Crystal's Gingerbread-Raisin Cake Recipe

I've adapted a recipe for gingerbread-raisin cake that uses no molasses and has raisins and applesauce. It's not overly sweet, and it's deliciously moist. Trish Berg tweeted earlier today that she was looking for a simple dessert recipe. Well, this is my stand-by. I make it so often, I keep the recipe taped up on my cabinet!

So for Trish and everyone else out there, here's my Gingerbread-Raisin Cake recipe. You can feel free to print this handy little recipe card (put it in your word processing program and size the picture to 4x6) and bake to your heart's delight. I strongly recommend baking two at a time so you have one to take to wherever you're baking it for and one to keep at home. Refrigerate it to keep from spoiling, but around here it's gone before it has a chance to spoil. It's usually gone inside of 48 hours.

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Gingerbread-Raisin Squares

1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
½  cup (1 stick) butter
2 eggs
2 ½ cups flour (or 1 ¼ cups unbleached flour and 1 ¼ cups whole wheat flour)
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cloves
1 cup milk
1 cup natural applesauce
1 cup raisins


Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease a 9x13 baking pan.

Beat sugar and butter in a large bowl on medium speed until light and fluffy; about 5 minutes.

Beat in eggs, one at a time, until combined.

Add flour, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, salt and cloves to butter mixture; pour milk over mixture and beat just until smooth.

Add applesauce and raisins, mixing until raisins are well-distributed in batter.

Transfer batter to prepared pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 40 minutes.

Serve warm or at room temperature. Powdered sugar can be sprinkled on top before serving if desired.