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Normally I would head for a recipe to answer your question, but since I happen to be in a bad (pissy) mood, I have to head straight to the instant gratification stuff.

Which I can't find of course.

My SIL had given me what I THOUGHT was a Barefoot Contessa Caramel-Chardonnay sauce last year, and I still get sensuous chills thinking about it (but I can't find it online to confirm). It was velvety, buttery, but not too sweet - I guess the bit of chardonnay was just enough acid to cut down the sweetness.

So long story short, YES, caramel would be appropriate, as well as any kind of rum-based sauce. Whipped cream is overrated. Maybe a rum & roasted pineapple sauce, or lemon & cranberry (lookie here, I start thinking about food, and my mood improves! Thx thegourmetgal for inadvertently cheering me up!)

Thanks @finewinendine & @tapioca! Everything I saw when I did a search was all about lemon sauce, so I guess that is a popular pairing--although I would never have thought to put those two together.

Oooh. For me I like a whiskey and butter sauce or a pear glaze on some types of gingerbread.
Whipped cream is also always an awesome choice.
Any creamy but not too sweet custard or cream anglaise (as was suggested) or a hard sauce like the type used for plum puddings.

Yum.

Hard sauce, sometimes called brandy butter or rum butter, is traditional with heavy cakes like gingerbread, date nut cake, fruitcake and plum pudding. The sauce isn't a really a sauce--it's a sweetened, shaped butter that's served on top or next to a serving of cake, not spread or poured like frosting.

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 Tbsp. brandy, rum or other alcohol, or 1 Tbsp. lemon or orange juice
1 tsp. grated lemon or orange peel

Beat all ingredients together in a medium bowl. Use a very small ice cream scoop to form balls, place on a waxed paper- or parchment-lined baking sheet and refrigerate; you can also spread the sauce into small candy molds and refrigerate or freeze--pop out of molds about a half hour before serving. Garnish with mint, cloves, or citrus peel strips.

You can use granulated sugar instead of powdered, but it might still be grainy even with a lot of whipping. Ditto for brown sugar, but it makes a nice autumn-ish colored sauce with a to make a darker hard sauce with a richer, more complex flavor like molasses.

Next to the recipe in my notebook are the letters "BA" which I think means I copied it from Bon Appetit.

Here's something different. It's probaby not what you're looking for, but i'm going to throw it out anyway. LOL My mother used to slice bananas over a pan of barely warm gingerbread and then she'd pour frosting over that. Melted butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and milk. She'd make it kinda soupy and pour it over the bananas. OMG

This will also help warm you up if you're cold.... The bourbon that is... sans the other ingredients...

Bourbon Sauce
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup Light corn syrup Karo
1/8 cup butter
1/4 cup bourbon

In a small pan, Teflon coated pan preferably, combine the sugar, corn syrup and butter over medium heat. Bring to a simmer, cook 1 minute stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in the bourbon. Serve the Gingerbread warm with the bourbon sauce topping.

cool whip! sandra lee told me so! ha!

@ag3208--what is Bird's Custard??? I don't think we have that here. Is it like Eagle Brand milk (sweetened condensed milk) ?