These Chewy Ginger Bars have a gingerbread base with a sweet candied ginger crumble topping!! There is candied ginger folded into the base for a perfect burst of ginger!
12 Days of Christmas Cookies
These bars are absolute heaven! A ginger lover’s paradise! Chewy, soft, and sweet with the perfect bite from the ginger!
I cannot stop eating these bars!
My brother is in town this weekend {yay!} and fortunately his girlfriend likes ginger as much as I do, so I am sending the rest home with him!
Except that one that I hid for later. Shhh.
I can’t pick my favorite part of these bars. Is it the chewy gingerbread base with candied ginger folded into the batter? Or is it the sweet, buttery, ginger crumble on top?
I don’t know. But I do know that you NEED to make these! Tonight.
Which is totally possible because they are incredibly easy to pull together. No mixer required!
I’m just going to wrap up this 12th Day here because the only word I have left is “love”. Love, love, love these chewy ginger bars!
And last but not least, these Chewy Ginger Bars are for the twelfth day of my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies! You won't want to miss the Cranberry Cinnamon Jam Bars, Rum Refrigerator Cookies, or Cardamom Walnut Snowballs, Spiced Crinkle Cookies, Coconut Peppermint Pretzel Bark, Old Fashioned Date Pinwheels, Cranberry Thumbprint Cookies, Nana's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, Moravian Christmas Cookies, Orange Pecan Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies, Fruitcake Cookies !!
Recipe
Chewy Ginger Bars
Ingredients
For the Bars:
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ cup molasses
- 2 eggs
- 1 ½ cups light brown sugar (firmly packed)
- ¼ cup butter (melted)
- ½ cup crystallized ginger (chopped, make your own with this recipe)
For the Crumble Topping:
- 1 ⅓ cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup light brown sugar (packed)
- ½ cup butter (cold, cubed)
- ½ cup crystallized ginger (chopped)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F and butter a 9-inch by 13-inch pan.
- First prepare the bars. In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, ginger, cinnamon, salt and soda; set aside. In another bowl whisk together the molasses, eggs, sugar, and butter until homogenous.
- Fold the flour mixture into the molasses mixture and stir just to combine. Fold in the crystallized ginger.
- Spread into buttered pan with an offset spatula and set aside.
- Prepare the crumble topping. In a medium bowl combine flour, salt, and brown sugar; whisk to mix. Add the butter cubes and cut in the butter with a pastry blender or your hands. A pastry blender is best so that the butter doesn’t start melting.
- Mix in the ginger and pour on top of the bar base in the pan. Spread out with your hands to distribute evenly.
- Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes or until the bars begin to pull away from the sides of the pan. Run a knife along the edges and allow to cool completely before cutting into squares.
If I could give this recipe 10 stars I would! These are freaking awesome!
I found the recipe on King Arthur site many years ago and thought they sounded good. I add a bit more ginger than is called for my "heaping" 1/2 Cup of ginger is more like a very full 3/4 Cup but it can take the extra ginger.
A bit of a hint from a frugal former New Englander...buy your crystalized ginger in the bulk section of a lot of stores sometimes near the deli section or by produce if they carry bulk nuts, dried fruit and candy. DON'T buy it in the little itty bitty jars in the baking section.
Chef Lindsey, thank you for another great recipe. Merry Christmas to you, and your growing family
I have never thought of doing gingerbread in a bar form but these look and sound absolutely amazing!!
I will be making these for sure tomorrow. I've already done the walnut cardamom snowballs-yum!, the peppermint bark and peanut butter blossoms from last year. Thanks for all the inspiration!
WOW! You've been busy! I'm so glad you liked the three you made! The PB blossoms from last year are one of my favorites. If you love ginger and gingerbread then these bars are going to blow your mind! Let me know what you think. Xoxoxox
Made the ginger bars. They were fabulous and my neighbor wanted the recipe as well. I only had dark brown sugar so mine weren't as pretty as yours but oh so yummy! Thanks for all the great recipes!
I bet they were delicious with dark brown sugar!!! I'm so happy you and your neighbors enjoyed them! Xo
This is the recipe that I have been making for years but I double the ginger. Other than making my own crystallized ginger I have found the best place to get it is in the bulk section of some stores where other candied fruit, nuts and things like sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds and the like are kept. If your store does not carry items like this try an "ethnic" store that may be more apt to have candied fruits.
Hi Nikki! How did candying your own ginger go? I can find crystallized ginger at Whole Foods in NYC but just not candied lemon and orange peel! I found this recipe from googling the ginger squares you mentioned in your comment on the candied citrus post. I used King Arthur Flour's recipe for these squares.