The #1 Underrated Ingredient for Holiday Baking, According to a Baker

At this time of year, peppermint gets all the love. Not that it’s undeserved. My house is fully stocked with enough peppermint bark to get me through the holiday season, and I love making chocolate-peppermint cakes and cookies. But there’s another ingredient that is just as evocative of the holiday season but often overlooked. I’m talking about sweet, spicy ginger. And I’m not discriminating. I mean ginger in all its forms: ground, fresh, crystallized.

In my opinion, ginger is the most underrated ingredient for holiday baking. You can’t make gingerbread cutout cookies, ginger molasses cookies, gingerbread cake or other gingerbread treats without it. My family always made tons of cookies for the holidays, and one of my favorites was chewy chocolate chip-gingerbread cookies. We would roll the dough balls in sugar so the cookies sparkled after they were baked. Ginger brings a little spice and a little subtle heat wherever it’s used, and these cookies were a welcome addition to our cookie plates, alongside traditional sugar cookies, shortbreads and jam-filled thumbprints.

As the years have gone by, I’ve fallen in love with ginger even more. My favorite gingerbread cookie uses it three ways, so you get a heavy hit of flavor in every bite. Ground ginger adds subtle spice, while fresh grated ginger adds a more pungent flavor, and crystallized ginger adds a decorative sparkle and little chewy bits with a little heat. I also enjoy ginger in gingerbread cakes, loaves and brownies. (I once made a three-layer gingerbread cake with a luscious vanilla buttercream frosting that was a huge hit at a holiday party.) 

The most familiar place to find ginger in holiday baking, though, is likely gingerbread cutout cookies. Sugar cookies are pretty and nice, and while they’re sweet and buttery and general crowd-pleasers, they lack the depth of flavor that a gingerbread cutout cookie has. These cookies just beg to be nibbled on in front of a cozy fire along with a cup of tea. Maybe even while there’s some snow falling.

But depth of flavor isn’t the only thing ginger has going for it. Ginger also has many health benefits. It can help soothe an upset stomach—which might come in handy if you eat too many holiday cookies! It can also help relieve chronic pain over time and it’s packed with antioxidants, which might help prevent heart disease and cancer. Plus, ginger contains the anti-inflammatory compound gingerol. Gingerol is what gives ginger its spicy flavor, and it may also help improve inflammation and inflammatory conditions such as the common cold. It’s also known to help support the immune system, which is why ginger tea is often recommended to help soothe a cold or digestion issues.

So, as you’re planning your holiday baking this year, don’t forget to include some ginger, whether in gingerbread cake, cookies or other treats! I promise you won’t regret it.