Spice Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting
Published Nov. 19, 2024
- Total Time
- About 1½ hours
- Prep Time
- 15 minutes
- Cook Time
- 40 minutes, plus 30 minutes’ cooling
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- ¾cup/180 milliliters vegetable or canola oil, plus more for the pan
- 1½lightly packed cups/300 grams light brown sugar
- 3large eggs
- 1½cups/360 milliliters buttermilk
- 4teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1tablespoon ground ginger
- ½teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- ¼teaspoon ground allspice
- ¼teaspoon ground cloves
- 1½teaspoons kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal)
- 2½cups/320 grams all-purpose flour
- 1½teaspoons baking powder
- ½teaspoon baking soda
- Cream Cheese Frosting
Preparation
- Step 1
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Oil a 9-by-13-inch metal baking pan and line it with a piece of parchment paper that hangs over the two long sides.
- Step 2
In a large bowl, whisk to thoroughly combine the oil, brown sugar, eggs, buttermilk, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, cloves and salt.
- Step 3
Add the flour, baking powder and baking soda and whisk until smooth. A few small lumps are OK.
- Step 4
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and spread it in an even layer. Bake until the cake is golden brown and a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes before using the parchment paper to lift it out and set on a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Step 5
While the cake cools, make the frosting.
- Step 6
Top the completely cooled cake with swoops and swirls of frosting and serve immediately, or cover and store at room temperature for 2 days (or a little longer in the fridge).
Private Notes
Comments
Perfect spice cake! Quick and easy, great texture. A half recipe fits well in an 8X8 pan. I had some salted caramel buttercream in the freezer so I topped it with that, but cream cheese frosting would also be delicious.
I baked it in a glass dish and it turned out great.
My mother used to make a cake exactly like this recipe, but she would add apples. Could I just add a diced apple (maybe dusted with flour)? Or do you think adjustments to the recipe would be needed?
I had lots of suggestions for changes for both the cake and the frosting, but they both got rave reviews. Next time, I want to try the only salted caramel frosting recipe I found on NYT Cooking, for an apple cake.
This is highly rated when so many reviews note it's bland and they wouldn't make this again. I agree that the cake itself is bland. The frosting is good, though I'm annoyed that it wasn't noted that you only need half of the recipe. I have a lot of frosting leftover, and cream cheese and butter aren't very cheap right now.
This was okay. I won’t make it again. Wanted to use up a carton of buttermilk, but this cake is kind of bland. The cream cheese frosting, however, is a keeper recipe for sure!