The Best Gingerbread Recipes

And a certain Gingerbread novel by Helen Oyeyemi, but that’s a story for another day

I’m pitting three gingerbread cookie recipes against each other and three cakey gingerbread recipes against each

Gingerbread came to Europe in the 11th century CE when crusaders brought it back from the eastern

The cookies would be formed into all kinds of shapes, such as animals, birds, flowers, and armor

Sometimes they would eat little husband-shaped gingerbread cookies in the hopes of finding real husband

That explains the origins of gingerbread men, but what about gingerbread houses? Gingerbread houses became a popular

Either way, we still love building gingerbread houses to this day

Mary Ball Washington, George Washington’s mother, was well-known for her gingerbread loaves, and her recipe was

I started off my gingerbread journey with a fresh jar of molasses, brand new cookie cutters, and

And after chilling the dough, it was very easy to roll it out (with minimal flouring) and

I’m a chewier gingerbread person, which is part of why I’m looking at gingerbread men

Of the three gingerbread cookie recipes I tried, this was the least sweet of the batch

But this is one recipe that would have definitely benefited from a little sweetness from icing and

I ended up sprinkling a little brown sugar on the top of my second batch just to

First of all, compared to the other recipes on this list, the amount of ginger this one

After that, it didn’t ask that the dough be chilled before it was rolled out, which

As you can see, these gingerbread people started crumbling apart before I could even get them to

At the end of the day, this cookie recipe tasted fine, and I commend Khan for being

By the time I made it to the third round of gingerbread men baking, I’d seriously

And then I had to chill it again after I’d cut it into gingerbread shapes

So here’s the thing about cookies with a lot of molasses in them

This made it challenging to shape them into little people without the dough stretching all over the

You can still see a few little stretch gingerbread people in this picture, but by the second

Even though the recipe called for cute decorations, these just didn’t need it

Let’s talk gingerbread cakes and loaves, my personal holiday obsession

She’s British, and I’m American, and so I struggled with converting some of the measurements

I was a little shocked by how much butter went into this one

More specifically, it’s a ginger cake originating from Yorkshire

It was very moist and rich (shocker! all that butter!) and it was delicious

This one is another one that didn’t need any fancy decorations or icing

Gabriela Scolik’s Bake! is such a fun cookbook because it’s told almost entirely in pictures

I loved the pictures because it was easy to follow along and remember where I was in

Also, the recipe says that it’s egg-free, but clearly in the steps of the recipe, it

The recipe says to only cook this loaf for 30 minutes, but it was nowhere near done by

My husband and I actually ended up toasting this one up for breakfast

For our grand finale, we’re going with the American Girl Holiday Baking take on gingerbread cake

The secret ingredient? Cayenne pepper! I wouldn’t say the pepper made the gingerbread spicy, but it

Turns out your cake doesn’t have to be super sweet if it’s got a tasty

It’s fine, but it feels like a pretty standard cream cheese icing recipe, which feels like

Aside from the issues with the sticky dough, Pansino’s recipe was super easy to make

We as a household are still recovering from this wild wave of gingerbread foods

Are you looking for more ginger recipes? Here’s a showdown to find the best ginger cookie