Gingerbread cake is a moist soft spiced cake with the aroma & taste of ginger that you can make for Christmas. Eggless, Vegan and a Healthy Cake.
From a long time I wanted to make an Eggless version of gingebread cake. I just developed my own recipe and the cake was a hit at home. For an eggless version, this cake is damn good. You won’t even know that eggs have not been used.
You can also check this Christmas fruit cake and Gingerbread cookies recipe.
This is a healthy gingerbread cake as the whole recipe has been made in whole wheat flour/atta making it rich in fibre and nutrients. Apart from whole wheat flour, I have used jaggery syrup instead of molasses.
Traditionally molasses are used in gingerbread. Since in India molasses are not easily available, jaggery is a good & healthy substitute.
I have also used candied dried ginger. If you don’t have candied dried ginger, then no need to add it. You can even add some golden raisins in the cake. All in all one healthy gingerbread cake where you won’t feel guilty having it or serving to your family.
If you are looking for more Eggless cakes then do check:
gingerbread cake
Ingredients
main ingredients
- 1.5 cups organic whole wheat flour
- 2 teaspoon ginger paste or grated ginger
- 2 tablespoon candied ginger or golden raisins - optional
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon powder
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ cup yogurt (curd - dairy or vegan) + ¼ cup water
- ½ cup oil
for the jaggery syrup
- ¾ cup powdered or grated organic jaggery
- ½ cup water
Instructions
making gingerbread cake batter
- Mix the whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg powder well in a bowl. You can also sieve the above ingredients.
- Add the ginger paste and candied ginger and mix again.
- In a separate bowl, whisk the 1/4 cup yogurt with 1/4 cup water till smooth. Then add the oil to it and mix well. Keep aside.
- Heat the 1/2 cup water till its just hot (no need to boil) in a microwave or on stove top.
- Add jaggery to the hot water and stir well.
- Pour the yogurt+oil mixture to the flour.
- Then add the jaggery solution.
- Fold the ingredients well and make a smooth batter.
baking gingerbread cake
- Pour into a greased baking round pan or loaf pan and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees c for 35-40 mins. It took me 41 minutes to bake the cake.
- If the top gets browned quickly while baking, cover with butter paper or aluminium foil and then continue to baking.
- Once warm, remove the cake from the pan and keep it on the tray to cool.
- Dust some icing sugar on the cake if you prefer.
- Slice the eggless gingerbread and serve plain or with some whipped cream.
Tired ur cake it was amazing and v easy to make thank you! Just have one question how long will the cake stay without refrigeration?
pleased to know this jayashree 🙂 if your country is chilled at this time they should last for a day or 2 without refrigeration but I bet they would get over soon 😉
OK thank u and yes it got over as soon as it came out from oven 🙂
welcome jayashree.
Hello mam
I have never tasted a gingerbread cake /cookie . neither do I get it here . can you tell me how it tastes?
Can I bake cake /cookies in a gas tandoor oven ?
the gingerbread cake has a lovely aroma of ginger and is a soft textured cake. the cookie is soft textured. they are not like the indian version of ginger biscuits. there is another baked goodie called as ginger snaps which are crisp and thin. yes you can bake in a gas tandoor oven. time will vary.
I dont’t have an oven and will be trying it out in the cooker, what should be the duration ?
should take 30 to 35 minutes.
wow healthy and so easy to make with available ingredients. i am definitely going to try it out 🙂
thanks.
hare krishna, dassana,
just thought you should see this blogspot; cookingwithamandaz.blogspot.com/…/eggless-gingerbread-cake, as it is exactly the same as yours, even your pictures are used!!!!!
thanks for letting me know. i will check and report to google. thanks again.
hare krishna
Hi amit
Wanted to confirm if oil can b substituted with butter n d amount to be used and also would it b necessary to add yogurt ?
Thanx a ton for the lovely recipes.
welcome j. replace oil with same quantity. yogurt is essential.
hi dassana,
in the recipe of ginger bread cake you have mentioned 1/2 cup oil
what if i add butter? will the taste change?
shweta, yes you can use butter. taste will change but it will be good.
Dassana my family is very fussy abt taste. I baked this cake exactly according to the proportion given…. Result….. SUPERB….. AMAZING….. Thank you very much. Just one question, is it true cake baked in microwave convection is less moist than OTG???
thanks niki for sharing positive feedback on cake. i don’t think so, because i have baked in both.
The cake was good. But it did not taste or smell much like ginger. I did not add the crystallized ginger. Did that make the difference? But I’ve tried your banana cake and bread and apple cake. They’ve all come out awesome. Good recipes. Keep up the good work.
thanks preethu. possibly because of the crystallized ginger. the quality of ginger is also important. because some ginger have very strong aroma and some don’t.
