14 Best Gingerbread Products To Try This Holiday Season
The holiday season is no time to be demure. No, this is the time for the thematic and the dramatic to shine. If you want everything to eat and drink to be merry and bright, go for it. If you eat a different kind of cookie every day, you have our full support. If you want to only consume gingerbread-flavored products ... well, we have just the list for you.
You might be surprised that gingerbread can go far beyond cookies in the shapes of mischievous little men. Essentially, anything can taste like gingerbread if it has the right spice blend (ginger, of course, plus cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and clove) and molasses undertones. Ice cream, chocolate, coffee creamer, and even cheese have all succumbed to a sprinkling of gingerbread, for better or worse.
Being a team of gingerbread lovers, the methodology we used to select these items was akin to Santa's process on the big day: we went on a mad dash and looked for all of the cookie-flavored items we could get our hands on. We searched the inventory of popular stores like Aldi, Trader Joe's, and Target, keeping an eye out for gingerbread products with a unique twist. Once we had a solid collection, we tasted the spoils and are here to report back.
Loacker Quadratini Gingerbread Wafer Cookies
These gingerbread Quadratini cookies, perhaps not the flashiest holiday-themed product on the market, easily fly under the radar. But if you like light, crisp wafer cookies, you'll love these. Layer upon layer of golden wafer with lightly gingerbread-flavored filling to create a mini cube of a cookie. There isn't a ton of spicy holiday taste in each bite, but just enough to dance across your palate after popping back a few cookies. Like a Pfeffernusse, these are almost as much a snack as they are a dessert, perhaps more so.
Considering how basic and unassuming they are, we were surprised by how we just kept going back for more. And you'll definitely keep going back for more. There are around 65 cookies per pack and an average cost of $5 per bag, so this is one gingerbread product that continues to satisfy all throughout the holidays.
Safe + Fair Gingerbread Cookie Granola
Granola is cereal but generally more wholesome. It goes great on yogurt, in a bowl with milk, or eaten straight out of the bag. And one of our absolute favorite granola brands is the wonderful Safe + Fair. There are many, many reasons to get behind this brand, but let's start with just how great its products taste. This gingerbread-flavored cookie granola (made with real ginger!) tastes so much like a gingerbread cookie that's been crumbled up and deemed healthy.
Safe + Fair has just absolutely nailed the hearty, savory spice of gingerbread. There's plenty of rich, subliminally sweet molasses, and that fresh ginger makes it fiesty. But the Safe + Fair signature texture, light and porous, keeps everything from being too much. You can easily eat a nice bowl of this granola without feeling as full and belabored as you would with many other brands. Basically, if you want to eat gingerbread men for breakfast, buy this granola.
Tony's Chocolonely Milk Chocolate Gingerbread
If you like a big hunk of chocolate for your chocolate bars, look no further than Tony's Chocolonely. The brand has steadily grown in popularity thanks to its inventive, imaginative packaging, sizeable products, and incredibly delicious chocolate. Even without any flavor, gingerbread or otherwise, as just a bar of solid milk chocolate, this bar would be great. But it also happens to be one of the items on this list that best encapsulates gingerbread's iconic holiday flavor.
Milk chocolate gets an immediate lift from the cinnamon and company. But the best part? In the end, as the bite of chocolate melts away on your tongue, you get a sharp, warm taste of vivid, fresh ginger. It's completely unexpected and entirely welcome. Overall, this gingerbread product is a complex, multifaceted, and nuanced chocolate bar that does a whole lot at once. And it does it well. If you see one at the grocery store, we highly suggest you grab it.
Choceur Gingerbread Chocolate Clusters
Gingerbread is an obvious holiday flavor, but pairing it with chocolate is less obvious. But it can be argued that the combination of smooth, deep cocoa and bright, spunky spices is an excellent one. Aldi put them together in a bag of chocolate-infused gingerbread cookie clusters. Crunchy, lightly spiced cookie bits and baubles are fused together with chocolate and caramel, creating something almost like a pecan praline, only without the nuts.
They are not a perfect holiday treat; the gingerbread flavor could be more pronounced, and both the chocolate and caramel could be a richer quality. But these gingerbread cookie clusters are still a sweet, easy-to-eat middle ground between a chocolate bar and a gingerbread cookie, and we love a bit of a dessert innovation. They would be right at home when featured in a casual, sweet-and-salty holiday treat station, especially alongside roasted nuts, salted butter popcorn, and the like. It's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it gingerbread flavor, but sometimes that's all you're looking for.
