Super Aromatic & Easy Gingerbread Spice Recipe

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Cooking With Anadi

12K subscribers · ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves—warm spice for everything

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As soon as October ends then we’re in full-on holiday mode! The excitement - and the great food! - starts now!

While I’ve never baked my own gingerbread cookies, I think perhaps with this Gingerbread Spice recipe on hand I’ll have to just give it a shot! As of this weekend, I’ve actually been making a lot of my own spice blends- they’re really near effortless to do always taste better than from a store!

Speaking of stores, I’ve never actually seen gingerbread spice at a store, but if it were to be sold, I’m sure it’s quite expensive! I see that on Amazon Canada gingerbread spice is nearly $15 CAD for a tiny little jar! I can make that much of my own for probably a couple of cents’ worth!

If gingerbread cookies are special to you and your family, or any recipe that tastes like gingerbread, then put your heart on a plate and celebrate the holidays as part of your Live to Cook one month challenge! Get started for free by signing up to my free email newsletter, plus you’ll get all of my new recipes sent straight to your inbox!

To follow along with gathering all the spices and putting them all together, be sure to watch the video! I would really appreciate it if you would please subscribe to my YouTube channel if you’re not already and don’t forget to press the bell button to be notified when all of my video recipes go live! Let’s get mixing!

Why You’ll Love This Homemade Gingerbread Spice!

• Simple and easy: You can gather all the spices and mix in just a couple of minutes!
• Winter delight: We all associate gingerbread with winter and the holidays! You can enjoy that holiday feeling in all of your favorite treats - check out the bottom of this post for some ideas on how to use your Gingerbread Spice!
• Aromatic: While the freshness of your Gingerbread Spice will depend on the freshness of the individual spices, this will still be so aromatic and smell incredible with lots of potency!
• Customizable: The ratios here are of course a guideline. Feel free to experiment with your own ratios to find the sweet spot giving you the best Gingerbread Spice to you!

Tools Needed to Make Gingerbread Spice

• Measuring spoons: To measure your spices.
• Mixing bowl: To add and mix all of the spices together.
• Funnel: Helpful in transferring the spice blend.
• Glass jar: Spice jars are great to store your homemade spice blends! Alternatively, if making a big batch of Gingerbread Spice, opt for a mason jar.

Ingredients for Gingerbread Spice

For all ingredient quantities and to save the recipe for later, scroll to the bottom of this post for the FULL PRINTABLE RECIPE CARD, or press the “Jump to Recipe” button. If you want to make a large batch of Gingerbread Spice, you can also use the recipe card to scale the recipe, and all spice amounts will automatically be adjusted for you.

• Ginger: The main spice for Gingerbread Spice, of course! Playing around with this quantity will really affect the flavor profile of the spice overall, so be careful with it.
• Cinnamon: The second star of the show here. Cinnamon adds heat and a bit of sweetness. Cinnamon comes from the inner bark of trees, scientifically referred to as Cinnamomum. Cinnamon has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. Cinnamon is loaded with polyphenol antioxidants, it can prevent inflammation in the body, and it can reduce the risk of heart disease. While you can use store-bought ground cinnamon, if you want a super aromatic and fresh Gingerbread Spice, use whole cinnamon sticks and a blender to grind it or use a mortar and pestle.
• Nutmeg: Nutmeg is wonderful to add some warmth to your food. I love to use it in both sweet recipes, such as my Overnight French Toast Casserole, but also in savory sauces, such as Bechamel or Bolognese. You can use a microplane to grate whole nutmeg if you’d like, which will again yield fresher results, as with the cinnamon sticks.
• Allspice: Contrary to what the name suggests, allspice actually is a spice! It is available ground or whole. Allspice comes from dried berries of the allspice tree, native to Jamaica.
• Black pepper: Black peppercorns come from the berries of the peppercorn plant, known as Piper nigrum. A classic Gingerbread Spice Blend doesn’t actually use black pepper, but I like it because it really has heat and it soothes the throat, as you can see in my Indian Masala Chai recipe. This is excellent for winter, which is when gingerbread-flavored goods really shine!
• White pepper: White pepper also comes from the pepper plant, however, they come from berries which are picked at peak ripeness. Then, the berries are soaked in water to ferment, and then their outer shell is removed, leaving only the seed. White pepper is not as spicy as black pepper - in contrast, it has a more earthy and nutty flavor. Black pepper is more common in American cooking, but white pepper tends to be used in French and Asian recipes for a more visual appeal. For example, white pepper is the main spice in all of my fried rice recipes, including Classic Egg Fried Rice, Beef Fried Rice, and Shrimp Fried Rice!
• Ground cloves: Clove is an aromatic spice that is found from the dried flowers of the clove tree. I love to use whole cloves in my Indian recipes, such as in Rajma Chawal (red kidney beans curry and rice) or Adraki-Dhaniya Paneer (ginger-cilantro paneer) but ground cloves are wonderful to add aroma with a sweet and warm flavor. Cloves have amazing health benefits, such as containing antioxidants, they are a high source of the mineral manganese, they can prevent cancer, and they have the possibility of improving liver health.
• Ground cardamom: If you don’t have ground green cardamom, you can grind it down whole green cardamom pods using a mortar and pestle.

