November 29, 2018
Gingerbread Drip Cake!
*This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure for more details!*
A three-layer gingerbread drip cake with gingerbread sponges, gingerbread buttercream frosting, and all sorts!
Gingerbread drip cake
Oh, heyyyyy, the ULTIMATE gingerbread Christmas showstopper of all cakes! This utterly gorgeous gingerbread drip cake with beautiful gingerbread flavoured sponges, and gingerbread flavoured buttercream frosting, and all the delicious extras like chocolate ginger christmas trees, and a chocolate drip. Has this description caught your attention? It should have. It’s INSANE.
Anyway. I wanted to do a drip cake this year, which was as Christmassy as you can get, and I had so many ideas. Of course, those ideas were a tad too elaborate, or just not something that I fancied doing. However, all gingerbread recipes have ended up being the most popular things ever on my blog this year, I thought why not do a gingerbread drip cake?! Two birds with one stone and all that.
Cake
I do have a DELICIOUS gingerbread cake recipe on here, and its epic. However, it’s not the easiest of cakes, and it’s so rich and perfect as it is. I wanted to make a simpler sponge, such as my other drip cakes have, but gingerbread flavoured. I went for a Victoria Sponge style cake, with dark brown sugar to get a slightly more ‘treacle’ like taste. Then, with the added spices of ground ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg in, you had a winner.
Frosting
For the buttercream frosting, I decided to go for all things spicy as well. Ground ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg again. You can add in allspice to the cake or the frosting, but I didn’t have any, and it tasted grand without it. The best way to make buttercream is just regular, normal, unsalted butter that comes wrapped in foil. The kind that is rock solid when you buy it as its cold, but is great at room temperature!
Sprinkles
When I did my yearly festive order from Iced Jems for all things Christmas themed, she had some BEAUTIFUL gingerbread sprinkles that I just couldn’t resist using on the decoration, just look at them! They’re so cute and so mini and I love them all. Anything cute and I am THERE. Honestly though, who knew sprinkles could be so darn cute?!
3D Christmas trees!
The 3D Christmas tree moulds are probably one of my favourite things I have ever bought from Iced Jems, because just look at them. I realise, they may look a little out of place in the gingerbread world, but I flavoured the chocolate itself with ground ginger and then spritzed them with edible glitter. I wanted to make my cake a little bit more special, and I feel like it worked well.
Tips and advice
I often get comments about how I get my cakes so flat, and often it’s just baking the cake. I realise this sounds like a bit of an odd thing to say, but it really is! Personally, I don’t line the sides of my tins as I can’t be bothered, and the cakes aren’t too deep. I also just use cheap tins from Asda for my sponges, and then if they are a bit domed after baking, I cool them upside down on a wire rack.
I never believe in cutting cake off to make them flat, and at the same time, I’ve never tried anything like baking strips because it is possible to get flatter cakes. If you have a giant dome in the middle, or it sinks, you have messed up an ingredient or two, or messed with the oven slightly. Using dark brown sugar or light brown sugar make the sponges slightly differently textured in my opinion, and it often helps for a flatter bake as well!
Gingerbread decoration
As you can probably tell from the images, I just used shop bought mini gingerbread men because I definitely didn’t have the time or momentum inside to bake these myself this time. I don’t think there is anything wrong in this, because often making a homemade gingerbread men recipe, it can be delicious, but you make far too many for just one cake! Also, the shop bought gingerbread men are cute and perfectly sized.
Handy tools!
The absolute key star of creating this recipe, however, is a cake scraper. Honestly, my life was saved when using these to make drip cakes. Using a scraper makes life SO MUCH EASIER when smoothing the edges all at once. You can use an angled spatula like this if you want, but you won’t get as neat a finish as I have. However, I do use the angled spatula to help me put the buttercream on in the first place.
I hope you love this recipe as much as I did! Enjoy! x
Gingerbread Drip Cake!
Ingredients
Cake Ingredients
- 400 g unsalted butter
- 400 g dark brown sugar
- 400 g self raising flour
- 8 medium eggs
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp nutmeg
Buttercream Ingredients
- 350 g unsalted butter (not stork)
- 700 g icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp nutmeg
Drip Ingredients
- 100 g dark chocolate
- 2 tsp sunflower oil
Extras
- 100 g dark chocolate
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- Edible glitter
- Gingerbread sprinkles
- Christmas sprinkles
Instructions
For the Cake!
- Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan, and line three 20cm/8" tins with parchment paper.
- Beat together your butter and augar until light and fluffy.
- Add in your flour, eggs, and spices! Beat until smooth and yummy.
- Split evenly between the three tins, and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes (or until baked through)
- Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, and then on a wire rack to cool fully.
For the Buttercream!
- Make sure your butter is at room temperature.
