gluten free chocolate gingerbread cake

I love Christmas baking and all, but let’s be honest – gingerbread blows. Sure the spices are intoxicating and decorating them is a hoot (so long as you’re with good friends, drinking wine and don’t have to clean up after yourself). But the taste? Meh. My Christmas gift to you is this divine gluten-free chocolate gingerbread cake adapted from Nigella’s full-on wheat recipe. Unlike gingerbread cookies, this baby is moist and the chocolate adds a rich depth, making it a very decadent treat.

What I love most about this recipe that you just melt everything on the stove, then tip in a bit of “flour,” making your clean up minimal. Enjoy!

Gluten-free Chocolate Gingerbread Cake

  • Not quite a full cup butter – around 7/8 of a cup (or 175g)
  • Not quite 3/4 cup brown sugar (or 125g)
  • 2 tablespoons white sugar
  • 3/4 cup maple syrup (or 200g golden corn syrup). If I’m running low on maple syrup I sub in brown rice syrup to top up, and that works just fine.
  • 2/3 cup molasses
  • 1/4 teaspoon cloves
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 2 teaspoons ground ginger
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
  • 2 tablespoons warm water
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 cups all purpose gluten-free flour (I use Cup 4 Cup)
  • 2/3 cup cocoa
  • 3/4 cup chocolate chips
  1. Preheat over to 350 and grease a rectangular shaped baking pan.
  2. Melt the butter, sugars, syrup, molasses and spices in a good size saucepan on the stove.
  3. Mix the baking soda with the warm water in a cup.
  4. Once the butter has melted, take the pot off the heat and beat in the eggs, milk and baking soda in the water.
  5. Stir in the flour and cocoa until well mixed.
  6. Add in the chocolate chips and pour into your baking pan.
  7. Bake for 1 hour to an hour and 20 minutes.

*Note: You can sub in regular white flour for the GF flour and your cooking time will be reduced to about 50 minutes. With GF flour, it takes longer, so you’ll want to check that the center has set before taking it out of the oven.

Chocolate Ginger Icing

  • 2 1/3 cup sifted icing sugar
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1 tablespoon cocoa
  • 1/4 cup ginger ale
  1. Heat the butter, cocoa and ginger ale on the stovetop.
  2. Whisk in the icing sugar bit by bit once the butter has melted. (Don’t worry if you get some clumps, just try to work them out as best you can. You won’t notice it on the cake.)
  3. Pour the icing over the cake and let set before cutting.

Do you like gingerbread, fruitcake or mince pies? If yes, are you, like 80 or just British? Just kidding (kind of). I’d love to hear if you have a favourite Christmas baking recipe you make every year.

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