A recent post on cheesecake made with a biscuit base, started a dialogue about biscuits. The lovely Tia mentioned that she enjoyed Ginger Nuts, a biscuit enjoyed widely in the UK with a cup of tea or coffee. I said I would try to find a recipe (and I did find a Delia Smith one which was a huge disaster), then the equally lovely Evie from Pendle Stitches sent me over the recipe she uses to bake for her family.
Of course, I had to give them a go. Result? Fabulous, better than shop made and even without the Stem Ginger (which I couldn´t get hold of) they were amazing. Thanks Evie, these will become a family favourite here too!
Here´s Evie´s recipe, and like her I added extra ground ginger (another half a tablespoon).
Stem Gingernuts (From The Great British Book of Baking)
- 350g self-raising flour
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger (I usually add a bit more because I love my gingernuts to have bite)
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- 200g caster sugar
- 115g unsalted butter
- 85g golden syrup
- 1 egg, beaten
- 3 pieces stem ginger, drained and finely chopped (this is ginger in a sweet syrup which you can buy or make your own)
Preheat oven to 170oC/350oF/gas 3. Grease or line baking trays. I just use parchment.
Sift the flour, ground ginger, bicarb of soda and sugar into a mixing bowl. Gently melt the butter with the syrup in a pan over a low heat and set aside until barely warm.
Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients, add the beaten egg and the stem ginger and mix with a wooden spoon. When thoroughly combined, roll the mixture into 24 walnut-sized balls, using your hands.
Arrange on prepared baking trays, spacing well apart to allow for spreading.
Bake in preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes until a good golden brown. Keep an eye on them and, if necessary, turn the trays around halfway through the cooking period so that the biscuits brown evenly.
Leave the biscuits to cool on the trays for a couple of minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.
Store in an airtight container, or make a large pot of coffee and scoff the lot!
Chica Andaluza 
These look like my kinda of biscuits! I am glad it is not just me re DS recipes. I used to think it was, but seems not. Will be giving these a try!
It´s funny, I don´t remember having problems previously and I have a Christmas cake one that I use every year but lately her recipes don´t seem to be working for me either!
I really struggle with DS recipes. I love how your biscuits have turned out looking even nicer than mine do! We love this recipe…a firm family favourite. The stem ginger adds yummy chewy bits if you can get it.
It seems that a lot of people are having problems with her recipes…I wonder how well tested they are before they are published? I do enjoy stem ginger, and it was my grandmother´s Christmas treat!
These look wonderful – I will definitely be trying this recipe! (Also – don’t waste the syrup from the jar of stem ginger. Pour it over chopped bananas with the side of your choice. Delicious.)
What a great idea – am just working out how to make stem ginger (presumably fresh ginger in a sugar syrup)!
I haven’t tried it but I did find this recipe on line.
http://low-cholesterol.food.com/recipe/stem-ginger-in-syrup-44081
Sounds good – will have to give it a go and will add the link to the recipe – thanks Evie!
Any time!
I love these ginger cookies but the idea of finding these ingredients is too daunting, even in Barcelona :
1 tablespoon ground ginger?
85g golden syrup?
3 pieces stem ginger?
not easy to come by!
Don´t fear the ingredient list! Ground ginger is sold in all supermarkets with the spices “Jengibre Molido”, leave out the stem ginger (as I did) and for the golden syrup you could use Miel de Caña or honey (or a mix of half and half…I should have said. I was lucky as I had bought some´Golden Syrup over from the UK…sorry 😦
I absolutely love a gingernut biscuit, especially with a cup of tea. Just by looking at the ingredients, you know these are going to be good!
🙂 Mandy
They certainly were – warm, spicy and crunchy!
I’m coming over with coffee for dunking!
Oh yes, dunking is a legal requirement with these!
What…widely enjoyed in the UK…where can I find some? I need to have some 🙂 They sound wonderful.
You mean you are not going to bake them?! Ok, I´ll let you off as you are busy reading…Sainsbury´s, Tesco….!
I did briefly consider getting the ingredients and such…but…I used to bake a lot more. I need to get back into the habit. Slowly I am building up my kitchen supplies after the move.
It takes time – go on, pop out to the supermarket!
Ginger cookies are one of those things that I love, but for some reason fail to remember to make on a irregular basis. I need to fix that ASAP. 🙂
Have a great weekend!!
I hadn´t had them for years (literally) it was only the reminder from Tia that made me think of them and then crave them!
mmm looks yummy. am terrible in baking. i do love cookies and cakes though 🙂
Thank you – baking sometimes takes a little practice and it doesn´t always go well for me either!
Freshly-baked ginger cookies remind me of being home as a young boy. Yum! I’m glad you made these without the Stem Ginger, for I’ve no idea what that is or where to begin to look for it. As such, I’ll make these and it sounds like I’m going to be very happy with the results. Thanks, Tanya!
Hi John – have amended the post as I´ve had a lot of questions about the stem ginger. It´s fresh ginger preserved in a gorgeous sweet sticky syrup. Sometimes it comes in beautiful jars, especially around Christmas. I know a little jar of Stem Ginger was always on my Grandmother´s Christmas list as she loved to cook with it and sometimes just pop a little fiery piece in her mouth!
Tanya, do you sound amazing! I love ginger in all its forms, but have never heard of stem ginger. I’m guessing that it’s jarred ginger In syrup. Am I right?? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it but will take a look around. If I can’t find it I wonder about the addition of fresh grated ginger root. Any thoughts? Can hardly wait to try these!