Hi Dasanna, I would like to try this wonderful cake. Could you kindly let me know which oil you used? I basically use coconut oil for cooking.
Thank you.
Anitha
welcome anitha. for this recipe i used sun flower oil. you can use coconut oil also for bakes. but the cake will have the aroma of coconut oil.
Can you provide the measurement in grams to make your recipe more precise? You said that your 1 cup measurement is about 250 ml? So that means 1.5 cups should be 375 ml. I measured out 375 ml of flour but it is waaaay more than 1.5 cups so I’m worried about the proportions. 1.5 cups should be about 187 grams but 375 ml is looking more like 3 cups. And I am getting really confused about how much flour to actually use. My 1.5 cups is measuring 192 ml or 193 grams.
1 cup is 250 ml. but when you measure flour its in grams and not ml. depending on the density of the solid ingredient, 1 cup will be different for different ingredients. 1 cup of whole wheat flour is 120 grams (here the 1 cup is as 250 ml cup). so 1.5 cups of whole wheat flour is 180 grams. ml is the metric used for measuring liquids and not solids.
can this be made in microwave oven without convection?
parvathi. no it can not be made in microwave.
please post pictures step wise of the recipe
parvathi, i will try to add once i make the cake again.
Hello,
Hope you are well. Can I add orange zest and a cup of orange juice to this recipe as I want to make an orange and ginger cake for my grandma’s 80th birthday?
Thank you.
Best wishes,
S
orange zest is fine. but with orange juice it will be experimentation. not sure how the cake will turn out.
Hi amit in ginger bread cake if i take 1 cup whole wheat flour then hw much oil should i take n meadurment of baking soda n baking powder also pls let me know
ruchi, the proportion of all ingredients will change and i am not sure whether the recipe will work or not. i suggest stick to the recipe with 1.5 cup whole wheat flour.
Thanks amit ur eggless cakes recipe r too good i ll try it n let u know how it comes
welcome ruchi. glad to know that you liked the recipes.
Hi,
Can I substitute nutmeg powder with cinnamon powder? Not able to find nutmeg powder where I am staying these days. Also, I made the orange eggless cake following your recipe and topped it with a cinnamon glaze. It was extremely tasty!
nimisha, yes you can replace with cinnamon powder. thanks for sharing positive feedback on orange cake.
Hi,
I’ve just tried to make this cake today. I was very excited to be making it. However, it didn’t turn out to be as good as yours (but I don’t know why). I followed your recipe exactly using a microwave oven by preheating it at 180°C for 20 mins. Then, I started baking it for 40 mins. But, the cake burnt within 10 mins of baking. Why do you think this happened? I am afraid to try out another recipe before knowing the problem with this cake. Thanks!
okay. seems like the microwave oven has a high temperature range. it should ideally not take such a quick time even in the microwave at convection mode. i have baked in the microwave at convection mode and never has any cake of this serving size got baked so quickly. there is no problem with the recipe. its the microwave oven. you can still try and bake any other recipe in your oven.
Hi,
I am planning to try the cake..but I have a question can we substitute the yoghurt with milk? And if kept at room temperature will the cake get spoilt soon since the yoghurt s used..
Thanks
Divya
divya, you can not use yogurt but you can use buttermilk. for one day you can keep out, no issue. but for more than one day, better to keep the cake in fridge.
Hello,
My query is a common one for any of the cakes….
1. Do we need to tap the cake tin once the batter is poured in?
2. While placing the cake tin in the microwave oven, can we cover the top with parchment paper to ensure the top of the cake is even?
Thanks
Lakshmi
1. tapping the cake tin ensures that the air bubbles are released so that there is even baking.
2. covering the top with parchment paper will not help. there are techniques to get a flat top instead of the dome shaped top. here is one here – http://acozykitchen.com/how-to-bake-flat-cake-layers/
Hey I don’t have yoghurt….can I use butter instead?
yogurt is required for this recipe, since its eggless.
Hi sir,
Thanks for such a wonderful recipe. The cake turned out really well.Everyone liked it too.i would give 5 star rating for this recipe.
thanks gayathri for the positive feedback.
Thank you so much for posting! My little girl has four new allergies to join two previously diagnosed. We just lost eggs…and I was looking for a sweet to make and i found this site. Just a note: I was able to amend this to be gluten free as well…..I substituted your flour suggestion for the the ratio 1/3 ground almond, 1/3 sweet rice flour and 1/3 brown rice flour. This was lovely! Thank you again!
thanks for the feedback katie. good to know that the gluten free options worked. am glad.