- Beat your butter until smooth and supple.
- Add in the vanilla extract, and the spices, and beat in.
- Gradually add in the icing sugar and beat again until smooth!
- If it's really too stiff, add in 1tbsp boiling water at a time till you get your desired consistency. However, make sure to beat the ingredients for at least five minutes first as it doesn't always need it!
For the Decoration!
- Get your first sponge on a board and secure with a smidge of the buttercream underneath. Add on 1-2tbsp of buttercream and smooth over.
- Add on the second sponge and repeat, and then add on the third sponge.
- Smother the sides and top in a thin layer of buttercream to seal it and make the edges smooth, and leave to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes or 10 minutes in the fridge.
- Once dried/set, you have done your crumb coat.
- Add on more buttercream all over the cake, and smooth round with a large cake scraper, and keep any you scrape off.
- Melt your 100g of dark chocolate for the drip, and mix in the oil if using. Carefully drip down the sides of the cake with a small disposable piping bag with the end snipped off.
- Leave the drip to set for 10 minutes or so.
- Whilst the drip is setting, make any extra decorations if using - I used 100g of dark chocolate mixed with 1tsp of ground ginger melted together and set in a Christmas tree shape mould in the fridge until solid.
- Once the drip is set, pipe on your leftover buttercream in swirls using your favourite piping tip, and add a gingerbread man per swirl.
- Also, sprinkle on your favourite Christmas sprinkles, and add your chocolate ginger Christmas trees to the centre.
- Spritz with edible glitter, and enjoy!
Notes
- For this recipe, I used (affiliate links)
- This cake will last for 3-4 days, at room temperature. It doesn't need to keep in the fridge.
- The sponges can be made the day before if wrapped in clingfilm overnight.
- The cinnamon and nutmeg are optional, but enhance the ginger flavour!
- I wouldn't recommend milk chocolate for the drip as it can often be too thin and look watery, but if you do, don't add anything to it.
- Do not use a spread/stork for the buttercream, it'll be too runny.
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J x
© Jane’s Patisserie. All images & content are copyright protected. Do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words and credit me, or link back to this post for the recipe.
Emergency assistance please, I baked the sponges yesterday ready to ice for a birthday this evening, but the event has been cancelled due to family illness. Can I freeze them ????
For sure! Wrap well in clingfilm x
Hello!
Firstly, thank you, you’ve helped me discover a real love for baking and creating some amazing cakes for family and friends. This is next on my list and I cannot wait!
I was wondering why this drip is chocolate and oil rather than chocolate and cream?
What would be your advice on ingredients for a two layer 9 inch square cake please?
Hi.
I would really love to make this cake for my birthday at the weekend but don’t have three tins! If I wanted to change it into a four layer cake instead could I increase flour/butter/sugar to 500g add another egg and split it between two deep tins?
If I did this how much would I increase the cooking time to?
Thanks ☺️
Hey
If I wanted to use large eggs for this cake how many would I need? I wouldn’t to practise a drip cake and I have majority off these ingredients as I know its random making gingerbread one in spring!
Thank you 🙂
Hey! Weigh them in their shells and get as close to 400g as possible and then match the butter, sugar and flour to that weight xx
Hi Jane,
I absolutely LOVE your recipes; you have taught me how to bake after many years of failed cakes!
I’m making this cake for Christmas, but was wondering if it would work the same as cupcakes?
Yes it would!! I usually use a 150g/3 egg mix for 12 cupcakes instead of 400g like this cake is x
Hi Jane
Could I use this cake as cupcakes? Would 1/3 be enough or 2/3 thanks x
I would imagine 1/3 xx
Hi can i substitute the sugar for light brown sugar
Yes!
Hi Jane! How do you 2/3 of the recipe, do you just do two thirds of for example 400g? Xx
Hey! Yes basically, if you only have 2/3 of the bake, do 2/3 of the recipe (and only do 2 layers, so the baking time stays the same!)
I just wondered if this recipe is an all same weight recipe? If not, how much flour, sugar and butter would i use for 6 eggs?
You would use 300g!
Hi Jane how do you do 2/3 of the recipe, do you just do for example two thirds of 400g? Xx
What make mini gingerbread men do you use? I can’t seem to find them in my local Tesco
The seasonal aisle.. I’ve bought them in Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys and so on!
This looks amazing 😍.. how can I adapt the recipie/ baking time to make cupcakes please? Thanks
Where do you get the gingerbread men and the tiny men sprinkles from?
Gingerbread men is tesco, sprinkles are linked on the post! x
How do I adapt for a 6” tin
It’s a very deep cake in the 8″ so you could probably get away with halving it and splitting between two 6″ tins!
Can I adapt this recipe to make 2 layers instead of 3
Use 2/3 of the recipe and follow the same method 🙂 X