Gingerbread Loaf, Starbucks Copycat Style

The gingerbread loaf in the Starbucks pastry case has a lighter crumb than the gingerbread most people bake at home, and there is a good reason for that. It carries no molasses at all. A full cup of applesauce goes in instead, which keeps the cake tender and lets the ginger and the cloves come through clean rather than muddied under dark syrup.

I chased that texture for a while before it clicked. Every classic gingerbread loaf recipe I tried came out dense and almost black, closer to a sticky pudding than to the pale, springy slice that sits under all that cream cheese frosting. The fix turned out not to be a technique at all. It is the applesauce, plus granulated sugar in place of brown, and once you make that swap the copycat lands on the first try.

What Is Starbucks Gingerbread Loaf?

Starbucks sells its gingerbread loaf as a seasonal slice, wrapped in the case and warmed on request, and it turns up beside the red cups every November. What arrives is one thick slab of spice cake, tawny rather than dark brown, with a lid of cream cheese frosting a good quarter of an inch deep and a scatter of chopped walnuts on top.

The crumb is the part worth paying attention to. It is soft and open, much closer to a banana bread than to a British-style sticky gingerbread, and it holds its moisture for days. Traditional gingerbread takes its color and its chew from molasses. This gingerbread loaf takes its tenderness from applesauce and its warmth from a heavy hand with ground ginger, so it reads as spiced rather than treacly.

That difference matters if you have tried other copycats and found them too dark. A gingerbread loaf built on molasses and brown sugar will never match the pastry case, however good it happens to taste on its own terms. The version below is the one that does match, and the active work runs to about fifteen minutes.

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Ingredient Notes

• Unsalted butter. Half a cup, softened. Soft means it dents under a finger without the finger going through it. Butter that has begun to melt will not hold air when you cream it, and the gingerbread loaf bakes up short.
• Granulated sugar. One cup, white rather than brown on purpose. Brown sugar drags the color and the flavor back toward molasses, which is the one thing this version is trying to avoid.
• Applesauce. A full cup, unsweetened. This is the ingredient doing the most work. It supplies the moisture molasses would have brought, and it lets the butter stay low without leaving a dry crumb. The pale, chunky bowl in the photo above is the applesauce.
• Large egg. One, at room temperature. A cold egg seizes creamed butter into little flecks that never smooth out.
• All-purpose flour. A cup and a half, spooned into the cup and leveled. Scooping straight from the bag packs in as much as an extra ounce, and the Wheat Foods Council covers what flour actually does in a batter.
• Ground ginger. Two teaspoons, roughly double what a plain spice cake uses. It is the reason this tastes like a gingerbread loaf and not like a cinnamon cake.
• Cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. One teaspoon, half a teaspoon, half a teaspoon. Cloves are the loudest of the three, so measure them level.
• Baking soda. One teaspoon, with no baking powder alongside it. Applesauce is acidic enough to set the soda off on its own.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting

• Cream cheese. Four ounces, full-fat and properly soft. The spreadable tub kind carries too much water, and the frosting slides off the gingerbread loaf instead of sitting on it.
• Powdered sugar. A cup and a half, sifted. Lumps in powdered sugar never beat out; they only break into smaller lumps.
• Vanilla extract. Half a teaspoon in the frosting and a teaspoon in the batter. It rounds off the sharp edge of the cream cheese.
• Chopped walnuts. Optional, about a quarter cup scattered over the frosting. Starbucks finishes the slice this way, and the crunch against all that softness earns its place.

Why There Is No Molasses in This Recipe

Molasses does three jobs in a traditional gingerbread. It darkens the crumb, it adds a slightly bitter mineral depth, and it holds water so the cake stays damp. Take it out and you have to replace all three, or you end up with a dry yellow spice cake that tastes like it forgot something.

Applesauce covers the third job completely. A cup of it brings sugar, acid and a great deal of water, and the pectin in it holds that water in the gingerbread loaf through several days on the counter. The acid also reacts with the baking soda, which is why there is no baking powder in the list.

Those first two jobs are the ones the coffeehouse version simply declines to do, and that is the whole point. The Starbucks gingerbread loaf is pale on purpose. Doubling the ground ginger and leaning on cloves gives you plenty of depth without the darkness, so the spice sits forward and the cream cheese has something to push against.

How To Make Gingerbread Loaf

First, get the pan ready. Heat the oven to 350 degrees, grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan and line it with a parchment sling that hangs over the two long sides. The sling is what lets you lift a frosted gingerbread loaf out later without wrecking the edge.

Next, cream the butter and the sugar. Two to three minutes with a hand mixer takes it from yellow and grainy to pale and fluffy, and that air is most of your rise. Beat in the vanilla and the egg, then stir in the applesauce. The mixture will look curdled and slightly separated at this stage, which is normal and fixes itself as soon as the flour goes in.

Then whisk the dry ingredients in a second bowl: flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Whisking them together first is the only way the two teaspoons of ginger end up evenly spread instead of pooling in one corner of the gingerbread loaf.

