Spice Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting

By Yossy Arefi

Published Nov. 19, 2024

Spice Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting
Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Yossy Arefi.
Total Time
About 1½ hours
Prep Time
15 minutes
Cook Time
40 minutes, plus 30 minutes’ cooling
Rating
5(298)
Comments
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This cozy spice cake is a one-bowl wonder. Made with oil, the cake stays moist for days and has a soft and fluffy texture. It is generously spiced with the usual warm-spice suspects: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves, plus a little bit of peppery allspice. If you stock cardamom in your pantry, it wouldn’t be out of place either. The cake is delicious on its own, with just a dusting of powdered sugar on top, but cream cheese frosting is a classic topper that offsets the spiced cake wonderfully and looks great too.

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Ingredients

Yield:12 to 16 servings
  • 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
Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

  1. 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.

  2. Step 2

    In a large bowl, whisk to thoroughly combine the oil, brown sugar, eggs, buttermilk, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, cloves and salt.

  3. Step 3

    Add the flour, baking powder and baking soda and whisk until smooth. A few small lumps are OK.

  4. 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.

  5. Step 5

    While the cake cools, make the frosting.

  6. 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).

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Ratings

5 out of 5
298 user ratings
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Comments

Marie

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.

Marie

For a half recipe, one whole egg plus a yolk works well. (Can use the extra egg white for something else or freeze for later.)

Remi

I baked it in a glass dish and it turned out great.

Mary Jo Marcontell

After reading comments below that the cake seemed bland, when I made this yesterday, I doubled the amount of spices used. It still didn't have that pop of flavor you expect from a spice cake. The thing that saved it for us chopping pecans and candied ginger and sprinkling them on top of the cream cheese frosting. I also missed having some nuts in the cake itself.

M.

Loved how easy this was to throw together with my tween son, whom I’d roped into baking a Thanksgiving cake with me. Three things going for this recipe: short baking time, one bowl!, and oil-based instead of butter. My ideal cake situation. I needed it to be lactose-free: instead of buttermilk we used almond milk with a splash of vinegar and in place of the cream cheese frosting we made an orange-vanilla glaze. We upped the spices by ~50% as others suggested. Will keep this recipe.

Kelli C

I made this cake as an upside down apple cake-cooked down honey crisp apples with similar spices, brown sugar, a lot of butter, lemon juice, and some apple cider. Gorgeous.

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