The other day, my 8-year-old son and I shared a slice of gingerbread loaf from Starbucks, and he absolutely fell in love with it. Naturally, I had no choice but to recreate it at home.
We pulled up the Starbucks ingredient list and stayed pretty close—ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and even a pinch of ground mustard to make the spices shine. Lots of zest, both orange and lemon, to brighten it up. I added a bit of sour cream for extra moisture and richness, and the result? A soft, flavorful gingerbread loaf that’s even better homemade.
It’s the perfect cozy treat for the season—one we’ll be baking on repeat.
Gingerbread Loaf
Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp orange zest
1 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup apple sauce
1/2 cup sour cream, at room temp
2 TBSP cup candied ginger (see step 2)
1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon (heaping)
2 tsp ginger, heaping
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp ground mustard
- For the Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 TBSP lemon juice
1/2 TBSP orange juice
Pinch of Salt
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Grease and line a 9x5-inch loaf pan with parchment paper, with sides of parchment overhanging from the pan so you can easily remove your bread later. - Place candied ginger in a bowl and pour boiling hot water on top. This will soften it otherwise it's very hard to cut it. You want to soak it for 10-30 seconds (much longer and you will start losing the flavour.) Drain the ginger well and chop it exceptionally finely (a few chunks that are about 3-4mm are ok, but the rest should be as fine as possible so it almost blends into the batter.)
- Measure flour by spooning it gently into your cups, measure, level off with a butter knife without compressing it, and add to a small bowl.
Add baking soda, baking powder and spices (ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, mustard) to the flour and mix it well.
Add the candied ginger prepared in step 2 to the flour. - Beat sugar, brown sugar, kosher salt and butter in a bowl of a mixer until light and fluffy, scraping the sides of the pan, about 2-3 minutes. On low speed, stir in vanilla. Add the eggs and keep mixing on low speed. Mix in the apple sauce, orange and lemon zest, and sour cream.
- Sift the flour mixture into the butter sugar mixture and then fold it in gently with a rubber spatula. Be careful not to overmix. You will now have the candied ginger left in the sifter (great, we wanted it to be dusted with flour and spices, which will ensure it doesn't sink to the bottom of the loaf.) Fold this candied ginger into the loaf.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Run a butter knife under cold water and run it in the middle of your bread lengthwise, about 1 cm deep. It will cause the bread to break in the center rather than all over, making it more visually appealing.
- Bake for around 47 minutes. 40-50 minutes should be the range. Start checking after 40 minutes and remove from the oven when the bread passes the toothpick test (toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs, but not wet batter.) For me, the bake time seems to be around 46 minutes give or take a few. Lift the bread out of the pan with the parchment paper. And cool completely on wire racks.
- For the glaze, mix all the ingredients together and spread over a cooled loaf. Let it set for at least an hour before slicing into pieces.
Notes
This is SO good. It might actually be better than the Starbucks loaf, just amazing. Cutting the candied ginger is little bit scary, but the hot water soak works. I found that using a sharp santoku knife and holding the handle of the blade with one hand and just putting the palm of your other hand on the back of the blade works pretty good. Just keep your fingers clear!
Great suggestion Jeff! The candied ginger is oh so important. Many of Starbucks recipes have a bit of the artificial taste to them that you cannot achieve unless you make your recipes heavy on things such as vanilla/candied ginger, etc. I really like having this loaf chilled as all of those tiny little candied ginger pieces ensure even moisture and flavour distribution even more as they cool down. So glad you enjoyed this!