Gingerbread Toast Crunch
If you like Cinnamon Toast Crunch — and most everyone does — you have probably seen just how many zany iterations have popped up on grocery store shelves. French Toast Crunch, even Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch, and here before us, the limited edition Gingerbread Toast Crunch, only available during the holiday season. Honestly? This gingerbread product tastes pretty darn similar to the original but with a more complex and deeper flavor.
Cinnamon is the prom queen of the sweet-spice world, but gingerbread recipes use far more than just cinnamon. Ginger is the standout, naturally, and the treat also benefits from traces of nutmeg, clove, and allspice. The combination of spices makes this cereal taste less sweet since the plain cinnamon flavor also comes with sugar that is a lot less diluted. It's not a special, highly innovative cereal, but it's a slight shift. If you want to up the ante, try some cereal-infused milk.
Trader Joe's Iced Gingerbread Squares
Potentially the most classically gingerbread item on this list, Trader Joe's Iced Gingerbread Squares are bites of the holiday season. You'll find them in the frozen section and must be sure to let them thaw in the fridge before eating. The result is a dense, chewy slice. The flavor isn't all that spicy but goes big on the molasses, which is highly enjoyable. On some of these bites, the icing can be thin and quite hard, with a snappy lid of white sugar that doesn't deliver much flavor beyond added sweetness. The icing does create a nice textural contrast
These bars are pretty small, and the freezer box is only 7 ounces, so if you're planning to take them out for a holiday get-together ... buy multiples. They're mess-free and have a certain old-world authenticity, whether earned or not, that immediately puts you in a holiday state of mind.
Favorite Day Gingerbread Whipped Dairy Topping
Many holiday desserts would do well to sport a crown of whipped cream. Homemade is best, of course, but having fresh heavy cream on hand at all times and whipping out a loud hand mixer can be difficult. Thus, having a can ready to go is always a great idea. Another great idea? Putting a holiday twist on the plainness of canned whipped cream by giving it some festive flavor. Target's Favorite Day line offers an exciting gingerbread whipped dairy topping that has all the gravity-defying fluffiness of regular whipped cream plus a hint of gingerbread spice.
Frigid ice cream, hot coffee, and actual gingerbread would all be great fun with this topping. There's a nice, pleasant flavor that won't overpower whatever is underneath, but there is also a spike of spiciness it brings to an otherwise simple whipped dessert. If you sprinkle a little ginger and cinnamon on top, even better. But no need to be too fancy about it — squirting it directly into a friend's mouth might be the best thing about ready-to-eat whipped cream.
Tazo Gingerbread Spice Latte
Despite all of its autumnal popularity, the infamous pumpkin spice latte begins to feel entirely out of season come December. Have you heard of the gingerbread spice latte? Tazo's trying to make it happen, and you can make it right at home with this handy concentrate. While cinnamon takes center stage in a pumpkin spice latte, ginger is the leading spice in this one, making it perfect for the holiday season.
Unlike a craft coffee shop latte, this Tazo offering isn't going to blow you away — but it will certainly warm you up. It creates a lovely, cozy beverage that's creamy and milky. It reminded us of a cross between a PSL and a chai latte. It's not that spicy, so if you want a more highly concentrated flavor, you can always use more concentrate. It's a great product to mix and match with others on this list, such as Pfeffernusse or Quadratini cookies. 'Tis the season for going all-out on your favorite holiday flavors.
Aldi Gingerbread Goat Cheese
Aldi has so many limited-edition holiday items that you would be hard-pressed not to fill your cart with some of everything. When you narrow the options down to gingerbread, you still get quite a few to choose from. While the aforementioned Pfeffernusse cookies work as a holiday-themed concept, something that seems to make a lot less sense (at least on paper) is gingerbread goat cheese.
Aldi's cheese section is a lot of fun, and you can't beat the great prices. When the holidays roll around, you can choose from some unconventional flavored cheeses. Though it sounds odd, think of how close goat cheese is to the sweeter, milder cream cheese — and since spicing up cream cheese with cinnamon, ginger, and the like doesn't sound so bad, doing the same to goat cheese actually piqued our curiosity. The result? A balanced, tasty bite that pairs the tangy cheese with warm, sweet gingerbread. This is an incredibly tasty gingerbread treat and is especially recommended on a buttery cracker paired with a tart berry jam.