Hey dassana, hi I have been receiving your recipes on my mail since a couple of months I simply love them BUT haven’t been able to try out any recipes as yet as I work from home .i run a tailoring unit your baking section is WOW I like all of them I seek your help in replacing sugar in cookies etc as I don’t want to use supplements too Thank you so so much I love your blog my son made sure I learnt to Browse the internet and type so pardon any mistakes. I am diabetic that’s why I need sugar less recipes. Slowly one by one I shall try all your recipes. Thanks once again Look forward to your reply.
hi madhu, you can replace sugar with fruit purees which have a low sugar content. in fact you can also make savory cookies with herbs or cheese. they also taste good.
Hello, Thanks for such lovely recipes , I have tried Basic Valina, Chocolate, both with Maida as well as Whole Wheat Flour, out come was very tasty and lovely, today i am gone try Ginger one, My Query is – Can i use regular sugar instead of jaggry ? if yes then what should be proportion ? plz reply… HAPPY DIWALI to U & Ur Family
thanks punam. you can use sugar. add the same amount of sugar as jaggery. happy diwali to you too.
Hi Dassana. The recipe looks simple. Great going with your work and efforts !
I’ve a doubt in step 4 of this recipe. Is it 1/2 or 1/4 cup of water? Because in the ingredients section for the jaggery syrup, its mentioned as 1/2 cup water. Please clarify. Thanks.
its 1/2 a cup water for the jaggery syrup. i will change in the post. thanks for letting me know anusha.
Hi,
I tried the ginger bread and while it didn’t look as good as here (not as brown), I liked it a lot. It was my first baking attempt and I was quite pleased at the outcome. I should confess that I did not use the baking soda as I didn’t have it at that time. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks!
Anitha
thanks anitha.
Cake can be baked in pressure cooker bcoz I have tried it…..
i am not sure as i have not tried.
Hi Dassana,
Thanks a ton for your prompt reply and advice. Did what you said and I managed to get a decent brown crust on my tutti fruit cake all thanks to you ! 🙂 One more question, do you generally keep both the top and bottom elements on during the baking process or only during preheating???
Btw..just an afterthought…how do you have the patience and manage to reply to every single comment here as well as on fb??? I’m simply amazed ! 🙂
i keep both the elements on when pre heating. in fact i have baked on occasions keeping only the top element on and then keeping only the bottom element. what i found out was that the cake or bread was not getting baked properly or browned from the top. so tried doing this way and it really made a lot of difference.
thanks radhika. i get a lot of comments and most of them are queries. so if i don’t reply i get a huge backlog of comments waiting to be responded. so i have to reply. i still have to reply a lot of comments from yesterday and today.
Hi Dassana,
Planning on making this cake tomorrow. As already asked by someone, I’m just curious as to how you get a lovely brown crust in all your cakes. I have a Sunflame OTG. I preheat my oven for about 10 minutes and keep my cake in the bottom rack. Would be great if you could guide me towards achieving the perfect brown crust like yours ! 🙂
hi radhika.i follow these methods in the OTG and thats why i guess the crust comes out well
– preheat for atleast 15-20 minutes before at the temperature mentioned in the recipe.
– keep both the top and bottom heating elements on.
– for baking cakes, muffins, breads and cookies, always keep the baking pan/tray in the center. as a result there is even heat distribution.
Hi Dassana,
I made this gingerbread cake and it turned out yummy! hubby loved it.. 🙂
thanks for the great recipe..
I want to ask, can I omit ginger and add cocoa powder and make a whole wheat chocolate cake by following the same recipe?
Regards,
Aish
thanks aish. i have never tried it but the recipe is fool proof and i think you can make chocolate cake by adding just 1-2 tbsp of cocoa powder.
looks so soft and yummy
Hi Dassana:
Curious to know how your cakes get such a nice brown crust on top. I follow all your instructions and though the cakes turn out nice, the top never gets a nice brown hue.
let me know how long you preheat the oven. which heating element you keep on if using an OTG and in which rack you place the cake pan.
Looks and sounds AMAZING. I really want to make it. I’m currently in the US, so if I want to use molasses instead of jaggery, how much should I use?
thanks. i actually do not know what is the concentration of sweetness in molasses as i have never used molasses. the cake should not come out very sweet.if its too sweet, reduce to 2/3 or 3/4 cup. and if its as sweet as a jaggery than you can use 1 cup.
Looks so soft and moist… Nice one
hi
can we done this in a pressure cooker ? if so how much time we need to bake??thanks
i think, the cake cannot be baked in the pressure cooker.
Thankyou for this wonderful recipe! The cake turned out exactly the way you described it. Soft, moist and delicious! Worth trying!
thank you saloni and nice to know.