How to Make Gingerbread Spice

To make this gingerbread spice, all you need to do is mix all the spices together in a bowl or shake the ingredients together in an airtight jar.

Tips for Making Homemade Gingerbread Spice

• Use fresh spices that are stored well: The fresher your spices are, the more potent the gingerbread spice will be. Avoid using really old spices or else the results won’t be as good. Always store the spices in a cool, dry place, in an airtight jar.
• Use whole spices: As mentioned previously, if you can use some whole spices and mash them, that’ll be even more aromatic! Yes it takes a bit extra work, but it’s worth it!
• Double the recipe: Perhaps having this spice on hand has inspired you to have a gingerbread theme over the holidays. As I mention in my free guide to explore your potential in the kitchen, Make Cooking Fun!!, using what you have on hand can motivate you to have a theme and try out plenty of new recipes! If you know you want to use a lot of this spice now, be sure to scale the recipe using the recipe card below!

How to Give Gingerbread Spice as a Gift

Know someone who wants to bake some gingerbread cookies? Nothing beats a homemade gift - they’re always the ones that come right from the heart! For a professional appearance, use a label maker to label the jar, then tie it with a nice ribbon!

More Homemade Spice Blends!

• Apple Pie Spice
• Panch Phoran - Indian 5 Spice
• Curry Powder
• Easy & Bold Blackening Spice
• Greatest Homemade Italian Seasoning
• Excellent Quick & Easy Homemade Taco Seasoning
• Perfect DIY Pumpkin Spice Recipe
• Amazing Homemade Cajun Seasoning

No Sugar, No Molasses, No Anise: What Actually Goes Into This Gingerbread Spice

This homemade gingerbread spice mix is eight ground spices and nothing else. Two tablespoons of ground ginger, two tablespoons of cinnamon, one tablespoon of ground nutmeg, one teaspoon of green cardamom powder, a quarter teaspoon each of ground cloves and allspice, and half a teaspoon each of white pepper and black pepper. There is no sugar and no brown sugar in it, no molasses, no salt and no vanilla, because this is a seasoning and not a sweetener — the sweetness comes from whatever you stir it into. There is no anise or star anise here either, and no mace, although ground mace is the swap I would reach for if you have run out of nutmeg.

Two peppers in a gingerbread blend surprise people, and that is deliberate. A classic gingerbread spice blend does not use black pepper at all. I like what it brings: real heat, and the way it soothes a throat in winter, which is the same reason it goes into my masala chai. White pepper is milder, earthier and nuttier, so between the two you get warmth without the blend turning sharp.

The whole batch is small. Twenty-four servings, and a total amount of spice of about 120 grams — a little over four ounces — which fits comfortably into a single spice jar. Mixing takes about two minutes: tip everything into a small bowl and stir, or add it all to an airtight jar and shake it. Nothing is cooked, nothing is toasted and nothing has to be ground, unless you want to grate whole nutmeg or blitz cinnamon sticks yourself for a fresher, more aromatic result.

How to Use Gingerbread Spice in Your Holiday Baking

Once the jar is on the shelf, gingerbread recipes are the obvious place to start — classic gingerbread cookies, a gingerbread loaf, gingerbread muffins. A teaspoon stirred through a plain muffin batter turns it into Christmas muffins with no other change at all. It is just as good in drinks: stir a pinch into hot chocolate, dust it over whipped cream, or use it in place of the individual spices in a gingerbread latte. Oatmeal, pancake batter, roasted squash and apple crumble all take it happily. The ratios in the card are a guideline, so in anything delicate start with less than you think you need and work up.

Calories, Sodium and Giving the Spice Blend as a Gift

Nutritionally there is almost nothing to report, and that is the point. A serving works out to roughly one calorie, with zero grams of protein, zero grams of fiber, no sodium and no trans fat. A spice blend is pure flavor — one of the very few ways to change a dish completely without adding any sugar, salt or fat to it.