Gingerbread Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

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Another occasion for a celebration cake at work! I’ve picked up a couple of holiday baking magazines this season and Paula Deen’s magazine has some great looking things. There were a number of cakes in the magazine that I was deciding between, and I eventually decided on this gingerbread cake.

So I’m usually a good planner and have the ingredients on hand. My kitchen is fairly well stocked, so some things I just take for granted. Well, I thought I had everything and then realized that I didn’t have enough oil. Fine, I hadn’t really gotten too far so off to the store. I get oil and then proceed to make the cake, but then realize that I didn’t have enough molasses! Off to the store again. Some times when things start like this I think nothing but the worst.

The cake came together nicely. It was originally supposed to be baked in 3 9-inch pans, but I don’t have a third pan so I just made it in two. It had to bake longer than the 20 minutes that the original recipe called for, but that’s ok. This was also supposed to have a cranberry filling, but I wasn’t sure that everyone would like that, so I just made a double recipe of the frosting and used that for the filling. (I’ve given the ingredients for double the frosting here.)

I’m not so great at frosting cakes, but I think I did a good job with this cake. I just need more practice. My cakes always dome a bit on top and then when you put the layers together there are some empty spaces to fill in. This was a bit hit at work and it fed a lot of people. I will make this again, maybe with the cranberry filling. It was honestly so good that I’m not sure I want to change too much!

I cup vegetable oil

1 cup sugar

1 cup molasses

3 eggs

3-1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons ginger

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon lemon zest

½ teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon cloves

1-1/4 cups buttermilk

Frosting:

16 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 cup butter, softened

2 tablespoons orange zest

9 cups powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans.

In a large mixer bowl, mix oil, sugar, molasses and eggs. Beat on medium until combined.

In another bowl, mix flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, lemon zest, salt and cloves. Gradually add to the oil mixture, alternatively with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. (Add 1/3 the flour mixture, ½ the buttermilk, 1/3 more flour, ½ the buttermilk and end with the last 1/3 of the flour mixture.)

Pour into the prepared pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes and then remove from the pans to cool completely on a wire rack.

Make the frosting: cream together the cream cheese, butter and orange zest. Gradually add the powdered sugar until smooth. Fill and frost the cake.

Adapted from Paula Deen’s Holiday Baking