Lest you think I would let a holiday season pass by without a new holiday treat recipe, may I present to you: High Altitude Gingerbread Bars.
Gingerbread is my favorite holiday flavor profile. Warm, spicy, sweet-but-not-too-sweet … it checks all the festive food boxes for me. It’s funny, though: this year, about five days into my annual holiday baking extravaganza, I got out all the ingredients to make my classic cut-out Gingerbread Cookies, and just … didn’t make them. After baking approximately 25 dozen other assorted Christmas cookies, I suddenly wasn’t feeling excited about more rolling, cutting, and decorating.
The eating, though, I was still excited about. And that gingerbread craving kept nudging at me. So I reached into my bag of lazy-baking tips, and thought, hmm, maybe a brownie or a cookie bar? Hard to get much simpler than that.
Just like a brownie (or a blondie), the batter for these High Altitude Gingerbread Bars comes together in about ten minutes. If you’ve got a bowl, a whisk, and some basic pantry ingredients, you’re good to go. And happily, these taste anything but simple.
Intensely spicy and pleasantly chewy, these bars are utterly luscious, with the satisfying bite of a fudgy brownie and all the holiday flavor of gingerbread. A concentrated mix of cinnamon, ginger, allspice and cloves melds beautifully with the citrusy scent of orange zest and a bit of a kick from freshly grated ginger. It’s all topped off with a festive white chocolate drizzle. Perfect for dunking into a nice cuppa tea while you muse dreamily about all the time and mess you just saved.
Looking for more high-altitude holiday cookie recipes? Find a big roundup here.
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High Altitude Gingerbread Bars with White Chocolate Drizzle
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 25 mins
- Total Time: 35 mins
- Yield: 25 small bars 1x
Description
Chewy, crackly, and spicy, these High Altitude Gingerbread bars are indulgently buttery, with a creamy white chocolate drizzle.
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup salted butter (6 oz, 1 1/2 sticks), melted (see Note)
- 1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar (dark preferred but light is ok too!)
- 2 TB molasses
- 3 tsp finely grated fresh ginger (see Note)
- 1 tsp freshly grated orange zest
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 TB vanilla extract (not imitation)
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground allspice
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 cup white chocolate (chopped or chips), for drizzling
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Butter an 8×8 metal pan and line with parchment paper (the butter helps it stick!)
- In a large bowl, combine melted butter, brown sugar, molasses, and fresh ginger and mix until thoroughly combined. If the butter is still very hot, allow mixture to cool slightly before adding the eggs.
- Whisk in eggs until thoroughly incorporated. Stir in vanilla and orange zest.
- Add flour, baking powder and ground spices and mix well.
- Scrape batter into the prepared pan and bake for 20-25 mins, until a cake tester comes out clean.
- Allow to cool in the pan for about 30 minutes, then, using the parchment to lift the bars out, continue cooling on a wire rack.
- Carefully cut into bars of desired size (I find 5×5 cuts – 25 bars – to be the perfect “two-bite” size).
- Place the white chocolate in a heat-proof bowl and microwave on high for 30-seconds, then stir and continue to microwave in 10-second bursts, stirring in between each, until fully melted.
- Using a spoon or plastic squeeze bottle, drizzle the melted chocolate on the bars. Allow the chocolate to cool and set fully before storing or stacking the bars.
The bars will keep well in a sealed container for up to a week.
Notes
… if you are using a glass baking pan, you may need to add 5-10 minutes to your baking time.
… if you prefer to use unsalted butter, add 1 tsp kosher salt along with the flour and spices.
… if you have a Trader Joe’s near you, I highly recommend the frozen cubes of fresh grated ginger sold in the freezer section!
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