Recipe

Easy Gingerbread Snack Cake

Sorghum syrup, orange marmalade, and black pepper takes this spiced cake to the next level

A pan of brown cake with powdered sugar on top

Photo: America’s Test Kitchen


No human-shaped cookie cutters, no problem. This recipe, inspired by the gingerwomen of the South, swaps molasses for sorghum syrup, a sauce with a unique, buttery flavor that elevates this spiced cake to another level.

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Featuring black pepper and coffee blended with marmalade and cinnamon, the cake boasts a wonderfully complex flavor. But not just any marmalade will do. A bitter version, like Bonne Maman’s orange marmalade, is a better option than sweet. You’ll get back some of that sweetness when you lightly dust the top of the baked cake with confectioners’ sugar.

This dessert comes from When Southern Women Cook, a newly released compilation of  recipes inspired by the chefs and home cooks who shaped culinary traditions of the region. See other holiday recipes from the cookbook here and here.


Ingredients

  • Gingerbread Snack Cake (Yield: 10 to 12 servings)

    • 2¼ cups (11¼ oz.) all-purpose flour

    • 1 tsp. baking soda

    • 1 tsp. ground ginger

    • 1 tsp. ground cinnamon

    • ½ tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

    • ½ tsp. table salt

    • ½ tsp. pepper

    • ½ cup buttermilk

    • ½ cup room-temperature brewed coffee

    • ¼ cup orange marmalade

    • 8 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened

    • 1 cup (7 oz.) sugar

    • 3 large eggs

    • 2 tbsp. finely chopped crystallized ginger

    • 1 cup sweet sorghum syrup

    • ½ cup vegetable oil


Preparation

  1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 13-by-9-inch baking pan. Whisk flour, baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, cocoa, salt, and pepper together in a bowl. Whisk buttermilk, coffee, and marmalade in a second bowl until smooth.

  2. Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, beat butter and sugar on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs and crystallized ginger and beat until smooth. Add sorghum syrup and oil and beat until uniform.

  3. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture in 3 additions, scraping down bowl as needed, and mix until just combined. Add buttermilk mixture and mix until smooth. Give batter a final stir by hand. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth top with rubber spatula. Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes (cake will spring back when touched and sides will begin to come away from pan).

  4. Transfer pan to wire rack and let cake cool completely, about 3 hours. Cut into squares and serve.


Recipe courtesy of America’s Test Kitchen. All rights reserved. 

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Helen Bradshaw, a 2024 intern at Garden & Gun, is a native of Havana, Florida, and graduated from Northwestern University.


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