Ginger snap

Ginger nut

Scandinavian-style ginger thins
Alternative names	Ginger biscuit, ginger snap
Type	Biscuit
Main ingredients	Powdered ginger, spices (commonly cinnamon and nutmeg)
Media: Ginger nut

"Ginger snaps" redirects here. For the film, see Ginger Snaps (film).

A ginger biscuit, ginger nut or ginger snap is a globally popular biscuit based snack food, flavoured with ginger.

Ginger biscuits are flavoured with powdered ginger and a variety of other spices, most commonly cinnamon and nutmeg. There are many recipes for ginger nuts.

Global terminology

In the UK, Australia, and New Zealand and most of the former British Empire, they are often called ginger nuts. Ginger nuts are not to be confused with pepper nuts, which are a variety of gingerbread, somewhat smaller in diameter, but thicker.

Scandinavian ginger nuts, also called ginger bread or "brunkage" in Danish (literally meaning "brown biscuits"), pepparkakor in Swedish, piparkakut in Finnish, piparkūkas in Latvian, piparkoogid in Estonian and pepperkaker in Norwegian (literally, pepper cookies), are rolled quite thin (often under 3 mm (1/8-inch) thick), and cut into shapes; they are smooth and are usually much thinner and hence crisper (and in some cases, more strongly flavoured) than most global varieties. Cloves, cinnamon and cardamom are important ingredients of these, and the actual ginger taste is not prominent. Allspice was used formerly to season ginger biscuits, but cloves replaced it later.

In the United States, the usual term is ginger snaps, and they are generally round drop cookies, usually between 3 mm (1/8-inch) and 6 mm (1/4-inch) thick, with prominent cracks in the top surface. One recipe for these cookies contains maple syrup.

See also

• Cornish fairings
• Dunk
• Gingerbread
• Speculaas