A New and Improved Spice Cake Recipe
My super moist and incredibly flavorful spice cake recipe is a favorite around here. It’s rich with all the cozy flavors of the season, and it’s also super easy to make! I love the simplicity of tossing everything in a 9×13 pan and frosting it right in the pan once it’s baked and cooled. Easy and delicious! I think what differentiates this cake from other spiced cakes like my pumpkin cake is (besides the lack of pumpkin) cloves; this spice provides a more cozy flavor than your traditional pumpkin spice. It’s an autumn dessert with a subtle reminder that Winter’s right around the corner! Some of you may recognize this cake, and that’s because it’s not totally new to the blog. I personally loved the original version of this recipe, but a number of commenters had issues with the cake sinking in on itself. I want everyone to have success, so I went back to the drawing board and modified the recipe to be essentially foolproof and sink-proof (in fact, if you make this as a layer cake you will have to level the top as it domes!). This version maintains all the flavors and texture of the original, but without sinking (and I like this one even more than the original!).
What You Need
While many versions of this cake include apple sauce, this is a spice cake recipe without applesauce. Instead, you’ll need:
Dark brown sugar. The strong molasses flavor in dark brown sugar really amps up the flavor of this cake and makes it taste a bit festive.Spices. You can’t have spice cake without spices! I use cinnamon, ginger, allspice, clove, and nutmeg.Melted butter. Just like in my yellow cake recipe, we’ll be using melted butter today. This method of adding melted butter to the dry ingredients and sugar (rather than beating softened butter and sugar together first, which would be traditional creaming) is essentially the reverse creaming method, and makes mixing super easy (and the cake very buttery!). You’ll want to let your butter cool until it’s no longer warm to the touch. Oil. We’ll also be using oil in addition to butter to make sure the spice cake is nice and moist.Sour cream. I’ve been loving this powerhouse ingredient in my cake recipes recently, it makes the cake tender, moist, and so flavorful (without imparting any sour flavor!). You could substitute this with plain, full-fat Greek yogurt.
What we’re not using: As mentioned, my spice cake recipe doesn’t use applesauce. While we do benefit from the molasses flavor of the dark brown sugar, we also don’t use straight molasses. Doing so would make this cake less of a spice one and more of a gingerbread, which misses the mark on the complex flavors I was aiming for here. SAM’S TIP: This spice cake recipe can be made in a 13×9 pan OR as a layer cake. In fact, there’s enough batter you could even make this a three layer cake; just reduce the baking time! Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Spice Cake
SAM’S TIP: I use the reverse creaming technique (or a method that’s akin to it, anyway) for my spice cake recipe, which ultimately makes this a one bowl recipe. This method results in a tighter, plush crumb that’s still super soft and melt-in-your mouth with buttery undertones. If you were a big fan of my original spice cake recipe–don’t fret! I linked the original in the recipe card below. Enjoy! Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
Related Recipes
