Ginger crunch is a classic 'slice' or bar recipe from New Zealand. A chewy, gingery, oaty base is topped with a sweet, spicy ginger icing and left to cool before being sliced into bars. It is sweet but spicy, and makes the perfect treat!
Oaty Ginger Crunch
Seems as if we are deep in this 'holiday baking' thing. Yesterday I was the judge of a holiday cookie contest at Kitchen Arts and Letters, which is an insanely cute cook book shop on the Upper East Side. It's like a tiny heaven in there - and I couldn't stop thinking about Black Books all the time and how much fun it would be to live in there 😉 . There were some insanely good holiday cookies, including some from blogger friends who I recognised immediately.
We are right in the middle of getting our butts severely kicked by the holiday season. There are a zillion orders at the studio, and somehow I just can't keep on top of my to-do list. I feel as if this is a fairly standard situation for anyone with a small business - and I know that come January we will all be complaining of the quiet! Hiding away at home for the afternoon and baking something familiar always seems to do the trick and help with the stress levels.
What is Ginger Crunch?
I thought I would share with you another option for this crazy holiday baking situation that the internet seems to be lost in - a classic New Zealand recipe. I have yet to see this outside of little old NZ, and I can promise you that it is a total crowd pleaser. It's a classic "Baking tin" recipe - something that used to be made to 'fill up the baking tins'. We call it ginger crunch, although I have seen it called ginger slice too. It's essentially a shortbread like dough, made with melted butter, golden syrup, flour, all the regulars. I added in some rolled oats to add a little chewiness. The base is mixed up, and pressed into a tin, and baked off. Just as it comes out of the oven it is loaded up with a super sweet, super gingery icing, and left to set. And that's it! Its very simple, but so, so good.
This recipe makes loads - I used a 9" square cake tin to make this in. The recipe is super sweet so you can cut the pieces into smaller chunks if you like. It's meant to taste like that though - the chewy base is complimented by the sweet icing. It's the perfect holiday, or any time treat, and keeps extremely well.
A few wee tips for making Oaty Ginger Crunch:
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I use Golden Syrup in this recipe. It lends a certain flavour to the slice, and i haven't tried substituting it. It's in the base and the topping, so I would recommend getting some if you can! I get mine on amazon
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This is super sweet. It's meant to be that way. Just a word of warning. I like cutting it into tiny wee slices to snack on throughout the day.
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I use a fair amount of ginger in the topping, so if you don't want it to be super 'spicy', you can dial back on this a little.
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Make sure to add the ingredients for the topping in the order specified, so that the sugar doesn't get all stuck to the bottom of the pot. It makes for lumpy icing. If you do end up with lumps, the immersion blender fixes everything. Trust me on that one.
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I have put the measurements for butter, golden syrup etc in grams. It's considerably easier to measure the golden syrup in grams - if you use a measuring spoon, lots of it gets left behind because it's so stick. Get yourself a scale if you don't already have one! Best $10 you will spend.
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This makes loads. It makes great gifts, but the recipe can most definitely be halved and made in a smaller tin (a loaf tin would likely work well), but ensure you adjust cooking times.
For more Oaty Ginger Recipes, Check out:
Made this recipe and love it?
I would LOVE for you to leave me a review below to let me know how you liked it! Make sure to tag me on Instagram if you make it!
Oaty Ginger Crunch
- Prep Time: 25 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 55 minutes plus cooling time
- Yield: 16 large or 32 smaller squares 1x
Description
Ginger crunch is a classic 'slice' or bar recipe from New Zealand. A chewy, gingery, oaty base is topped with a sweet, spicy ginger icing and left to cool before being sliced into bars. It is sweet but spicy, and makes the perfect treat!
Ingredients
Base
- 300g all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 ½ tsp ground ginger
- 300g brown sugar
- 135g rolled oats (old fashioned oats)
- 225g unsalted butter, cold from the fridge is fine
- 90g golden syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract.
