More Sweet Things
Soft Gingerbread Cookies
Gingerbread cookies are one of my favourite things to bake in the lead-up to Christmas. The dough is rich with ginger, cinnamon, and cloves, and bakes into soft, lightly chewy biscuits that fill the kitchen with the smell of the season. I love cutting them into stars, trees, or little people and decorating them with royal icing – or just leaving them plain for dunking into tea. They’re festive, comforting, and a tradition I never skip.
Ingredients
- 175g brown sugar
- 100g salted butter
- 80g golden syrup
- 350g flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tbsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 large egg
Instructions
- Melt together the butter, sugar and golden suryup over a low heat.
- In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt.
- Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, and add the melted butter and sugar and rough mix through.
- Add the egg and then stir through until well combined, and a smooth dough is formed.
- Using your hands, form the dough into a ball, and then cover with cling film and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 200C and line a baking tray with baking paper.
- Transfer the gingerbread dough to a lightly floured surffuce, and roll out to about 1/2cm in thickness.
- Use cookie cutters to create shapes, and transfer these to the prepared baking tray.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes in the hot oven, or until the edges of the cookies are golden brown.
- remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack - the cookies will harden as they cool.
- Decorate with colourful icing, or simply a sprinkle of icing sugar.
What I Cook With
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Nutrition Information:
Yield:
24Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 124Total Fat: 4gSaturated Fat: 2gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 17mgSodium: 79mgCarbohydrates: 21gFiber: 1gSugar: 9gProtein: 2g
Please note, this nutrition information is to be used as a guide only. Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.
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Gingerbread Cookies
The Sweetest Smell of the Season
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in my kitchen, and if there’s one smell that flicks on the festive feels every single time, it’s a tray of Gingerbread Cookies baking away in the oven. That warm, spicy scent wraps around the whole house and feels like a hug I didn’t know I needed. I look forward to it all year long. When I pull out the cutters – stars, trees, stockings, the odd snowflake – it just hits me all over again why Christmas means so much to me. It’s the twinkly lights, cosy nights, festive food, and the sense of comfort and magic that lingers in the air. It’s also a huge part of why I live in the UK, where it actually feels like Christmas when the weather turns cold and the dark creeps in early, and where baking biscuits with a hot drink in hand feels exactly right.
This recipe is fairly traditional, but I’ve added a few personal touches over the years to make it mine. You’ll find all the usual festive suspects in the mix – cinnamon, ginger, cloves – but I always throw in a pinch of nutmeg, which just lifts everything. I figured out a while ago that nutmeg has a quiet kind of magic, and now it ends up in most of my festive bakes. And then there’s the salt. I’ll never stop banging on about how important salt is, even in sweet recipes. It’s not there to make the biscuits salty, it’s there to bring out the best in everything else.
Now if you’re someone who enjoys decorating biscuits with full-on icing artistry, I’m deeply impressed and not at all jealous. But if you’re more like me and prefer the biscuits to taste good rather than look like a Pinterest board, a little dusting of icing sugar is honestly enough. It looks like snow and hides a multitude of sins, which is basically the vibe I’m going for most of December. That said, if you’ve got kids or flatmates who love getting creative, this dough holds its shape beautifully, so get out the icing pens and have a go. Just don’t expect the biscuits to hang around long enough to set.
Christmas Memories and Spiced Nostalgia
One of the things I love most about these Gingerbread Cookies is how much comfort they bring, not just in the eating, but in the making. There’s something deeply grounding about the whole process – softening the butter, measuring out the spices, letting everything come together into a dough that smells like every happy Christmas memory rolled into one. I bake a lot, but this particular recipe feels like something special. It’s the kind of thing I put on some music for, make a cup of tea, and really settle into.
Here in Glasgow, the city starts to sparkle by late November, and I find myself taking little detours on the way home just to walk through the quieter streets and admire the lights in the windows. Once I’m back inside, it’s straight into the kitchen to bake something cosy. There’s something so soothing about watching the wind rattle the windows while I’m tucked up with a mixing bowl and a wooden spoon. And while Australian Christmases have their own charm – mangoes, BBQs, and loud backyard cricket games – I can’t deny that a chilly, wintry December has completely stolen my heart. Christmas just makes more sense when you’re wearing a jumper.
These cookies aren’t flashy, and that’s exactly the point. They’re familiar. They’re warm. They’re the kind of biscuits that bring people into the kitchen with no real reason other than the smell. You don’t need to explain them. You just hand someone one with a cup of tea and know that they’ll understand. They remind me why I love baking in the first place – not for the showy results or the perfect photos, but for the simple, soothing act of making something that tastes like home.
A Dough Worth Making Again and Again
I’ve made my fair share of biscuit doughs over the years, and some of them have been fiddly little nightmares, but this one is an absolute gem. It comes together quickly, rolls out without sticking to everything in sight, and holds its shape like a dream. I’m not here for high-maintenance baking. I want something that works every time, doesn’t demand special ingredients, and can handle being squashed and re-rolled by impatient hands.
This dough doesn’t crumble. It doesn’t sulk in the fridge. It just gets on with the job, which makes it ideal whether you’re making a small batch for a quiet night in or turning out trays and trays for gifting. The spice blend is punchy but not overpowering, and the biscuits come out golden around the edges with just the right balance between crisp and tender. I like mine with a bit of chew, so I bake them slightly under, but if you’re into a good snap, leave them in a minute or two longer and they’ll crisp up nicely.
They also keep really well, though I can’t promise they’ll last long once people know they’re in the house. I’ve given these as gifts in cellophane bags tied up with twine, popped them into Christmas hampers, or just stacked them in a tin for visitors. And without fail, someone always asks for the recipe. It’s the nutmeg and salt that make them a bit more special than your standard gingerbread. You don’t have to tell anyone that though. Just smile mysteriously and hand them another one.
Ingredients Breakdown
These Gingerbread Cookies rely on the kind of ingredients I always have on hand this time of year. Plain flour gives them structure, and brown sugar adds richness and that slightly caramelised depth that works so well with the spices. I use golden syrup instead of treacle because it keeps things lighter and more mellow, and salted butter to keep the sweetness in check. If you’re using unsalted butter, just add a decent pinch of salt. Don’t skip it.
The spices are what make this recipe sing. Ginger is the star, as it should be, with cinnamon and cloves playing strong supporting roles. But it’s the nutmeg that ties it all together and gives the biscuits that gentle, warming roundness that makes people pause and say, “ooh, that’s good”. One egg brings the dough together, helping it hold shape without drying out. And a dusting of icing sugar at the end finishes them off with a snowy, festive flair.
They’re sturdy enough to decorate but lovely enough without, easy to batch, and forgiving enough that even a chaotic baking day can still turn out great biscuits. Whether you’re baking them for yourself, for someone you love, or just because it’s a grey day and you need your kitchen to smell like cinnamon, these are the biscuits I turn to every time. And I don’t see that changing any time soon.
