A few weeks ago, I attempted to recreate chocolate digestive biscuits. They were good, but nowhere near as good as the “real ones”. I then tried to make Ginger Nut biscuits, another British classic and a firm favourite of mine. And I have to say… I nailed it, haha! They are spot on – I think both taste- and looks-wise they are extremely close to the original (McVities). Haha, as I said in my chocolate digestives post – McVities, if you´re reading this, please hire me! 😉
For those of you unfamiliar with ginger nut biscuits, they are crisp, round ginger-flavoured biscuits. They are quite different from gingerbread biscuits, as they have a distinctive ginger flavour rather than the mixed combination of spices you get from a gingerbread. I think they are called ginger snap biscuits in the US, but I am not entirely sure if they are the same thing.
Creating the Perfect Ginger Nut Biscuit
I came up with the recipe after reading a lot (and I mean A LOT) of other ginger nut/ginger biscuit recipes out there. I tried to see what different ingredient other people were using and what kind of reviews/comments people had left. Too sweet, too gingery, not enough ginger, too soft, too this, too that. You get the idea. So, I put my thinking cap on and came up with the recipe down below.
These ginger nut biscuits could not be easier to make – you can bring the mixture together and have the biscuits ready to bake before the oven has even fully preheated!
What ingredients did I use and why?
Let me run through the ingredients I used in this recipe and explain why I used them.
Plain flour
I saw a few recipes that suggested you use self-raising flour. But for a biscuit that is meant to remain flat and turn crisp, why would I use flour that contains a raising agent? I did use a little baking powder in this recipe, but combining it with self-raising flour seemed a bit too much… So, plain flour it is!
Bicarbonate of soda and baking powder
As I said, I did use a little raising agent to make sure the biscuits weren´t complete rocks. Only half a teaspoon of baking powder did the trick. I also added half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. This is an important ingredient when making biscuits, I think, as it gives them a good texture!
Ground ginger
I like quite a gingery biscuit, so when people claim other recipe contain too much or too little ginger, there´s not much you can do with that information as it is pretty subjective. I ended up opting for 3 tsp and, for me, that was the perfect amount. As I said, taste-wise these biscuits were extremely similar to McVitie´s Ginger Nuts.
Sugar
Every recipe I saw used a different type of sugar – caster sugar, granulated sugar, light brown, dark brown, muscovado, golden caster sugar… Where do you even start?
In the end, my thinking was as follows: half granulated sugar to help with texture and half golden caster sugar to give the biscuits colour and a buttery flavour. The last addition of sugar in this recipe comes from 2 tbsp of golden syrup, again helping with colour and creating depth of flavour.
Butter
Well, not much to say here – every good biscuit just needs butter to bring the ingredients together and make the biscuits taste good. This is the only dairy ingredient in this biscuit recipe, so you can easily make this recipe dairy-free or vegan by substituting the butter with a dairy-free/vegan alternative.
More Biscuit Recipes
I love a good biscuit to dunk into a cup of tea (ginger nut biscuits lend themselves particularly well for dunking) and have a lot of biscuit recipes on my blog. Check out some of the other recipes down below:
- Best-ever Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Gingerbread Men
- Nut Butter Cookies (Dairy-free/Vegan)
- Chocolate Digestive Biscuits
- Vanilla Crescents
- Maple and Walnut Biscuits
- Chocolate and Orange Crescents
- Traditional Scottish Shortbread
- Easy Iced Biscuits
Ginger Nut Biscuits | McVities Copycat Recipe |
British Baking Classic
Recipe
Ingredients (makes 16):
- 100g plain flour, sifted
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 3 tsp ground ginger
- 20g granulated sugar
- 20g golden caster sugar
- 2 tbsp golden syrup
- 50g unsalted butter, melted
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 170°C and line two large baking sheets with baking paper.
- Combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, ground ginger, granulated and golden caster sugar in a bowl.
- Create a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the melted butter and golden syrup.
- Stir everything with a wooden spoon until the mixture comes together into a dough (you might want to use your hands to bring it together in the end).
- Roll the dough into 16 balls (about 15g each if you want to be precise) and place them onto the prepared baking sheets. Leave a bit of space between each biscuit to allow for some spread in the oven.
- Press the dough gently to the flatten the balls a little, then bake in the preheated oven for 12-14 minutes until firm and golden. Don´t worry if they still seem a little soft, they will harden as they cool.
- Leave the ginger nut biscuits to cool on the tray for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