Ginger Topping
- 135g unsalted butter, cold from the fridge is fine
- 125g golden syrup
- 2 Tbsp ground ginger (dial back to 1 ½ Tbsp if you don't want a super intense ginger flavour)
- 325g icing sugar / powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°f / 180°c. Grease a 9" x 9" (23cm square) tin, and line with two pieces of parchment paper, so that there is paper sticking out of the tin on all sides, forming a 'sling'.
- In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and ground ginger. Add the brown sugar and rolled oats, and mix well to combine.
- In a small pot, melt together the butter, golden syrup and vanilla. Add to the dry ingredients, and mix well. Press the mixture into the tin. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until lightly golden on the edges. Five minutes before the base is done, prepare the topping.
- For the topping, add all of the ingredients to a medium pot in the order listed. Heat over low heat, stirring constantly, until smooth. Pour over the hot base, and leave to set at room temperature until set. Slice into pieces with a hot knife.
- Store in an airtight container. Can be kept in the fridge, but bring to room temperature before eating.
Keywords: ginger crunch, oats, old fashioned oats, new zealand, slice, bar
I find it interesting that you think this is an NZ tradition. In the 60s my mother made it for us in England, and unlike every Ginger Crunch I’ve had here, the base actually WAS crunchy + the topping was not super sweet. I shall continue with my quest to find a recipe similar to my mother’s recipe.
Hi! Nz is a colony of England, so it makes a lot of sense that we have baking that is the same, so it can be a tradition in more than one place - same as how NZ and Australia share similar recipes. Interested to know what was similar to your mum's if you come across something!
Bit rude. You could have kept that to yourself, or if you really felt the need to comment, been a tad more polite. Did someone defecate in your Cheerios this morning?
I completely agree. Erin’s recipes are always stellar, and on top of that, her gracious response to such rude and unnecessary comments speaks volumes.
This is my fave recipe for Ginger Crunch (to be clear, the NEW ZEALAND 🇳🇿 version 😂😉).
★★★★★
Hi! Yayyy so happy you loved!
This might be one of my ALL TIME FAVOURITE baking recipes. I ADORE ginger crunch (yes I'm from New Zealand) but it is SO GOOD and Erin's one with the oats and really spicy ginger is NEK LEVEL. I have made this so many times and everyone loves it, apart from ginger haters (they are weirdos anyway). Sometimes I put chopped/crushed pistachios on top too, or peanuts or macadamias.
On time I put lime zest on top, that was a little weird but kinda nice.
★★★★★
This is really, really yummy! Love the texture, truly cannot stop snacking on the trimmed edges. A lot of my icing seemed to absorb into the cake, so I didn’t get quite the thick layer yours has— but I could not care less.
★★★★★
Yayyyyy so stoked you love them!
I am new to allowing Ginger into my desserts. I am remarkably surprised how much I, and my friends seem to like to like Ginger in our desserts. We must be getting old! Everyone, including ginger snobs loved this.
My base was not perfect. My fault b/c I did not have enough Lyle's. I used Lyles in the frosting only and dark corn syrup in the base. So my base texture was slightly dryish/brittle.
I did not get your even symmetrical thickness of layers (I too am like reviewer Laura). Next time I may hold back a bit of the base mixture so my layers are equal thicknesses like your photos.
This recipe is EASY, delicious, unique and global. Thanks for sharing!
★★★★★
Hi! Yay so happy you love! The thickness of topping to base is likely something to do with your pan size - it might be a little different to mine which makes a difference!
❤️❤️❤️ Erin this recipe is so easy and delicious! I’m sure this will be added to my Christmas favorites! I love that you already figured out larger quantities also! Thank you!
★★★★★
Hiiii! Yay I am so glad that you love it! A little treat bag always gets delivered to Anna whenever this happens at my house because I know she loves it too! Merry Christmas xx
LOVE this recipe! It has become my go-to for quick and easy baking. It keeps super well and I love the ginger kick!
