There’s sweet, mildly spicy magic in combining ginger, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and molasses in winter gingerbread recipes, whether you’re making holiday cookies, loaves of bread, seasonal plated desserts, or a festive drink. Indulge your love for gingerbread flavors with any of these variations, from cookies to decorate to a decorative trifle, plus the perfect bread for a holiday brunch and a merry Margarita.
Gingerbread House
eva kolenko / Food Styling by Natalie Drobny / Prop Styling by Genesis Vallejo / Gingerbread Styling by Amy Hatwig
This recipe from the Food & Wine Test Kitchen makes one large gingerbread house or five to seven smaller ones for a village. The secret behind the flavor is an all-butter gingerbread and the streamlined, stylish design is a treat.
Gingerbread Latte
Eva Kolenko
F&W’s Lucy Simon emulates the warming spiced notes of freshly baked gingerbread by flavoring this hot espresso drink with cinnamon, molasses, and ground ginger.
Marranitos
Linda Xiao / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Christina Daley
A Mexican bakery favorite, these soft, chewy cookies are spiced with ginger and called marranitos, puerquitos, or cochinitos because they’re shaped like little pigs.
Gingerbread Cookies with Royal Icing
© Lucy Schaeffer
Chef Michael Mina says his recipe is ideal for decorating the gingerbread cookies with kids.
Chocolate-Gingerbread Cookies
© Ditte Isager
These marvelous Christmas cookies from Baked’s Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito combine chocolate with spicy gingerbread. The supple dough is very easy to work with, and the scraps can be rerolled and cut out.
Gingerbread Roll with Cinnamon Cream
© Tina Rupp
A riff on a bûche de Noël, this inventive recipe from longtime pastry chef Jennifer Giblin combines tender ginger cake with a tangy cream-cheese filling.
Pain d’Épices
© Oddur Thorisson
This hearty, deeply spiced gingerbread loaf from French cook and writer Mimi Thorisson has a wonderful honey-buckwheat flavor.
Spiced Gingerbread Cookies
© Christina Holmes
Pastry chef and author Julianne Jones’s wonderfully zingy gingerbread cookies have a tender and cakey texture, yet they’re sturdy enough to decorate.
Molasses-Gingerbread Cake with Mascarpone Cream
© Con Poulos
This gorgeously moist cake from baking instructor Katie Rosenhouse is flavored with molasses for a mellow sweetness. It’s excellent served with wine-poached pears or a topping of whipped mascarpone and sugary, slightly bitter confited orange peel.
Gingerbread and White Chocolate Mousse Trifle
© Chris Court
Writer and pastry chef Monica Glass’s trifle is three desserts in one: mousse, gingerbread, and caramel. Each part is delicious on its own, too.
Gingerbread with Pears
© David De Vleeschauwer
Former Food & Wine test kitchen editor Diana Sturgis folds dices of a Bartlett pear into the batter before baking a loaf of gingerbread.
Gingerbread Margarita
Photo by Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Emily Nabors Hall / Prop Styling by Audrey Davis
Pour Baldamar bar manager David Marzorati Jr.’s winterized Margarita with a warm, cozy, cake-spice panache at holiday parties.