Moist, dark chocolate spice cake with gingerbread spice & cinnamon icing. A classic for the cold season that tastes simply great!
An aromatic, moist spice cake is one of my absolute standard baking repertoire during the cold season. Like Linzer Cake, it is easily made for fall and winter. Warms so beautifully from the inside - and always hits the spot.
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Taste and Occasion
This easy spice cake recipe with gingerbread spice is a mix of my classic chocolate cake and red wine cake. Since I love slightly moist cakes above all else, the spice cake must also be moist. It becomes moist through ground almonds and chopped or grated chocolate in the dough. The spice cake in the loaf pan also does well with ground hazelnuts or walnuts. For the decoration, you are flexible: Just dust with a bit of powdered sugar and cover with chocolate icing or cinnamon icing. All guaranteed delicious - I speak from experience!
Ingredients
There is either ready-made gingerbread spice in the dough and the icing - or your unique mixture. I especially like Grandma's spice cake with cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, vanilla, and some pepper. Spekulatius spice is also pleasing 😉 . Or, a little fewer wintry-Christmas, easy just cinnamon.
How to make the Chocolate Spice Cake
First of all, preheat the oven to 360°F/180°C. Grease a large loaf pan (approx. 11-12 in / 28-30 cm) and dust with some cocoa. Beat the eggs with the sugar. Whisk together the milk and oil. Mix the dry ingredients - flour, almonds or nuts, baking powder, spices, and cocoa. Add to the egg mixture alternating with the milk and oil mix. Stir vigorously but not too long. Fold in chopped or grated chocolate. Pour dough into the pan and smooth out.
Then, bake the cake for 55-60 minutes. Test with chopsticks and let cool. Either serve dusted with powdered sugar only or frost with spice glaze. Mix sifted powdered sugar with gingerbread spice and 4 to 5 tablespoons of milk to make a thick glaze.
Top Tip
Instead of gingerbread spice, you can, of course, use a mixture of your own making, for example, cinnamon (about 2 tsp), ginger powder (about 0.5 tsp), ground cloves, cardamom, vanilla, pepper. Instead of ground almonds, ground hazelnuts, walnuts, or a mix of different nuts and seeds are also suitable.
Recipe Card
Chocolate Spice Cake
Equipment
- 1 Loaf Pan (11 in / 28 cm)
Ingredients
For the dough
- 4 eggs, medium
- 200 grams (1 cup) brown sugar
- 200 milliliters (13 ½ tablespoons) milk
- 130 milliliters (â…” cup) sunflower oil
- 250 grams (2 cups) all-purpose flour
- 150 grams (1 â…“ cups) ground almonds, and/or nuts
- 1 small bag baking powder
- 40 grams (½ cup) baking cocoa
- 10 grams (¾ tablespoon) gingerbread spice
- 80 grams (½ cup) dark chocolate, chopped or grated
For the glaze
- 150 grams (1.3 cups) powdered sugar, sifted
- 1 teaspoon gingerbread spice, or cinnamon
- 5 tablespoons milk, coarse
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 360°F/180°C. Grease a large loaf pan (approx. 11-12 in / 28-30 cm) and dust with a bit of cocoa. Beat the eggs with the sugar. Whisk together the milk and oil.
- Mix the dry ingredients - flour, almonds or nuts, baking powder, spices, and cocoa. Add to the egg mixture alternating with the milk and oil mix. Stir vigorously but not too long. Fold in chopped or grated chocolate. Pour dough into the pan and smooth out.
- Bake the cake for 55-60 minutes. Test with chopsticks. Let cool. Either serve dusted with powdered sugar only or frost with spice glaze. Mix sifted powdered sugar with gingerbread spice and 4 to 5 tablespoons of milk to make a thick glaze.
Ingredient substitutions
Variations
It must be said that such a moist chocolate spice cake also tastes delicious at 25 degrees (in October!!!). We last had it for a friend's birthday party at a coffee get-together on the terrace. We were slightly sweating in T-shirts and enjoying the summery autumn… By the way: If you want to try more chocolatey cake alternatives, you can also try my chocolate nut cake and the 3-ingredient chocolate cake. But for now, have fun with the classic chocolate spice cake.
Nutrition
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About Kathrin & Jan
It's like a little miracle to me every time. Seemingly simple ingredients are made into something that can brighten up your life. Butter, sugar, eggs, and flour melt into an airy biscuit, a fine tart, a juicy cake, or a crispy biscuit. Baking simply makes you happy. Welcome and enjoy our blog!
Kathrin & Jan
Hello,
I really like this recipe, but it seems the measurements of the ingredients are not adding up? It seems to be a lot of flour and other dry ingredients and not very much liquids... eggs, oil, milk; other dry ingredients like brown sugar, baking cocoa, etc. Can you help me with this. My cake turned out very dry and I used your U.S. units of measurement. And it wasn't very sweet tasting, little less than 1 cup of sugar (.9 cup sugar)?
Thank you!
Suzanne
Hi Suzanne, I'm sorry the cake didn't turn out quite the way it was supposed to. Actually, it is very moist and not dry at all. The ingredients are correct except for the amount of oil, I just recalculated. It's 1.1 cups instead of 0.9, but that should not make a big difference. Maybe you made a mistake? It could also be that the cake should have baked a little shorter in your oven. Maybe you like to give the recipe another chance 🙂 ?