Gingerbread loaf

Difficulty 1/5

There’s nothing like receiving a gingerbread cake or loaf in December! You open it and off comes the smell of spices. Imagine now that you’re at come, and the smell coming from the oven fills your whooooole house with the scent of Christmas. Nothing compares to it :). I recommend that you always make a double recipe so you can give one to someone else and keep the other 😀

Portions: 8-10slices

Ingredients:
For the loaf:
– 113g unsalted butter at room temperature
– 2 1/2 tsp ground ginger
– 2 tsp ground cinnamon
– 2 tsp all spice
– zest from 1 orange
– 170g brown sugar
– 30ml vegetable oil
– 2 eggs
– 60ml milk
– 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
– 2 tbsp honey
– 1 tsp salt
– 210g all purpose flour
– 2 tsp baking powder

For the frosting:
– 50g cream cheese at room temperature
– 10g unsalted butter melted and cooled to room temperature
– 12g unsalted butter at room temperature
– 150g icing sugar
– 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
– Sprinkles

Procedure:
1. Whisk the very soft butter at room temperature with the sugar and zest until it’s very smooth and homogeneous. Then add the oil mixing it with the whisk as well. Then the eggs and whisk.2. Finish with the milk, vanilla and honey and whisk. Finally, sieve the dry ingredients and we add them with a spatula into the mix. Butter up your mould and then dust with flour so it doesn’t stick. It goes into the oven at 170C for 30min or until a stick or knife comes out clean from the center.3. Let the loaf cool down completely and while this happens,we make the frosting. First, beat the cream cheese and the room temperature butter (not the melted one) until the colour goes clearer and it’s very smooth. Then add the sugar, mixing it first with a spatula so you don’t get showered with it and then with the electric mixer until homogeneous. Finish with the melted butter, but really make sure that it’s room temperature or it will melt the sugar. This will give you the effect that the frosting is sliding down the sides. If you want it stiffer like a normal frosting, then have all the butter non-melted.

4. Once he loaf is COMPLETELY COLD (or the frosting melts) we put the frosting on top and finish with sprinkles :). If you leave it all night resting, the frosting will make a hard skin outside, which helps if you want to warp it as a present so it doesn’t get damaged.

Hope you liked this, it’s very Christmas-y and yummy 🙂