disturbing the surrounding dry mixture as much as possible. Add remaining ingredients to liquid mixture and mix well. Finally, blend liquid and dry ingredients together.
- Pour into well-greased 8″x8″ pan and cook for 50 minutes.
- Allow to cool until slightly warm before serving. Top with gingerbread frosting, if desired.
- *Only add frosting just before serving, as the whipped cream tends to melt rapidly when applied to warm gingerbread.
- (Note: make sure to use the right size pan, if at all possible. I didn’t have an 8″x8″ pan handy, so tried a pie dish–which turned out to be less than ideal. The gingerbread needed more vertical pan height than available in the pie dish–and as a result, the edges of the gingerbread grew up too far and fell over a bit. This didn’t affect the rising of the gingerbread, or the flavor, but it did allow the edges to receive too much direct heat from the oven and become a bit overdone. As an easy fix, I plucked off the tough edges (and ate them!), then covered with the gingerbread frosting. And no one was the wiser.)
Gingerbread Frosting Directions
- In a deep bowl that’s been chilled in advance, whip the whipping cream on high speed with mixer until it peaks.
- Transfer to separate bowl.
- Place cream cheese in bowl and whip on high speed with mixer for about 2 minutes.
- Add sugar and vanilla, and mix to blend well.
- Add whipped cream back in and beat on high for 1 minute.
- Cover and refrigerate until ready to apply to gingerbread.