You guessed absolutely right and Evie has now also sent me a link on how to make your own. You could certainly try with fresh ginger, but I´d suggest very little as the “raw” taste might be quite potent!
Beautiful, mouth watering biscuits.
Good old fashioned flavour – “proper” biscuits!
I need these cookies, like yesterday. They’re gorgeous!!!
Thank you Heather – luckily it made baout 36, so we still have some left…wish I could mail you a dozen!
Wow, the biscuits looked so delicious! =)
They were lovely – just as a remembered them from my youth in England!
This is a great recipe that I’m going to make for sure, my husband and I just love gingernuts biscuits and is so difficult to find them in Spain……thanks to share and have a great weekend:)
Yes, apart from English shops (which charge a fortune) I´ve never seen them here. Hope you enjoy them!
This is my kind of cookie! Mmmmm I can’t get enough ginger, I LOVE it!
I think it´s one of those Love/Hate things – I love it too!
I love the way they look all cracked and crunchy….probably won’t make them, though, as I rarely do sweet things…..but, then, they do look rather good so maybe!
I don´t make sweet things often either, but these are good because they are more spicy than sweet!
I love ginger cookies…are these like ginger snaps in that they are crispy? They look terrific and I bet you could sub crystallized or candied ginger for the stem ginger. Now I’m craving ginger with all this talk! 😉
I think crystallised or candied ginger would be lovely too. I think these are what are called ginger snaps in the US – in the UK ginger snaps are made from a kind of ginger batter which is baked for a very short time and then moulded into basket shapes or rolls which are filled with whipped cream…ooh, now you´ve got me going!
These look super! I wonder if these the same as what are known here in the states as Ginger Snaps? My wife just found a new recipe for them that we are going to try next week (I hope!).
Hi Ted, yes I think these are what you call ginger snaps but in the UK a ginger snap is a baked batter which is moulded into shapes and then filled with cream! Looking forward to seeing your wife´s recipe 🙂
Reblogged this on Halal786's Blog and commented:
Ginger Snaps…
Seems you like some of my posts! Thank you for visiting…
¡Qué ricos! Me encantan 🙂
Gracias Giovanna, un abrazo!
Delia’s not been helping you lately 😦
I’m sitting up waiting for layer one of a G&T jelly to set…
She has indeed let me down a few times 😦 G&T Jelly – now that sounds like part of a plan for a bit of a party weekend!
Big party 😉
Sounds dangerous! Have fun 🙂
Yum!!! We were just talking about biscuits tonight and lamenting not having any good home baking (or ability to do any thanks to no oven and no proper butter!)…Have a few for us! And homemade gingernuts are the best – all the yummy flavour without the toothbreaking-industrial strength texture of the packet ones!
I felt the same when I first came to Spain – ovens are still not common in all houses and butter is rarely used. Hope you´re both well!
I can’t wait to make these! I am completely in love with ginger cookies and this recipe looks perfect. Wish I could reach into my computer screen and snatch one! 🙂
We have just had some more with a glass of mint tea!
Damn, I never seem to be able to make mine look all crackled and pretty on top like this. I’ve never seen stem ginger like that here (fresh stuff of course but not in syrup)… I did finally find crystallized ginger though at least. The ginger cookies I make are nice, but never as visually pleasing 😦
You´re right, they did look like shop bought ones i.e. how I expected them to look! More importantly, they tasted like they should!
Oh yeh….just love gingernurw and with stem ginger, perfect
It seems there is a big ginger fan club out here!
I love ginger and these sound like heavenly cookies, my mum makes ginger candy that is like a firework explosion in your mouth. I’m guessing these cookies will be the same
A firework explosion – love it! These are quite spicy and would be even more so with the crystallized or stem ginger….mmmm!
Those look amazing!
Have to say, it´s a top recipe, they´re lovely!
I love anything that has ginger in it (sometimes I even boil ginger root for ginger tea), and when I was little I couldn’t get enough of these windmill-shaped ginger snaps my mom used to buy. I have to try this recipe out as soon as we get that oven.
P.S. I used your pinto bean hummus (paté?) recipe last week, and it was divine!!
Oh yes, ginger tea. Especially good when you´re feeling a bit queasy or delicate. Glad you liked the hummus/paté…must make some more soon!
I love those cookies.. and now you’ve found a recipe for me to try! Love it!! I’ve been craving them ever since I got back from England (ahem.. that was years ago!). I thought stem ginger was the sugar coated dried stuff?
It worked so well. You can get crystallised ginger which I think is what you know – chopped finely that would also taste wonderful. There are a lot of us who like ginger!
Another brilliant recipe, Chica! I’ve been working through my back-log of emailed posts, and keeping the best recipes in my inbox to try – somehow most of them seem to be from your blog!!! Thanks!
That´s very kind of you. This was a new recipe to me but I have now made them a couple of times, they´re very tasty!
i made these from that baking book on the weekend! and then i took some into work to share with my office buddies today and they were all asking for the recipe, and i discovered your blog while searching for the recipe online to email to everyone. HOW GOOD ARE THESE BISCUITS?!!? SO. GOOD. i used brown sugar instead of caster sugar and swapped 50g of flour for cornflour, and added fresh grated ginger, lemon zest and extra spices (more ground ginger plus ground cloves and ground cinnamon). deee lish. next time you bake these make sure you add those extras! it makes them even more heavenly. (i also drizzled some of them with lemon syrup icing after, and experimented by rolling a couple of my dough balls in cinnamon sugar before baking. try that too!). you won’t regret it. OM NOM NOM.
I love the little tweaks you made – sounds like they were a huge success!