Gingerbread Without Butter: A Very Easy Recipe

Gingerbread is a Christmas specialty with countless recipes. Some versions that contain butter are more like a cake than bread. We invite you to discover a light and very easy recipe for gingerbread without butter.

Ingredients

Here are the necessary ingredients to prepare a butter-free gingerbread for 6 people:

230 g of flour.
50 g of brown sugar.
1 packet of baking powder.
1 packet of vanilla sugar.
2 tablespoons of gingerbread spices.
250 g of honey.
2 eggs.
10 cl of milk.
A knob of butter for the mold.

Note: For this recipe, you can use your favorite honey. The variety of honey used determines the scent of the cake: chestnut honey is the strongest, while lavender honey and wildflower honey give the gingerbread a floral scent.

If you cannot find the gingerbread spice mix in stores, you can prepare your own mix by combining:
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon.
1 teaspoon of ground ginger.
1 teaspoon of allspice.
1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg.
1 teaspoon of green anise seeds.

Dry Ingredients Preparation

The preparation of gingerbread without butter is very simple and quite quick if one does not consider the baking time.

1- Pour the flour into a large mixing bowl.

2- Add the sugar, vanilla sugar, and baking powder.

3- Add two tablespoons of gingerbread spice mix or measure out the different spices that make up this mixture yourself.

Preparation of liquid ingredients

To prepare this butter-free gingerbread, you need to incorporate the hot honey into the dry ingredients.

1- Heat the honey in a saucepan without bringing it to a boil.

2- When it is hot, pour the honey directly into the bowl containing the dry ingredients.

3- Use the same saucepan to warm the milk. This way, you can recover all the honey that stuck to the bottom of the saucepan.

Preparation of the dough

Once you have prepared the dry ingredients on one side and the wet ingredients on the other, making the batter is very easy.

1. Mix the warm honey into the dry ingredients using a wooden spatula.

2. Gradually incorporate the two whole eggs.

3. Add the warm milk last to loosen the dough of your butterless gingerbread.

Baking gingerbread

1- Preheat the oven to 160°C (320°F).

2- Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

3- Bake the gingerbread without butter for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes.

4- Unmold the gingerbread while it is still warm, as honey tends to stick to the bottom of the pan as it cools.

Tasting Tips

This gingerbread without butter is even better if you wait 24 hours before tasting it. This resting time allows the spices to fully infuse into the dough.

This traditional Christmas cake keeps for a week when wrapped in aluminum foil or plastic wrap.

During the holiday season, it can be enjoyed at breakfast or as a snack and goes very well with foie gras. This easy-to-make cake is also a great homemade Christmas gift idea for all the foodies in your life.