Don’t let the simplicity of these cakes fool you! These Gingerbread Mini Loaf Cakes with Lemon Glaze are filled with all of the flavors of Christmas! Add these festive cakes to your holiday dessert table this season. Also, if you are looking for a nice homemade gift for friends and neighbors this Christmas, these cakes would be perfect!
What creates the flavors of gingerbread in these mini loaf cakes?
Gingerbread is not just a single flavor but usually includes a combination of winter spices, ginger, and molasses to create the flavor that we all know and love as gingerbread! For this cake, we wanted to keep the flavors fairly straightforward and simply used ground ginger, dark brown sugar, and molasses. The cake is not overpowering with spices which can often be off-putting in some gingerbread cookie or cake recipes. This version is true to its gingerbread name, but isn't going to send you on a spice dive. We know you will love it!
Making the Lemon Glaze
The lemon glaze is a very simple recipe that can be used on a variety of cakes and cookies, but really complements these Gingerbread Mini Loaf Cakes. Adding lemon juice to confectioners sugar (powdered sugar) results in a nice thick icing or glaze. We like to keep our glaze on the thicker side so that it looks like snow cover the cakes, but you can easily modify the glaze to a thinner consistency by adding more lemon, or a splash of milk.
Enjoy!
We hope you enjoy this recipe for Gingerbread Mini Loaf Cakes with Lemon Glaze this holiday season! If you give these a try, leave us a comment below or tag us on Instagram @cooking_with_wine!
Recipe developed in collaboration with Chef Vanessa Wilson-Watson
Looking for more holiday recipes? Check these out!
- Peppermint Chocolate Bourbon Bundtlettes
- Brown Butter and Pecan Rum Cake
- Hazelnut Hot Buttered Rum – A Holiday Treat
- Brown Butter Cardamom Linzer Cookies with Passion Fruit Jelly
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📖 Recipe
Gingerbread Mini Loaf Cakes with Lemon Glaze
Ingredients
For the Mini Loaf Cakes
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup plus 1 tablespoon whole milk
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- ½ cup dark muscovado sugar (or dark brown sugar)
- 5 tablespoon light corn syrup
- 5 tablespoon molasses
- 1 large egg
For the icing
- 1 ¼ cups confection sugar, sifted
- 4 to 5 teaspoon fresh lemon juice (2-3 lemons needed)
Garnish
- Zest of 1-2 lemons
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325F
- Sift the flour and ginger together into a large mixing bowl and set side.
- Measure 1 tablespoon of the milk into a small bowl and stir in the baking soda
- Pour the remaining milk, along with the oil, sugar, corn syrup and molasses into a bowl and stir to combine thoroughly. Next pour the liquid mixture into the dry flour mixture and add the egg followed by the milk and baking soda mixture.
- Mix thoroughly into a smooth, thick batter.
- Grease your mini loaf pans (we use Baker's Joy), or brush with butter and line with parchment for easy removal.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Let your mini loaf cakes cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn the cakes out and transfer to a wired cooling rack to cool completely,
- Finally, mix the confectioners’ sugar with enough lemon juice to make a thick pouring consistency.
- Once the cake is cool, drizzle the icing over the cake to finish and add the zest for garnish.
Marsha Ramsdell says
Hello Vanessa, et. al., I am all ready set up in the kitchen to make this tonight but I don't have mini loaves. First, is there another pan that I could use? Second, what is the true size of a mini loaf? Thanks. 🎄
Angela and Mark says
Hello Marsha,
Thanks for your questions! The mini loaf pans we use are 5 3/4" X 3 1/4" (holding about 2 cups of batter). You can make these in different pans, from a large loaf pan to a bundt pan or even cupcake or muffin pans, but you will need to watch the baking time and add more or less time for bigger or smaller pan sizes. Use the toothpick method to test for doneness until the toothpick comes out clean. Enjoy!