Easy Gingerbread Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Do I need to chill gingerbread before baking? ›

Mistake #2: Not resting your dough

After the gingerbread is cut out, Lomas recommends putting it into the fridge for at least 30 minutes and up to three days. Chilling the dough before it goes into a hot oven gives the butter a chance to firm up and reduces how much it spreads when baking.

Some gingerbread recipes require some time to soften after baking because they are initially firm. Gingerbread is made harder by molasses and honey, but it becomes softer when water is absorbed by the sugar.

Key Ingredients in Gingerbread Cookies

Because of the added sticky sweetener (molasses), I add a little more flour to help soak it all up. Just like when we are making pinwheel cookies, a bit of extra flour helps the cookies can keep their shape.

From light to blackstrap, sulfured to unsulfured, the large variety of molasses options can be confusing. And one type will make your treats "frankly inedible." Molasses is the essential ingredient in gingerbread cookies, providing the chewy texture and almost burnt sugar flavor that characterizes the treat.

Divide the dough into two thick disks and wrap each disk in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until chilled, about 3 hours. (The dough can be prepared up to 2 days ahead.) To roll out the cookies, work with one disk at a time, keeping the other disk refrigerated.

First, if you roll out the dough without refrigerating it, the dough will crack and what's worse than the cracked dough is when you pull your cookies out of the oven only to find puffy, oversized, blob shapes that look nothing like the cute little cookie cutter shapes you cut out (via Delish).

Golden Syrup

With its golden, amber color, it is lighter than molasses, though the two are similar in their thickness. Golden syrup also a liquid sweetener, so 1 cup of golden syrup can replace 1 cup of molasses. Golden syrup has a unique flavor, so it may alter the flavor of your recipe slightly.

Timing is the key to achieving the crispy edges and chewy centers of a perfect gingerbread cookie. Due to gingerbread's dark color, it can be tricky to tell when they're done baking—look for puffed up, just-set centers. Gingerbread cookies will collapse as they cool, delivering that chewy cookie texture.

From doubling up on molasses to using too much flour, there is a lot that can go wrong. Forgetting the molasses resulted in a crumbly cookie that was light in color. Combining all ingredients at once created lumps in the finished product.

Why is my gingerbread so hard? ›

Baking at too high of a heat.

Since the primary sweeteners in gingerbread cookies are molasses and brown sugar, they can actually burn a lot faster than cookies made with refined white sugar. To ensure even cooking, with crisp edges and soft centers, bake at a lower heat.

Our answer

Bicarbonate of soda is an extremely active raising agent and if you add too much then the gingerbread will rise up a lot during baking, then sink back fairly dramatically. If the surface of the gingerbread is wrinkled then this is also a sign that there was too much bicarbonate of soda.

Molasses – Essential for that deep, rich, caramel-like gingerbread flavour! It also helps hold the dough's shape. Golden syrup makes a great sub, or treacle. Honey will also work, but the cookies will spread out a touch more and not have the same deep flavour (but still very, very good!).

Medium Or Dark Molasses

“It adds enough bold flavor and sweet notes with a hint of bitterness to any recipe, which is exactly what you want for making gingerbread cookies.”

Taste is obvious: sweets made with dark brown sugar will have a slightly deeper flavor with those notes of caramel and toffee I mentioned. That's why I only use dark brown sugar when making gingerbread; but depending on the recipe, you may not even notice a difference.

It's relatively easy to store gingerbread cookies and decorated gingerbread people. Place cookies in a covered jar or tin or wrap in plastic or foil and keep in a cool, dry place.

Cooled gingerbread house pieces can be made up to 1 week in advance, cover tightly and store at room temperature or in the refrigerator. They can also be frozen for up to 3 months, thaw at room temperature before using.

Gingerbread Cookies are done when they are set and begin to brown slightly at the edges. They will harden further as they cool, so avoid overbaking so you don't end up with hard, crunchy gingerbread! Underbake slightly to achieve soft, slightly chewy gingerbread cookies.

Keep your gingerbread house in a tightly closed container as long as it's out on your counter or in your pantry. This way, it will last for a few weeks until going stale. For a more long-term option, you can freeze your gingerbread cake.