Get festive with our best gingerbread recipes for Christmas
There's nothing more festive than the smell of gingerbread filling your house at Christmas time and these are our favourite recipes.
Gingerbread recipes are easy to make, delicious to eat and make the house smell wonderfully festive. And Christmas is a great moment to make time for baking.
If you are after a simple gingerbread biscuit, our easy gingerbread recipe (a mix of butter, brown sugar, golden syrup, flour and ginger) is just that, and you'll still have delicious, crowd-pleasing cookies even if you don't have the time, or patience, to ice them.
If you're feeling more ambitious you can tackle our gingerbread house recipe and use whatever sweets and treats you like to decorate it. For fans of Halloween we have even created a haunted gingerbread house - why not create both a Christmas and Halloween house?
Or for a festive show-stopper try our gingerbread biscuit mobile for advent or as thoughtful homemade Christmas gift, why not bake a Gingerbread Christmas wreath.
Gingerbread recipe tips:
• You will need to put the gingerbread dough in the fridge for at least 30min. This will make rolling out the dough much easier and it won't stick to the worktop.
• Go easy on the dough, the more you work it, rolling it over and over, the tougher the finished gingerbread biscuit will be.
• Think before stamping our your gingerbread biscuits with cookies cutters. You'll want to avoid rolling out the dough again so think about how the shapes will fit.
• Unbaked gingerbread dough can be frozen, wrapped in clingfilm, for up to one month. Defrost overnight in the fridge.
Gingerbread Latte Bundt Cake
We love the adorable gingerbread men poking out of this irresistible gingerbread cake.
Recipe: Gingerbread Latte Bundt Cake
Chocolate Gingerbread Cake
This multi-layered show stopper cake is spiced like gingerbread but with added chocolate, making it perfect for everyone!
Recipe: Chocolate Gingerbread Cake
Pepparkakor village
This is Sweden's version of a gingerbread recipe but (as the name suggests) is a pepper-forward recipe - so perfect if you like a bit of extra peppery heat.
Recipe: Pepparkakor village
Triple Ginger Cake
If you love ginger, you've come to the right place. This triple ginger cake contains fresh ginger, dried ginger and stem ginger in syrup for a punchy yet sweet-topped loaf cake. Perfect with tea.
Recipe: Triple ginger cake
Gingerbread house
Follow our recipe to create your very own Winter Wonderland gingerbread house, a great activity to do with the kids.
Recipe: Gingerbread house
Gingerbread advent mobile
The perfect Christmas project for kids, this gingerbread advent calendar is in mobile form - but they make great Christmas tree decorations too.
Recipe: Gingerbread Advent Mobile
Gingerbread wreath
Classic Swedish gingerbread with a characteristic snap. This recipe makes two wreaths, one to give and one to keep!
Recipe: Gingerbread wreath
Easy gingerbread
This gingerbread recipe is perfect to make with kids, and to eat with the rest of the family at Christmas or any time you fancy.
Recipe: Easy gingerbread
Gingerbread man, apple and blackberry crumble
This boozy and warming crumble will put a smile on your guest’s faces. The gingerbread recipe makes more gingerbread men than you need, but they keep well and are delicious with a cup of tea or hot milk.
Gingerbread Christmas pudding
A top trend this year, we’ve warmed up our pudding with gingerbread spices. A finishing drizzle of luscious ginger caramel adds wow factor.
Recipe: Gingerbread Christmas pudding
Gingerbread latte tear and share bread
If you love a gingerbread latte during the festive season, then you’ll love one of our warming spiced buns. If you don’t want the extra caffeine kick in the icing, replace the espresso with water.
Gingerbread house ice cream
All the flavours of a gingerbread house (sprinkles and icing included) but in ice cream form. What's not to like?
Recipe: Gingerbread house ice cream
Gingerbread latte poke cake
Autumnal flavours take centre stage in this squidgy gingerbread bake.
Recipe: Gingerbread latte poke cake
Gingerbread cake with gin
Gingerbread gin adds a next-level flavour to this tasty gingerbread cake. Decorate with cranberries for a festive touch.
Recipe: Gingerbread gin cake
Gingerbread haunted house
A spooky and stunning addition to your Halloween decorations. A labour of love, but worth the effort we think!
Recipe: Gingerbread haunted house
Gingerbread Cream Liqueur Recipe
A smooth after-dinner tipple or add a dash to coffee or hot chocolate for some boozy indulgence.
Recipe: Gingerbread Cream Liqueur Recipe
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).
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