A super easy yet delicious dessert, this spice cake is the perfect fall treat. Made with clementine juice, you'll love this cake's moist, rich texture.
Fall calls for recipes with warm spices. Like our chai spice pumpkin pie and cardamom cookies, this spice cake is packed with so much flavor. Make this cake and take it to a holiday party. I promise everyone will love it!
This post is sponsored by Darling Clementines. All opinions are mine.
A combination of warm spices and citrus
A robust combination of flavorful spices like ginger, cinnamon and cardamom gives this cake a wonderfully warm feeling. Every bite contains a hint of each spice and, when paired with a cup of tea, this cake makes for a tasty winter afternoon snack.
What's special about this cake is that it's made with freshly squeezed clementine juice. Since clementines are perfectly sweet on their own, I didn't need to add much sugar to the cake batter. The lack of sugar ensures the robustness of the citrus flavor. The clementine juice also makes this cake moist and gives it a hint of freshness.
Ginger spice cake ingredients
To make this cake, you make the following ingredient:
- Butter
- Granulated sugar
- Eggs
- Clementine juice
- All purpose flour
- Spices - ground ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cardamom and salt
- Clementine zest
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
I used Darling Clementines to make this cake. They are juicy, sweet and super fresh. Darling clementines are grown in Chile, Peru, Spain and Morocco. They are always in season and very easy to peel - perfect for snacking or adding to a recipe like this spice cake.
Adding both clementine juice and clementine zest guarantees that you have a hint of citrus in every slice of this cake. This spice cake has a bright flavor and the combination of ginger and other spices makes this cake too delicious to pass.
How to make spice cake
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF and line a 9x9 baking pan with parchment paper.
- Melt butter in a large bowl and let it cool for a minute.
- Whisk in the sugar and mix until sugar is dissolved.
- Add in the eggs and mix well.
- Pour in the clementine juice and mix well.
- In another bowl mix flour, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cardamom, salt, clementine zest, baking powder and baking soda.
- Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until incorporated.
- Pour the batter into the pan and bake in the oven for 30 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean or with little crumb.
How to serve this cake
I love serving this cake with just a dollop of homemade whipped cream, but it's thick enough that you can slice it in half and spread buttercream in between the layers. I suggest you serve the cake with some fresh clementine as shown in the photos.
Can I use fresh ginger instead of powdered ginger?
Since we are looking for a strong ginger flavor in this cake, dried ginger powder would work better than fresh ginger.
A few notes for making ginger spice cake
- It's best to have all your ingredients ready and at room temperature before you start making the cake.
- Always bake the cake in the middle rack of the oven. This would help the heat to distribute evenly.
- Store the leftovers in an airtight container and keep at room temperature for two days or refrigerate for up to five days.
Step-by-Step Recipe
Clementine Ginger Spice Cake
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter melted
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs room temperature
- ½ cup clementine juice
- 1 ½ cup all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon allspice
- ½ teaspoon cardamom
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon clementine zest
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a 9x9 baking pan with parchment paper.
- Mix melted butter with sugar using a whisk.
- Add in the eggs and mix well.
- Add in the clementine juice and whisk until well incorporated.
- In another bowl, mix all purpose flour, ground ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cardamom, salt, clementine zest, baking powder and baking soda.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until incorporated.
- Pour the cake batter into the baking pan and bake in the oven for 30 to 35 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out cleans or with very little crumb.
- Let the cake cool completely, then slice it and serve with whipped cream and clementine.
Samantha
My family adores clementines, but I never thought to turn them into cake! Such a simple, perfect winter dessert. Thanks for the scrumptious recipe!
Shadi HasanzadeNemati
Thank you Samantha, glad to know you like this recipe!
Meagen Brosius
This is such a great holiday recipe. The perfect amount of sweet, so yummy!