Gingerbread Cake

This is a take on the Starbuck Gingerbread Loaf, but the bonus is you don’t have to wait until Christmas to enjoy it!!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups plain flour

• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

• 3/4 teaspoon ground cloves

• 2 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 cup butter, softened

• 1 cup caster sugar

• 1 egg

• 1 cup apple sauce/puree

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 225 grams cream cheese, softened

• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract

• 2 1/2 cups icing sugar

Cake:

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees. Grease a loaf tin, and line with baking paper.

2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and salt - set aside.

3. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and mix well.

4. Mix the baking soda into the apple sauce. Stir into creamed butter mixture. Add the flour mixture and mix until smooth.

5. Scoop the batter into prepared cake tins.

6. Bake 40-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of cake comes out clean.

Frosting:

1. Beat the cream cheese until fluffy. Add vanilla. Slowly beat in icing sugar.

2. Once cake has cooled, evenly spread the frosting on top.

3. Once frosting has set, loosely cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

***This recipe also works well as cupcakes – bake for 22-25 minutes, and pipe frosting on top ***

**** Note: to adapt this recipe further into Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes, replace the apple puree with 1 cup of mashed pumpkin, and add a teaspoon of mixed spice ****