If you hadn’t noticed yet, I’m on a gingerbread kick. ‘Tis the season! I saw this cake on Pinterest that had gingerbread men on the inside, and I knew I wanted to make it. It’s so cute!

This technique is easy and fun, and it can be adapted to every holiday and occasion. I’ve seen hearts, pumpkins, and so on; and the best part is that you can make the inner cake in a matching flavor (pumpkin, red velvet, etc.).

You start out with a beautiful gingerbread loaf. I used this recipe that I just posted, but doubled.

Then you slice it. Make sure the slices are not too wide. When laying flat they shouldn’t be taller than your cookie cutter; otherwise you’ll squish them a bit when you cut the shapes, and if they’re too squished you’ll have leftover space when you put them back into the pan.

Oh snap

Then take the same pan you used for the gingerbread loaf, pour a little vanilla batter in the bottom, and line up your gingerbread men as straight as you can. Now shower them in more vanilla batter.

Honestly, I was going to make an eggnog cake (I couldn’t help it), but I ran out of cinnamon and didn’t really feel like going to the store (In fact I’m still out of cinnamon, I knew I forgot something when I was at the store today!)

So I made a really easy vanilla quick bread.

I didn’t want to make a lot of cake since I already had the rest of the gingerbread to nom on, so I made a 2 egg batter. It covered the gingerbread men up to the shoulders, so my loaf came out looking like…

A hot dog. Lol.

I melted some chocolate to cover it up and it went really good, just make sure the loaf is cool or the chocolate will turn all grainy and not pretty.

If you want your loaf not to turn out like a hot dog in the first place, just multiply the vanilla batter by 1.5 :)

And don’t forget the rest of the gingerbread cake, which you will obviously use to make cake pops.

The reindeer shape is optional but highly recommended (I made a few into reindeer and the rest plain). Just crumble the cake in a food processor and add something to put it together. I used dulce de leche because it was the only thing I had in hand. Then for the coating, I didn’t even have chocolate coating, so I used banana. I knew gingerbread, dulce de leche and banana seems like an odd combination, well, it is. But the ginger overpowers everything so it’s ok.

Nom

Stay tuned for more gingerbread goodness!

Vanilla cake with gingerbread men inside

For the gingerbread cake, double this recipe and bake it on a regular loaf pan for 40 to 45 minutes. Then make the vanilla cake:

Recipe adapted from Ratio by Michael Ruhlman

8 oz flour
4 oz sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
8 oz milk
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 oz butter, melted

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
2. Combine the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder.
3. Whisk together the eggs, milk and butter.
4. Add the dry ingredients into the egg mixture, and whisk just to combine.
5. Pour a bit of the batter into a buttered and floured loaf pan. Add the gingerbread shapes, then pour the rest of the batter.
6. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes.