These delicious sticky gingerbread cupcakes are made with ground ginger, chopped stem ginger and brushed with ginger syrup so they’re packed full of flavour and perfectly moist. The ideal treat for any gingerbread lovers.
When I was little I remember we almost always had a roast dinner for Sunday lunch and then a little buffet of sandwiches and cake for tea in the evening. One of my favourite cakes at teatime was Jamaican Ginger Cake. I decided it was about time I made my own version of this delicious cake to share with you.
These sticky gingerbread cupcakes get their gingeriness three ways to make sure they’re packed full of flavour.
- First I use plenty of ground ginger. Quite a few other recipes I’ve seen add other spices such as cinnamon to the ginger, but I’m a ginger purist and I prefer just ginger (I was the same with my gingerbread biscuits too).
- Secondly I’ve finely chopped up balls of stem ginger which means you get little bursts of ginger running through the cake. It’s important that these are chopped finely other wise they can be a little hard and tend to sink to the bottom of the cake. It’s also a good idea to coat the chopped stem ginger with a little flour before adding them to the cake mix. This helps keep it all evenly distributed throughout the cake as it cooks.
- Finally the cakes are brushed with the syrup from the stem ginger twice. Once straight after baking, allowing the syrup to soak into the sponge while it’s still hot. Then again once the cakes have cooled, giving your cupcakes a lovely sticky top.
Quite a few recipes for ginger cake that I’ve seen use milk as the main liquid. In my recipe I’ve opted for buttermilk as in testing I found that this gave the cakes a moister, softer texture. The cakes made with milk were still delicious but were a little firmer and springier in texture. If you can’t get hold of buttermilk then the recipe does also work with milk or natural yogurt, but I’d recommend having a go at the buttermilk version at some point, you won’t regret it!
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Sticky Gingerbread Cupcakes
INGREDIENTS
- 110 g butter - either use salted butter or if you're using unsalted butter add ⅛tsp salt with the dry ingredients
- 110 g golden syrup
- 110 g black treacle
- 150 ml buttermilk - you can also use natural yogurt or milk
- 4 balls stem ginger - + a little of the syrup from the stem ginger
- 220 g plain flour - + 1 tsp to mix with the stem ginger
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 40 g soft light brown sugar
- 4 tsp ground ginger
- 1 large egg
INSTRUCTIONS
- Pre-heat your over to 160°C/140°C fan. Line a muffin tin with 16 cupcake cases.
- Put the butter (110g), golden syrup (110g) and black treacle (110g) into a sauce pan and heat gently until the butter has melted. Mix to combine the ingredients.
- Add the buttermilk (150ml) to the pan and set aside to cool.
- Finely chop the stem ginger (4 balls). Add 1 tsp plain flour and mix to coat the ginger in the flour (this will help stop the ginger from sinking to the bottom of the cake while baking).
- Put the plain flour (220g), bicarbonate of soda (1tsp), soft light brown sugar (40g) and ground ginger (4tsp) into a large bowl and mix to combine. Add the buttermilk mixture and egg (1 large) and mix until combined. Finally fold in the chopped stem ginger.
- Evenly divide the mixture between the 16 cupcake cases.
- Bake for c. 20 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
- As soon as you've removed them from the oven while they're still hot, stab each cupcake a few times with a skewer and then brush the tops of the cupcakes with some of the syrup from the stem ginger.
- Put the cupcakes onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Once the cupcakes have cooled brush them a second time with the stem ginger syrup to get the tops really sticky.
NOTES
NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Any nutritional information provided is the estimated nutritional information per serving. Please refer to my guide to Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen nutritional information if you would like to learn more about how this is calculated.
Free From/Suitable For…
The ingredients I used to make this recipe are all free from the following allergens. However, please check any labels carefully for allergens you need to avoid as brands can vary and product recipes can change over time.
- Suitable for Vegetarians
- Tree Nut-Free
- Peanut-Free
- Sesame-Free
- Soya-Free
- Lupin-Free
Pin these Sticky Gingerbread Cupcakes to make later…
Paulastar says
Hi Charlotte, I just made these and they are beautiful. I can’t wait to see what they are like after a day as well (if they last that long). Luckily I had all the ingredients in just as we go into lockdown again. We didn’t have any buttermilk so I used a mix of 2/3 milk and 1/3 yoghurt, and I added a teaspoon of lemon juice and dash of lemon zest. The reason the buttermilk recipe is lighter is because the acidity reacts with the bicarb to give a better rise, so the lemon juice will work in a similar way. It did cause the milk to curdle once mixed with the syrup mix but that does not seem to have affected the final cakes.
I halved the recipe and divided between a 12 muffin cake tin with smaller size cupcake cases (all I had) and reduced the bake time by 5 minutes to 15 and that seemed to work fine for my fan oven. I regret only making half the mix now!! Thanks very much for sharing, I absolutely adore ginger cake and agree that you can’t have enough ginger in the recipe 🙂
Trisha says
Delicious. Serve cold with a cuppa, served warm with custard, grandchildren love the pudding. Slightly warm with extra thick double cream. Made four batches, next batch in oven now. Freeze perfectly, constant supply of ginger sponge for all occasions. Thank you.
Hannah says
These are just divine. I am addicted to them! Thanks for the recipe x
Cath says
These were delicious
Another recipe I’ll make again & again, thanks for sharing
Rebecca Norton says
We baked these today but as it is lockdown we had no stem ginger and couldn’t exactly nip out for some. Instead, I used crystallised ginger. On the top I sprinkled finely chopped crystallised ginger just before I popped them in the oven. They came out perfectly, with a crunchy ginger topping. We were very impressed, they won’t last long.
Suzanne says
Absolutely delicious – the stem ginger pieces made these extra yummy!
Debbie Chandler says
Just made your coffee cake which was amazing. Could the ginger cup cake mixture and recipe be used to make a loaf cake at all please. I’m looking at a 1kg loaf tin. Thank you
Charlotte Oates says
The honest answer is I’m not 100% sure. I tried it and I wasn’t completely happy with the rise of the cake in the loaf tin. However I have had comments from someone else who tried it and loved it. It’s something I have on my list to work on and perfect.
nic says
Hello can you buttercream the top of each cake ?
Charlotte Oates says
You can if you’d like to, just add your favourite flavour.
Mary Collyer says
Hi Charlotte, I would love to try this recipe but only have a twelve-muffin tin. Would I just do 3/4 of the quantities given in your recipe? Thanks.
Charlotte Oates says
You can. I usually share recipes for 12 cupcakes (so they fit nicely in one muffin tin), but in this case, the smallest quantity I could make was 16 with one egg. If you only want to make 12, the solution is to crack your egg into a bowl and lightly beat it to combine the white and yolk and then weigh out 3/4 of the egg (about 44g). For the other ingredients, simply weight out 3/4 of the measurements listed.
Keeley says
This recipe is amazing – use it time and again
Alex says
Hi Charlotte,
Love your recipes, I tried your caramel cupcakes recipe a few weeks ago and they came out perfectly delicious!
I was wondering if I can substitute stem ginger for fresh grated ginger? – How much would you suggest?
I have some home made ginger syrup, so I was thinking I might soak it in that before adding to the cupcake mixture.
Charlotte Oates says
Fresh ginger has a much harsher flavour and texture than stem ginger, so I don’t think it would work particularly well to simply substitute it. However, you can make your own stem ginger from fresh ginger (plus some sugar and water) in a couple of hours. There’s a recipe here if you’d like to take a look https://www.talesfromthekitchenshed.com/2016/10/homemade-stem-ginger/
Sophie Ellis says
These are superb, so gingery and light. I love the inclusion of the stem ginger. I see you have a ginger cheesecake so will definitely be trying that in the next few weeks. Love these!
Christine huyton says
Lovely jubbly…..beautiful,moist and light.My friends and my sister absolutely loved them too as well as my hubby who puts custard on his.
Charlotte Oates says
I’ve just told my husband about the custard suggestion, now he wants to try that too 🙂
Pip says
Hi Charlotte,
Just made these today as a trail run to see if I like them and maybe good for a Christmas treat… Well, they are amazing!!. Will definitely make them again. What a FAB FAB recipe. Moist and packed full of flavour.. Thank you
Vikas Kandhari says
Wonderful yummy recipe! will love to try.
Arivoukodi says
Hi Charlotte Oates,
Wonderful recipe yummy! Ginger is good for health as a cleansing agent. So good keep blogging.
Kate - Gluten Free Alchemist says
I LOVE ginger bread cake….. Perfect for cupcakes. I have a bit of a ‘thing’ for ginger pieces at the moment too, so these would be most welcome at my table (de-glutened of course).
Charlotte Oates says
This one should be easy to de-gluten. Let me know how it goes if you try it.
Emma says
When I saw these I knew I had to make them as I love anything with ginger in. I wasn’t disappointed, they really taste of ginger because of the stem ginger balls and are the right amount of sticky. Great recipe and I’ll definitely be making these again.
Dawn says
Are the cup cases the large muffin tin type Please?
Charlotte Oates says
Yes they are.
Natalie Ellis says
Ginger is definitely an amazing taste for cupcakes. I’m imagining that enjoying these with some cups of tea in a cozy weekend would be awesome! Wanna try this soon <3