There is something magical about Christmas. Despite the cold, dark winter days, there is magic and cheer in the air. Carolling carolers, lights twinkling, children cheering and bakers baking.
Baking is wonderful at any time of the year but it’s especially charming during the holiday period.
The spice cake with pretty little ginger bread houses is like all christmas baking dreams come true!
I decorated the cake with gingerbread biscuits but you can decorate it any way you want. If you want to bake these gingerbread cookies, I have a lovely recipe here.
I used a lingonberry jam in this cake but it’s equally good with cranberry or strawberry jam. And you can use any combination of spices that you like.
I hope you do make this lovely christmas cake. If you do make it, please tag me on instagram @incredible.kitchen
Happy baking and merry christmas!
Ingredients
Cake
- 100 gram butter salted or unsalted, room temperature
- 180 gram plain flour all purpose flour (USA), maida (India)
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/2 tbsp cinnamon powder
- 1/2 tbsp ginger powder
- 1/2 tsp green cardamom freshly ground
- 1 tsp cloves freshly ground
- 1 eggs
- 180 gram sugar any kind other than frosting sugar
- 125 ml sour cream can replace with plain yogurt
- 150 ml lingonberry jam can replace with cranberry jam or apple jam
Frosting
- 100 gram butter salted or unsalted
- 125 gram powdered sugar frosting sugar
- 150 gram cream cheese
- 1 tbsp orange zest
Instructions
Bake Cake
- Pre heat the oven to 175C. Prepare a 6inch round pan by greasing it and flouring it
- Mix together flour, baking soda, salt and all the spice powders and set it aside
- Mix together eggs and sugar and beat until it's light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. Eggs become white when beaten for a lenght of time
- Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture and then add in butter. Mix until the batter is completely smooth
- Mix in the sour cream and lingonberry jam; make sure that it's not streaky but do not beat too much
- Add the batter to the cake pan and bake until the skewer comes out clean; about 30-35 minutes
- Cool the cake in a pan for about ten minutes and then take it out and cool on a metal wire rack. Once it's completely cool, wrap it in cling wrap or aluminium foil and put it in the freezer for half hour. A cold cake is easy to slice
Make Frosting
- Beat together butter and powdered sugar until it's pale and fluffy about 3-4 minutes. Butter will change colour from yellow to white when it's beaten for a length of time
- Add in cream cheese and beat until the mix is smooth
- Divide the frosting in two parts, one portion slightly bigger than the other one. Add the orange zest to the smaller portion and fold it in
Assemble
- Slice the cake into two equal halves
- Use the smaller portion of the frosting (one with orange zest). Add a thick layer of frosting between the two layers and then cover the whole cake with a layer of frosting. Place the cake in fridge for about 15-20 minutes. This process is called crumb coating as it will make sure that the crumbs are contained within the first layer and the cake will have a smooth outer layer
- Take the cake out of the fridge and cover it with second layer of frosting.
- Once you have finished adding the frosting and the layer is as smooth as possible, have a hot pan of water handy. Dip the spatula in the hot water, dry it using a clean cloth or napkin and then smooth the frosting. Do this couple of times until you have a smooth frosting all over the cake. You can leave this step out if you want to go in for rustic-looking frosting
- Decorate the cake with gingerbread house cookies
Notes