Trader Joe's Gingerbread Ice Cream
Trader Joe's does not carry a ton of different ice cream flavors, but the limited options are usually wonderful. Previous seasonal flavors from Trader Joe's always impress, like the salted maple ice cream released in the fall and another holiday alternative to gingerbread, Candy Cane Joe-Joe's. The gingerbread pint we picked up was no exception. As you can see from this list, gingerbread-flavored products can land all over the board; mild to bold spice, sweet to almost savory. Of all the products we tried, this gingerbread ice cream had by far the most flavor.
Ice cream is cold, creamy, and often refreshing. Gingerbread is warm, spicy, often crunchy and chewy, and invigorating. But in this case, opposites attract. The ice cream base is high-quality, dense, and has a great mouthfeel. There are chunks of molasses-y cookies and thick ribbons of crumbly, fluffy gingerbread cake. The overall experience is holidays to the max, bursting with sweetness and spices in perfect balance. This might be our favorite Trader Joe's ice cream of all time, and that's really saying something. This ice cream, paired with some Aldi gingerbread caramel sauce and Target's gingerbread whipped dairy topping? A feast for Santa.
Specially Selected Gingerbread Caramel Spread
Caramel sauce usually belongs on ice cream sundaes or Starbucks macchiatos. But why can't we put it on a wider variety of items? Well, if you like everything to taste like gingerbread (why else would you be here, really?) and are looking for all the products, you might want to come up with some creative uses for this Aldi Specially Selected gingerbread caramel spread. Thicker than a typical sauce, you can smear it over anything, and it will be the perfect sticky-sweet topping.
Sweet and mellow like caramel but with the zest of gingerbread spices, this stuff is alarmingly good. We kept coming up with new ways to put it to good use, jazzing up anything with holiday joy; stirred into strong espresso-based coffee drinks, drizzled over vanilla yogurt, buttering up otherwise basic cookies, and so on. You can also just eat a spoonful or two straight out of the jar to really savor that gingerbread flavor.
International Delight Grinch Gingerbread Cookie Dough Coffee Creamer
This Grinch Gingerbread Cookie Dough coffee creamer isn't Grinch-like at all; it's pleasant, easygoing, and unchallenging. The flavor leans farther toward the cookie dough than the gingerbread. We first tasted sweet, slightly vanilla-laced cream, and only if we used quite a bit of creamer did we start getting those aromatic spices. Ginger, cinnamon, and clove are all nuanced and subtle without turning your cup of coffee into something bready. But if you like sweet coffee creamers and shy away from anything with too much of a kick, this one's a nice step up from basic vanilla during the holiday season.
Also, we highly recommend warming the creamer gently, then frothing it up, if you have the right equipment. The heat brings out the spiciness a little bit more, making a great foamy, sweet, toasty topping for strong black coffee. Be sure to add a freshly baked gingerbread cookie on the side for dunking, of course.
Good & Gather Gingerbread Hummus
In the same way that a gingerbread goat cheese sounded like a bad idea, so did gingerbread-flavored hummus. Fortunately, it did not turn out to be the definition of food experimentation gone too far. Some may try it and agree with the above sentiment, but this hummus actually has something going for it.
First and foremost, it's not at all sweet. It falls in between "dessert hummus" and regular hummus. The texture is the same as one would expect, smooth but not silky. As far as flavor, just imagine that the garlic or onion was swapped with a combination of spices without much sweetener. The hummus takes on an earthy flavor that we actually really enjoyed. When you think about it, ginger is a root, after all. So, if you're expecting something more akin to edible cookie dough, look elsewhere. Recommendation: This hummus is nice when eaten with fresh apple slices.
Aldi Winternacht Pfeffernusse
Pfeffernusse is a traditional German spice cookie made around the holidays. They are sweet and soft, generously spiced, and dusted with powdered sugar. Aldi's aren't quite as homemade. Packaged in a winter-themed bag (under the name "Winternacht"), these cookies are cute and bite-sized. Rather than messy powdered sugar, Aldi coats its cookies with a thin layer of hard white icing. Underneath, the cookies are dense and a bit dry but full of flavor. Interestingly, the prevailing spice wasn't ginger but something more akin to licorice, likely star anise. It made for a surprising taste, brimming with old-fashioned flair that some may appreciate more than others.
The Pfeffernusse aren't very sweet — they can be considered more of a snack or something to be dunked into a warm cup of hot chocolate, which would also help them become less drying on the palate. Overall, these may not replace your traditional show-topper if set out on a plate for Santa, but they are a simple and comforting addition when served with after-dinner coffee.