Southern Living Gingerbread Bundt Cake on a cake plate ready to serve — Photo:
Molly Bolton

What if we told you you could pack the flavor of Christmas into one irresistible, perfectly tender, crowd-pleasing gingerbread Bundt cake? Good news—we did!

Full of deep flavor from a combination of molasses, brown sugar, and warm spices, this gingerbread Bundt cake is sure to satisfy your sweet tooth and put you in the festive spirit. This cake is soft, moist, and perfectly spiced. As with most Bundt cakes, it comes together easily and is sure to impress, making it perfect for holiday gatherings. For the finishing touch, we topped our gingerbread Bundt cake with a cream cheese-amaretto glaze and decorated with sparkly sugared cranberries.

Learn how to make gingerbread Bundt cake, and get everyone who enjoys a slice in the festive holiday spirit.

Ingredients for Gingerbread Bundt Cake

This Bundt cake is a baker's dream. You'll get to use all those warming spices you have in your cupboard but rarely use. After all, gingerbread is all about the spice. Here's what you'll need:

Butter: Unsalted butter is best, but if you use salted, don't add the additional salt later.
Light brown sugar and granulated sugar: Both add sweetness and flavor. You can use dark brown sugar instead of the light, but since you'll also be adding molasses, it may have a stronger molasses flavor than intended.
Eggs: Two are needed for the proper cake structure.
Molasses: Skip the blackstrap molasses, and look for light or dark unsulphured molasses instead. Blackstrap is just too bitter for this cake.
Vanilla extract: This essential ingredient elevates all the flavors of the cake.
All-purpose flour: For the right texture, crumb, and density, all-purpose flour is the best bet.
Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves: The warming spices really show out in this cake.
Baking powder and baking soda: Both leaveners help this cake rise beautifully during baking.
Sour cream: Sour cream reacts with the leaveners to give the cake lift.
Milk: For added moisture and to bring the whole batter together.

Southern Living Gingerbread Bundt Cake ingredients — Molly Bolton

For the cream cheese glaze, you'll need cream cheese, unsalted butter, powdered sugar, amaretto liqueur, and milk. If you don't want to use the amaretto, substitute 1 tablespoon milk. Finish the decoration of this beautiful cake with Sugared Cranberries.

What is amaretto liqueur?

A sweet Italian liqueur, amaretto has the flavor of almonds with a hint of citrus.

Southern Living Gingerbread Bundt Cake glaze ingredients — Molly Bolton

How To Make Gingerbread Bundt Cake

The beauty of a Bundt cake is that the recipes are fairly basic. This one is no exception. The elaborate pan does the work of making the cake extra magical.

The full recipe is further below, with step-by-step photos to guide you, but here's a brief recap to get you started:

Step 1. Make the cake batter: You'll start by creaming the butter and sugars. Add the molasses, eggs, and extract. Mix the dry ingredients together. Then incorporate the dry ingredients with the wet.
Step 2. Bake the cake: Using a Bundt cake coated with cooking spray with flour, bake the Bundt cake until a pick inserted comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for a few minutes, then flip the cake from the pan and cool completely.
Step 3. Make and add the glaze: The cream cheese glaze shouldn't go on the cake until it's completely cool. Finish with a garnish like sugared cranberries. Sprinkles are adorable if you're planning to serve to kids.

How To Serve Gingerbread Bundt Cake

Of course we think the cream cheese glaze is the perfect way to serve gingerbread Bundt cake, but if that glaze isn't your thing, try another like maple glaze (from our Pumpkin Bundt Cake recipe) or a creamy vanilla glaze. If you're not a fan of glazes altogether, a dusting of powdered sugar is a perfect way to finish this cake.

Tips for the Best Bundt Cakes

Bundt cakes are a delightful kind of cake: The intricate pans makes them look elegant and elevated, but they're usually quite easy to make. Of course, there are a few tricks to getting the perfect Bundt every time:

Don't forget to grease the pan: A Bundt cake pan that is not well greased is absolutely not going to let go of the cake. Follow recipe instructions to grease (or grease and flour) the pan before you add the batter.
Don't grease too early: If you add the grease or butter to the pan and then have to mix ingredients for a while, the grease might slide down the pan's sides and pool at the bottom. It will be ineffective on the sides, so aim to prepare the pan with spray just before you add the batter.
Let cool slightly: Don't be in a big hurry to flip that Bundt cake pan upside down. The cake needs to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes so it can begin to pull away from the sides.

How To Store Gingerbread Bundt Cake

Because of the cream cheese frosting, this cake will need to be kept refrigerated. (If you use a glaze that doesn't have any dairy, it can sit at room temperature up to 3 days.)

Store the cake in an airtight container up to 5 days in the fridge. When you're ready to enjoy more cake, get yourself a new slice, and let it sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes before you take a bite so it has a chance to warm up and the spices will be more pronounced.

More Gingerbread Recipes

At the holidays, pumpkin and peppermint get all the attention, but we think gingerbread deserves more respect. Try one of these gingerbread recipes next:

Old-Fashioned Gingerbread
Gingerbread Cookies
Gingerbread Layer Cake
Gingerbread Cake Rolls With Eggnog Cream
Chocolate-Gingerbread Toffee Cake
Chocolate Gingerbread Wreath Cookies

Ingredients

Cake:

Baking spray with flour
1 cup (8 oz.) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup molasses
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground allspice
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
3/4 cup sour cream, at room temperature
3/4 cup whole milk, at room temperature

Cream Cheese Glaze:

4 oz. cream cheese, softened to room temperature
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1 Tbsp. amaretto liqueur (or 1 Tbsp. milk)
2 Tbsp. milk, plus more as needed
Sugared cranberries (optional)

Directions

Prepare oven and Bundt pan:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 10 to 12-cup Bundt pan with baking spray with flour.
Cream butter and sugar:

Add the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 5 to 6 minutes, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl halfway through and again at the end.

Molly Bolton

Mix in the eggs, one at a time, being sure that the first is fully incorporated before adding the next. Mix in the molasses and vanilla extract until smooth, then scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl once more.

Molly Bolton
Combine dry ingredients:

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, baking powder, salt, baking soda, allspice, and cloves; set aside.

Molly Bolton
Mix milk and sour cream:

In another bowl or glass measuring cup, whisk the sour cream and milk together until smooth.

Molly Bolton
Finish cake batter:

Beginning and ending with the flour mixture, alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk mixture to the batter, mixing on low speed until just combined after each addition. Be careful not to overmix. Use a rubber spatula to gently fold the batter a few times to ensure that all ingredients are evenly incorporated.

Molly Bolton
Bake the cake:

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and gently smooth the top. Firmly tap the pan on the countertop a few times to release any air bubbles.

Molly Bolton

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until a cake tester or wooden skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool for 10 minutes in the pan before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Molly Bolton
Prepare glaze:

Using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese and butter together until combined and creamy. Add the powdered sugar, amaretto, and 2 tablespoons milk to the bowl and mix on medium-high speed until smooth and combined. Add more milk as necessary, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the glaze reaches a drizzling consistency.

Molly Bolton

Spoon over the cooled cake. Garnish with sugared cranberries, if desired.