Gingerbread Biscuits and Gingerbread Spice, Explained

Gingerbread is the smell of December. It is also one of the few Christmas bakes that is better made a week ahead, which is why it turns up in so many tins, stockings and hampers.

This guide covers the spice blend that makes it taste like gingerbread, how to mix your own, what decides whether a biscuit snaps or bends, and what to buy when there is no time to bake.

What is in gingerbread spice?

Ground ginger leads, but on its own it tastes flat and slightly hot. Gingerbread spice is a team of warm spices that round it out:

• Ground ginger for heat and that clean, peppery bite.
• Cinnamon for sweetness and warmth.
• Nutmeg for depth. Freshly grated is noticeably better.
• Cloves for the dark, almost medicinal note. A little goes a long way.
• Allspice, which tastes like cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves in one berry.

Some bakers add a pinch of cardamom, black pepper or star anise. All three work. None of them is required.

A gingerbread spice blend to mix tonight

This makes enough for about two batches of biscuits. Stir it together in a jar and shake well.

• 3 tbsp ground ginger
• 2 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• 1 tsp ground cloves

Use about 1 tbsp of the blend for every 350g of flour. For a darker, spicier biscuit, push it to 1 ½ tbsp. Ground spices fade quickly, so if the ginger in your cupboard is older than a year it is worth replacing. Our guide to how long spices last has the details.

Gingerbread biscuits: why some snap and some bend

Two things decide the texture: the sweetener and how long they bake.

Golden syrup or treacle keeps gingerbread soft and chewy, because liquid sugars hold on to moisture. Most Australian recipes use golden syrup. Treacle or molasses gives a darker colour and a slightly bitter edge.

Brown sugar and a longer bake give a crisp biscuit that snaps cleanly. This is the texture you want for a gingerbread house, for hanging biscuits on the tree, or for anything you plan to ice in detail.

Roll the dough between two sheets of baking paper to about 5mm and chill it for 30 minutes before cutting. Cold dough holds a sharp edge. Bake at 180°C for 8 to 12 minutes, less for soft biscuits and more for crisp ones. They firm up as they cool, so take them out when they still feel slightly soft in the middle.

Gingerbread men, houses and everything in between

Gingerbread men are the classic, and the easiest place to start with children. Pipe the faces with royal icing once the biscuits are completely cold, or the icing slides off.

A gingerbread house is a bigger project. If you want the fun of building and decorating without baking the walls first, a kit does the hard part. The Friendy Gingerbread House is a kit you put together and decorate, and we compare the options in gingerbread house kits compared.

Gingerbread worth buying

Gingerbread Folk bake in the Blue Mountains. Their gingerbread is vegan, nut-free and palm-oil free, with no added colours, flavours or preservatives, which makes it an easy pick for a mixed crowd.

• The Gingerbread Folk Gingerbread Man is a single biscuit in its own wrapper. A good stocking filler or place-setting gift.
• The Chocolate Gingerbread Man is the same biscuit with chocolate.
• For coeliac guests there is a gluten-free chocolate gingerbread man and the gluten-free Kiddiewinks pack.

If you like ginger more than gingerbread, try Jens Gingernut Cookies with a cup of tea, or ginger shortbread for something more buttery.

What to do with leftover gingerbread

Broken biscuits and the last of the tin are not a loss. Crush them and use them as a base or a crumb.

• No-churn gingerbread ice cream, which needs no machine and freezes overnight.
• No-bake gingernut cheesecake jars, made in individual jars so they travel to Christmas lunch.
• Crumbled over vanilla ice cream or stirred through whipped cream for a quick trifle layer.

How long gingerbread keeps

Crisp gingerbread keeps for about two weeks in an airtight tin at room temperature. Iced biscuits last just as long, as long as the icing has set hard before they go in. Soft gingerbread is best within a week. If crisp biscuits soften, five minutes in a 160°C oven brings them back.

Find the full range in our gingerbread collection, and more Christmas treats in the Christmas range.