Bake It and Frost It

After that, combine the two bowls and stop early. Fold the dry mixture into the wet with a spatula only until the last streak of flour disappears. Overmixing builds gluten, and gluten in a quick bread gives you tunnels and a rubbery chew.

Finally, bake and frost. Smooth the batter into the pan and give it 50 to 60 minutes, then cool the gingerbread loaf in the pan for 10 minutes and turn it out onto a rack. The cake has to be completely cool before the frosting goes anywhere near it. Beat the cream cheese with the vanilla, work in the powdered sugar a third at a time, then spread it thick and finish with the walnuts.

How To Tell When the Cake Is Baked

Three checks, in this order. A skewer pushed into the middle of the gingerbread loaf should come out with a few moist crumbs clinging to it. Wet batter means it needs longer, while a bone-dry skewer usually means you have gone five minutes past the mark.

The top should spring back when you press it lightly with a fingertip and leave no dent. A dent that stays means the center is still liquid underneath, whatever the skewer told you.

The crack down the middle is the last one. Every quick bread splits along the top as it rises, and the split starts out shiny and looks raw. When the inside of that crack has gone matte and the same color as the rest of the crust, the gingerbread loaf is done. If the edges are browning fast and the middle is still wet, lay a sheet of foil loosely over the top for the last ten minutes.

Make It Ahead

This is a genuinely good make-ahead cake, and the gingerbread loaf is better on day two than on day one. Bake it, cool it completely, then wrap it unfrosted in plastic and leave it on the counter overnight. The spices settle and spread, and the crumb takes up moisture from the applesauce, so the whole thing tastes more integrated the next morning.

The frosting can be made a day ahead too. Keep it covered in the fridge and let it sit out for half an hour before you spread it, because cold cream cheese frosting tears the surface of the cake instead of gliding over it. If it feels stiff even after warming, a teaspoon of milk beaten in loosens it back up.

Frost no more than a few hours before you plan to serve. A frosted gingerbread loaf keeps perfectly well, but the cream cheese slowly softens the crust it sits on, and the sharp line between cake and frosting is half the pleasure of the slice.

Storing Gingerbread Loaf

Once it is frosted, this cake belongs in the refrigerator. An airtight container keeps the gingerbread loaf for four to five days, and the frosting firms up in the cold into something that slices cleanly rather than smearing. Take a slice out twenty minutes before you eat it, and the crumb softens back to where it should be.

Unfrosted, it is happier on the counter. Wrapped tightly in plastic, it holds for three days at room temperature, and refrigeration actually stales a plain quick bread faster than the counter does.

For the freezer, slice the gingerbread loaf first. Stack the slices with a square of parchment between each one, seal the stack in a bag, and it will keep for three months. A single slice thaws on the counter in about half an hour, or in fifteen seconds in the microwave if you are impatient. Freeze it frosted or plain, though the frosted slices want the fridge overnight rather than the counter.

Variations and Substitutions

Pumpkin puree instead of applesauce. A straight one-to-one swap. The crumb goes a shade deeper and slightly denser, and the flavor picks up an earthy note that plays well with the cloves.

Maple cream cheese frosting. Replace the vanilla in the frosting with a tablespoon of real maple syrup, then cut the powdered sugar by two tablespoons to keep the consistency right.

A gluten-free gingerbread loaf. A one-to-one gluten-free baking blend works here better than it does in most cakes, because there is so little gluten development to begin with. Expect a slightly closer crumb.

Mini loaves. The batter fills four mini pans. Bake them for 28 to 32 minutes and start checking early, since small pans go from underdone to dry quickly.

Add-ins. A half cup of chopped pecans, walnuts or golden raisins folded in at the very end. Toss them in a teaspoon of the measured flour first so they stay suspended instead of sinking to the bottom of the gingerbread loaf.

More or less clove. Cloves are the polarizing spice here. Drop them to a quarter teaspoon and add a pinch of cardamom for something brighter, or leave them where they are for the full coffeehouse effect.

What to Serve with Gingerbread Loaf

Coffee is the obvious answer and the right one. A plain drip coffee or a chai latte both cut through the frosting, and the spices in the gingerbread loaf and the spices in a chai are close enough that they read as one thing. Black tea works the same way.

On a holiday brunch table it sits well next to something savory and eggy, which keeps the sweetness from taking over the whole plate. For a cookie tray, pair it with gingerbread crinkle cookies for a matched set, or with classic gingersnap cookies if you want the same spices in a crisp form.

As a dessert the gingerbread loaf takes a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a spoonful of lightly whipped cream without complaint. Warm the slice for ten seconds first so the frosting goes soft at the edges. If you are building a whole spread, a tray of Christmas cookie bars alongside covers the people who want something to pick up with their fingers.

Gingerbread Loaf FAQ

More Questions About Spice Cakes

If a spiced quick bread is the kind of thing you want on the counter all winter, a red velvet banana bread is the same shape of bake with a completely different personality.