★★★★★
Ahhh hiiiii! So glad you love it - it's a fave of mine too! Hope you are well!
love this recipe. first made it in lockdown, and have made it a few times since. massive hit. thanks for sharing ❤️
★★★★★
Yayyy I am so glad that you love! it's a fave of mine too xx
Three stars, but likely due to baker’s issues, and not the recipe! Love ginger and could not believe my good fortune when visiting NZ and discovered ginger crunch slices. Oh. My. Gosh. So this was my first attempt at recreating them at home, and they came out “OK” but not great. I’m more used to baking by cups, rather than by weight (300g of brown sugar looked like way too much sugar to me, so I halved it). Also, the ingredients at my disposal could have been different enough to make it turn out not quite like I remember: flours, brown sugars, icing sugars and even oats can be quite different in different countries, and there’s no golden syrup at all in my neck of the woods, so I used dark Karo syrup. I wrestle with an oven that thinks 220 C is a good temperature for everything, so I ended up being overly cautious and underbaked the base a bit, even though it had turned golden on top.. It’s a little chewy and sort of holds its shape and sort of not—it’s like the oats didn’t absorb enough liquid to “bake in”. The icing/topping layer is tasty, but a little overly buttery and underly gingery. In fact, the base ended up super buttery too, I can see it shining and threatening to separate itself from both the base and the icing layer. Just a little too much butter all together, if that’s even possible. But thank you for posting! My husband and I are enjoying my first attempt.
★★★
Hi. Thanks for the comment. Ratings really affect how my recipes show up on google, so it is super unfair of you to give me a low recipe rating because you didn't use the ingredients called for in the recipe and then didn't follow the recipe correctly. Please consider this next time before leaving a star review on a blogger's site. The recipe works very well as written and I don't think it is at all fair of you to mark down my work based on errors that you made. I work extremely hard at developing recipes to post here and so it is super frustrating when I get penalised for mistakes that I did not make.
I make this recipe ALL THE TIME and it’s seriously delicious. The recipe works perfectly as written and always turns out super yummy. I always get asked for the recipe and people can’t stop eating it. Thank you Erin for another perfect recipe!
★★★★★
The fact that you recognise that bakers error is the reason yours didn’t turn out properly but still proceed to mark it down is mad! Baking is a science, you can’t just go changing quantities of ingredients willy nilly.
This recipe is delicious! I made it today and the whole family love it. Can’t wait to make it again. Thank you Erin.
★★★★★
awwww thank you!!
Followed the recipe as written and it came out great! Thanks so much for this!
★★★★★
These were fantastic!
I did cut the sugar just a little in the base - just my preference!
The topping was so good, it was tough to stop eating it with a spoon!
Thank you!
★★★★★
Ahhh so glad you love! Thanks so much for the review x
Amazing - I’ve only ever seen this for sale in a place I used to go to as a child, and later on moved next door to! Sadly it closed down a few years ago and so I decided I needed to make my own! I don’t eat dairy now so I’ve substituted the butter for Flora Plant Butter (I’m in the UK) and it works brilliantly. Thank you!
★★★★★
Oh yayyy so glad to hear that! You are so welcome 🙂
Deliciously spicy and sweet! Even my 4 year old loves them!
★★★★★
Ahhh so happy you love! x
Turned out great - they *are* rich, as stated, but super, beautifully gingery and spicy!
★★★★★
Yayyy so glad you love!
Deliiiscious thank you!
★★★★★
Yayyyy so glad you loved!
I made this today (hot summer day in New Zealand so perfect for baking 🙄😊) and it’s just gorgeous. I made it exactly as written. I think the teaspoon of salt on the base really added to the flavour, I haven’t done that before. The top is deliciously “fudgy”. Thanks!
★★★★★
This is THE BEST ginger crunch ever! I miss it from my time in NZ, and have never found a recipe as good as this one. It is in high rotation in my house!
★★★★★
Hi! Yayyy so happy that you love! x