The key ingredients for gingerbread are molasses and a mix of spices. You can use grandma’s molasses. It’s got a nice balance of sweet and smoky molasses flavor but does not have the bitterness of blackstrap molasses. For the spices, use a lot of ground ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and a few cloves. You can substitute one cup (237ml) of honey and four tbsp. (47g) of brown sugar for the molasses and white sugar to make a traditional Alsatian gingerbread. Melt the sugars together on the stovetop before adding.
To make Alsatian gingerbread, replace the all-purpose flour with rye and whole-wheat flour in equal measure. To increase the complexity of the flavors, halve the cinnamon and add one-half tsp. (0. 9g) of ground anise, one-half tsp. (1. 1g) of ground nutmeg and one-half tsp. (0. 9g) of ground allspice. [1] X Research source
