This festive and traditional spice cake recipe is the perfect addition to any holiday gathering!
Homemade Spice Cake
Moist, soft, and flavorful, this might just become your new favorite cake recipe.
It’s like winter’s answer to carrot cake! And this spice cake in particular is super quick and easy to make, with ingredients you might already have in your kitchen – no stand mixer required.
The absolute best part about this old fashioned spice cake is that it will make your entire kitchen smell like a giant gingerbread house!
Cream Cheese Frosting
A basic cream cheese icing recipe is so versatile and always good to have on hand. Below is the one I used on the cake. For vegan cream cheese frosting, simply use vegan brands of cream cheese and butter, available in many regular grocery stores.
12 oz cream cheese
6 oz salted butter
3 cups powdered sugar (or sugar free powdered sugar)
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
optional sprinkle of cinnamon or a few drops maple extract
Bring cream cheese and butter to room temperature. Beat all ingredients with either an electric mixer or stand mixer (or by hand, which won’t be as whipped and fluffy but will still work).
If it’s too thick, very slowly add a little milk of choice; if too thin, add additional powdered sugar. The recipe makes about 3 cups of frosting.
How To Make Spice Cake From Scratch
Step One: Whisk wet ingredients, preheat oven to 350 F, and prepare your baking pans.
Step Two: Stir dry ingredients into wet, and pour into the pans to bake on the oven’s center rack.
Step Three: Let cool before inverting, then frost and serve.
Bring it to a fancy party, or eat it in your pajamas, curled up by the fire.
I know a lot of you find it helpful to see unedited iphone pictures of recipes, so here are some unedited photos of the cake when I made it for a brunch.
The recipe is incredibly versatile – You can make a three-layer cake, two-layer cake, or bake it in a 9×13 pan for a healthy snack cake that’s perfect for packing into lunchboxes or serving—either frosted or unadorned—as a light after-dinner dessert.
The moist and tender spice cake has incredible holiday flavor, packed with applesauce, pumpkin, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice. If you want to give the cake a healthy vitamin A boost, feel free to substitute carrot juice for the milk of choice – you won’t be able to tell at all!
Spice Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup applesauce
- 1/2 cup sweet potato or pumpkin puree
- 3/4 cup milk of choice or carrot juice
- 1/3 cup oil
- 1 1/2 tbsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 tbsp white or cider vinegar
- 2 cups spelt or white flour
- 1 cup sugar, unrefined if desired
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp ginger
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp allspice
- 1/4 tsp cloves
- 1 tsp each: baking soda and baking powder
- 1 1/8 tsp salt
- optional 1/2 cup raisins
Instructions
- Whisk first 6 ingredients in a large bowl. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line pans with parchment – you can bake the cake in one 9×13, two 8-inch, or either two or three 6-inch pans. Stir all remaining ingredients in a second bowl, then stir into the wet ingredients to form a batter. Pour into the pans, and bake on the center rack 27 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean. Let cool completely. If desired, frost with coconut butter or your favorite frosting (such as the recipe included earlier in this post). You need about 2 1/2 to 3 cups.View Nutrition Facts
Notes
More Favorite Holiday Desserts:
Peanut Butter Pie – 5 Ingredients
Hello Katie and thank you for this recipe! This cake seems like the perfect addition to Christmas dinner, I will be definitely giving it a whirl.
I wish you happy holidays!
Made 2 days before Christmas and it was a huge hit. 2nds were the norm. Definitely adding to my make again file! Thank you ?. Took a photo but can’t get it to upload…
Hello, are there really NO EGGS in this recipe? Perhaps the applesauce takes the place of eggs? Thank you.
OK, I just made this cake with NO EGGS, duh, so no reply necessary on my previous message. Turned out very tasty (nice deep/rich spicy flavor) but a little moist. I will be freezing this cake for use later (this was a test run) and I’m afraid it will defrost into a soggy mess. Would replacing the applesauce with eggs OR using skim milk instead of whole OR white flour instead of spelt OR using butter instead of oil make it less “wet”? Thanks for the recipe, this was the very best out of 3 that I tested. I was sort of afraid it would turn out too much like carrot cake (which it didn’t) so did not make it first. Thanks.
Hi! Yes definitely I think skim milk would be less moist than whole milk. White flour will also yield a less moist cake if that’s what you’re after. If you try it, definitely be sure to report back!
Jason
OK, reporting back 🙂 I decided to just make the cake the same way, instead of testing it another time. I made (and froze) it at home, took it cross country, refroze it upon arrival 10 hours later. Two days later, I frosted the frozen cake (with my own browned butter frosting recipe) then let it defrost at room temperature. It was delicious. Everyone at the birthday party loved the texture of the spelt flour and the fact that not one singular spice stood out – spicy but not definably any one of the spices used. Fantastic spice combo. Not sure how to enter the 5 star rating this cake deserves, couldn’t find that field. Thank you again.
I turned your wonderful recipe into gingerbread muffins (baked 25 minutes) by made this using 1/2 cup blackstrap molasses in place of the sugar. Just delicious with the raisins added, also. A definite keeper for the holidays, especially. Thank you, Katie!
Now I’m craving gingerbread in July!!
What is it about Christmas in July, Jason?! Talk about making the kitchen smell like a giant gingerbread house. I forgot to mention I used whole spelt flour. Thanks.
Can you replace the flour with almond flour? If so, does anything else need adjusting. Thanks.
Hi, this cake looks amazing! I want to try it but we don’t have sweet potato or pumpkin puree where I live. Can I replace it with something else? I thought mashed pumpkin or sweet potato, but I don’t know if the consistency would be the same.
Thanks
Mashed roasted sweet potato works! Be sure to mash very well and it will be great!
Thanks! I’ll give it a go!
Hi! Just mash some cooked sweet potato. That’s what I did and it turned out awesome.
Looks delicious,
Could you make this into a loaf? I was going to make the gingerbread loaf, clicked on this for the frosting, and said to myself hmmmm I wonder if this could be made into a bread.