Toffee nut lattes, peppermint mochas and orange hot chocolates are everywhere at the moment in cups covered in snowflakes, snowmen and candy canes, and it's getting harder ever day to order a drink without being offered a fancy 'Christmas blend' (whatever that is). With so many to choose from it can be a little overwhelming - in the best possible way - but the undisputed king of the Christmas coffee has to be the humble but delicious Gingerbread Latte.
I downloaded John Whaite's 12 Bakes of Christmas pretty much as soon as he uploaded it to his website, and I've been dying to try out all 12 of his bakes! His recipe for this Gingerbread Latte Cake looked so appealing that I knew I had to include an attempt at in on my blog, and it does not disappoint. Layers of rich ginger sponge are sandwiched together with the lightest and most delicious coffee frosting, making a cake that's a million times better than its namesake.
It's a bold statement, but I think this is one of the tastiest cakes I've ever made. John Whaite, you genius.
The original recipe is part of the free downloadble PDF '12 Bakes of Christmas' (which is so good I've now linked it twice…) but it's also below with my notes. I can't recommend the other 11 recipes enough: I'm so excited to work my way through them over the next fortnight!
This cake is yet another victim of The Great SD Card Disaster of December 9th 2014, so unfortunately the only photos available are of the finished product. Luckily it hadn't even been cut when my camera spazzed out, so the only real problem is the extremely poor lighting!
Ingredients:
For the sponge:
250g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
225g dark muscovado sugar
120g golden syrup
50g black treacle
6 large eggs
340g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
2tsp ground ginger
1tsp ground cinnamon
1/2tsp ground nutmeg
For the frosting:
60g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
200g sweetened condensed milk
2tsp instant espresso powder
500g mascarpone cream cheese
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C / 160C fan / Gas Mark 4.
Beat the butter and muscovado sugar until smooth and fluffy: make sure you beat all the lumps out of the sugar (muscovado is annoyingly lumpy). Beat in the golden syrup, treacle and eggs until smooth, then sift over the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and spices, and fold in to a smooth batter.
Divide the batter between three 20cm cake tins as evenly as possible and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool for 5 minutes in their tins, then invert onto a wire rack to finish cooling. I hate my new oven at times. It doesn't like sponge cakes, and I haven't made a single one in this oven that has risen like they're supposed to. As a result I had 3 fairly flat cakes, one of which extremely bizarrely cracked in the middle and rather dramatically concaved. It's not too much of a problem, but still pretty annoying!
For the frosting, whisk together the butter and condensed milk until "fairly fluffy" – this took about 2 minutes, and it was pretty sloppy which I was not expecting. Add the espresso powder and whisk in, before whisking in the mascarpone until you have a very smooth, fairly thick frosting. Be careful not to over whisk as the thickness added by the mascarpone will be lost. If you're worried, pop it in the fridge to firm up for a few minutes.
Once the cakes have cooled, very carefully slice each cake in half so that you have 6 thin slices of cake. This obviously was not an option for me, so I opted to do 3 even slices of cake, effectively slicing off the domes on top to make them perfectly flat. John Whaite offers the bed guide to slicing cakes: The best way is to place a cake onto the counter, one hand flat on top of it. With a long and sharp serrated knife, slice a mark all the way around the edge of the cake as evenly as possible. Use that score mark to guide your knife all the way through the cake, sawing very gently but confidently.
Set one layer of cake (or the three offcuts like me) to one side for the crumb finish. Take the other five (three) layers and start to assemble. Place one cake onto a plate or cake stand, spread it with frosting and repeat until you have five slices of cake sandwiched together. Add a thin crumb layer around the outside of the cake and on the top. Chill for 10 minutes and then spread the remaining icing around the entire cake as neatly as possible.
For the crumb finish, crumble the reserved layer of cake into small crumbs - I found a grater worked wonders - and gently press these, with a slightly cupped hand, around the cake. If any frosting peaks through, just cover it with crumbs. John Whaite's finished product has the crumbs over the entire cake and dusted with icing sugar, but I just stuck to the sides, leaving the top crumb-free and instead decorating with 12 Asda decorations. It's entirely up to you, so just play it by ear.
Again, apologies for the shoddy photos: I hate how below-standard they are, but I suppose it's better than nothing!
This is probably one of the most delicious cakes I've ever made. The sponge is bursting with flavour and is perfectly complimented by the light coffee frosting. It's a slightly divisive cake as if you're not a fan of coffee in cake then it definitely won't be up your street, but otherwise then I guarantee you'll love it!
I still can't get over how inventive it is. I would never have thought to turn a well loved festive drink into a cake, so well done John Whaite! This is definitely going to become a staple bake for me at Christmas as it's so flavoursome and yet so different. It's the ideal cake to have in a tin for when visitors come round - it looks extremely impressive but isn't too difficult to make, and given how funny some people can be about fruit cake this is a great alternative to have.
So what are your thoughts on this Gingerbread Latte Cake? Will you be downloading John Whaite's '12 Bakes of Christmas'? Let me know in the comments below!
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