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The Best Ginger Snaps Recipe

The Best Ginger Snaps. Thin crispy spiced cookies with plenty of warm ginger flavour. Just a Ziploc bag is all you need to decorate them for the Holidays too.

Ginger Snaps with snowflake design decoration

Cookies with royal icing decoration.

Today’s ginger snaps recipe comes to you courtesy of the ladies of the household. Spouse loves anything ginger and this is her recipe for crispy ginger snaps, one of the most perfect coffee or tea cookies.

Ginger is such a warm, comforting spice.

Number 1 kid dressed them up for Christmas with some simple snowflake designs. The designs were piped on using royal icing in a simple Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off.

Ginger snaps on a pale blue plate

Ginger snaps

So, no special decorating equipment is required. It’s another great recipe for the Christmas freezer or at any time of year.

Looking for more Christmas baking ideas. We have a whole collection of our Fan Favourite Christmas Baking Recipes.

Best Christmas Baking Recipes photo collage

Best Christmas Baking Recipes

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Originally published December 2015. Updated November 2019 to provide nutritional information and a new printable recipe page.

Ginger Snaps with snowflake design decoration
Yield: 24 three inch cookies

The Best Ginger Snaps

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 13 minutes
Total Time: 28 minutes

The Best Ginger Snaps - thin crispy spiced cookies with plenty of warm ginger flavor. Just a Ziploc bag is all you need to decorate them for the Holidays too.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 1/2 tbsp ginger
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup molasses

FOR THE ROYAL ICING

  • 1 large egg white
  • About 1 1/4 cups icing sugar, powdered sugar icing sugar (powdered sugar)
  • pinch cream of tartar

Instructions

  1. Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon and salt and set aside.
  2. Cream together the shortening, butter, sugars and molasses until light and fluffy.
  3. Fold in the dry ingredient mixture until a soft dough forms.
  4. Refrigerate for a couple of hours until the dough is well chilled.
  5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  6. Roll out to about 1/8 of an inch or a little thicker.
  7. Use cookie cutters to cut out the cookies and transfer to a parchment paper lined baking sheet.
  8. Bake for 15-18 minutes depending upon the size of your cookies. The cookies pictured were made using a 3 inch cookie cutter and took about 17 minutes. You don't want to under bake them or they will not be crispy.
  9. Store in airtight containers. Freezes well.

TO MAKE THE ROYAL ICING

  1. Beat together the egg white, cream of tartar and about 1 cup of the icing sugar until light and fluffy.
  2. Beat in the remaining icing sugar a tablespoon at a time until the icing reaches a spreadable consistency.
  3. Use a piping bag or a Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off to draw on snowflake patterns.

Notes

Nutritional information calculated for undecorated cookies.

Recommended Products

Rock Recipes a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Our product recommendations are almost exclusively for those we currently use or have used in the past.

Nutrition Information

Yield

24

Serving Size

24 3 inch cookies

Amount Per Serving Calories 137Saturated Fat 2gCholesterol 5mgSodium 160mgCarbohydrates 19gFiber 1gSugar 11gProtein 1g

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Barb Hillier

Saturday 31st of October 2020

Can I use butter instead of shortening

Elsie

Saturday 30th of November 2019

Can I replace the shortening with butter?

Colleen

Saturday 2nd of December 2017

At 350° and rolled to 1/8" thick they were burned to a crop at 12 minutes. At 9 minutes they were well done. Not sure if it was my oven or the pan but usually my oven runs cool. But they taste great and have a good snap. Just watch the first batch carefully when you make for the first time. Going to try again.

Barry C. Parsons

Tuesday 5th of December 2017

The pans make a huge difference. I hate darker alloy metal pans. Aluminum bakeware is all I use. Much better regulation of heat.

Carol

Tuesday 31st of October 2017

I made this recipe for my Halloween Skeletons. They did turn out tasty, and crispy. However, I found the dough to be a bit dry and crumbly and a little hard to work with. But in the end good skeletons.

Catherine

Friday 14th of July 2017

I found the dough to be quite dry before chilling and even worse once chilled.I added an egg to make a dough that I could roll out .Should there be perhaps 1/2 cup molasses in the recipe? I'm wondering what I could have done wrong.They turned out crisp and tasty once I made the adjustment.

Kathryn

Saturday 28th of October 2017

I just add a squirting of milk to make it more workable.

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