Easy Sourdough Discard Gingersnap Crackers Recipe

​I love kid-friendly sourdough snacks like these gingersnap crackers made with sourdough discard.

These ginger snaps are easy to make and so versatile to use with something sweet or add it to a cheese and charcuterie board for a festive and unique combination.

Why use Sourdough Starter Discard?

You can discard the old sourdough starter, but you can also use it in a variety of sourdough recipes to create more flavor and texture.

Sourdough discard recipes are a great way to use excess sourdough starter (also known as leftover sourdough discard) and reduce food waste.

Another benefit of using sourdough starter discard in sourdough recipes is that when used properly, it can make the recipe more digestible.

Since sourdough starter discard doesn’t have the rising power of active sourdough starter, it is commonly used in crackers, cookies, scones, pancakes, and other versions of quick breads when other leavening agents like baking soda, baking powder, eggs, or a combination are used.

Check out these other posts with videos: 

• What is sourdough discard?
• Why use Sourdough Discard?
• How to Store Sourdough Discard for Starter Discard Recipes
• How to use Sourdough Discard

Want more sourdough starter info?

You can get my free Quick Start Sourdough Guide to begin learning some of the key parts of the cycle of sourdough starter.

Learn the phases, the signs of an active, how to care for a sourdough starter to keep it alive and thriving, as well as how to make your own sourdough starter.

How to make Sourdough Discard Gingersnap Crackers

Here are the ingredients you’ll need to make these crackers:

• 30 grams melted unsalted butter cooled to warm
• 80 grams sourdough starter discard
• 80 grams all-purpose flour
• 20 grams molasses
• 25 grams brown sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon ground
• 1/16 teaspoon clove ground

*You can use whole wheat flour for all or part of the all purpose flour.

Making the dough for sourdough discard gingersnap crackers

Place a large bowl on a kitchen scale and tare. Add your sourdough discard to a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer. See the Increasing the batch section below to see how to make a bigger batch of these delicious homemade sourdough crackers.

Melt the butter and set aside to cool.

Then, we’ll mix the wet ingredients and dry ingredients all together at once. Just make sure when you add the butter last that it is cooled.

Add the molasses, brown sugar, the flour, spices, baking soda, and salt into the discard while the butter cools.

Finally, add the cooled butter to the ingredients and stir together. (If using a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment.)

Mix all the ingredients together until a thick smooth dough forms.

Fermenting sourdough discard gingersnap crackers

You can proceed with shaping and baking the crackers, but I recommend a time of fermentation for maximum flavor, texture, and digestibility.

There are two ways you can ferment the dough.

First, you can cover the bowl of dough with plastic wrap for 1 to 2 hours at room temperature or overnight in the fridge.

Or, shape all the dough into your crackers and cover the baking sheets of shaped crackers with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours or the fridge overnight.

I recommend shaping the dough then fermenting if you’re trying to make any designs more complex than cutting them into simple squares, rectangles or diamonds. As the dough ferments, it develops more gluten which makes it more tricky to shape, particularly with cookie cutters.

Shaping sourdough discard gingersnap crackers

Place a large piece of parchment paper on your work surface. Put about a lemon size portioned dough ball on the parchment paper.

Roll the dough out onto parchment paper until it is 1/16 to 1/8 inch thick.

Make sure the thickness is even across the dough, as it will impact the bake time and texture.

This dough is very smooth and easy to work with, especially if you let the dough ferment for a few hours. I usually don’t encounter much sticking, but if your dough is sticking, sprinkle a little flour onto the dough and on the rolling pin.

Try to roll the dough into a large square or rectangle if you are cutting it into regular square or rectangular shaped crackers.

For typical cracker shapes, use a rolling pizza cutter to cut the rough edges of the dough off. Put the scraps aside with the rest of your unshaped dough.

Cut dough into squares, strips, diamonds, or other cracker shapes.

Use a fork to poke the tops of each cracker.

Place parchment paper with shaped crackers onto a baking sheet. (Cover them with plastic wrap if you are fermenting them.)

Repeat the process until you run out of dough.

Making unique shapes of sourdough discard gingerbread crackers

After you roll out your dough as described above, you can use cookie cutters to cut unique shapes all over the rolled out dough.

This is perfect for making a gingerbread house or gingerbread men crackers!

Once the rolled out dough is filled with shapes and there’s no more room, carefully peel away the dough around the edges to leave the shapes on the parchment. Put excess dough back with the rest of your unshaped dough.

Poke the crackers with a  fork at least twice or get fancy with a skewer to create designs on the crackers. A dot border would look really cute.

Slide the parchment paper of crackers onto a flat baking sheet. Cover them with plastic wrap if you are fermenting them.

Repeat this process until you run out of dough.

Baking sourdough discard gingerbread crackers

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Place the shaped sourdough discard crackers onto a baking tray and place into the preheated oven.

Bake for 16-22 minutes or until all crackers are fully baked. The tops should NOT be squishy when tested with a fingertip.

Important note: adjust the baking time if you have scattered cracker shapes on your sheet pan to 12 to 16 minutes.

Don’t overbake the crackers, these can go from perfectly baked in just a few minutes. And since they are already dark in color, you can’t gauge doneness by a golden brown color.

Texture and the look are good indicators. I also lightly touch the crackers to double check to see if they are baked and set or still soft and not fully baked.

Allow to cool on cookie sheet. Then transfer to a wire cooling rack.

Increasing the batch of sourdough discard gingerbread crackers

This is a great recipe for the holidays and fun to make big batches if you have enough extra discard on hand!

You can increase recipe based on how much sourdough discard you have. I weigh out the sourdough discard I’ve saved in the fridge then adjust the amounts based on that.

Place a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer on a kitchen scale and tare it so it reads 0. Pour your sourdough discard into the mixing bowl.

Divide your total amount of sourdough discard added to the bowl by 100. For example, if using 200g sourdough discard, 200 divided by 100 equals 2. Multiply the other ingredients by the number to increase the recipe in proportion to the amount of sourdough discard used.

For volume measurements, increase them by estimating the number of teaspoons. For example if you are doubling, you can add the fractions or just use 2 1/8 tsp of salt for example. If the multiplier is 1.5 or something that isn’t a whole number, try to estimate as well as you can.

Variations on this recipe

These crackers bake up lighter and crisper than my graham crackers, so if you’re looking for a graham cracker recipe check these out:

• The Best Sourdough Discard Graham Crackers Recipe
• Gingerbread Crackers made with Sourdough Discard
• Sourdough Graham Crackers Sourdough Discard Recipe

Or try my plain original sourdough cracker recipe here:

• Easy Savory Sourdough Discard Crackers Recipe

More Sourdough Recipes for the Holiday Season

Here are more delicious recipes to use for the holidays!

• Delicious Sugar Sourdough Cookies for making cut out shapes is so much fun!
• Gingerbread Scones with Eggnog Icing (Sourdough Discard)
• Try making Sourdough Christmas Trees with soft buttery rolls
• Sourdough Oatmeal Cookies with Raisins
• Sourdough Kanelbullar (Swedish Cinnamon Cardamom Knots)
• How to make Sourdough Chai Spice Star Bread Recipe
• Soft Cranberry Orange Holiday Cookies with Sourdough Discard
• Sourdough Jam-Filled Star Bread

Tips

• These would be delicious on a charcuterie board with some cheese but also perfect with coffee, milk, or ice cream!
• I did a very simple diamond shape in the photos shown, but you can get more creative with shapes that you cut out.
• Don’t overbake these! They burn easily due to their thin shape and the misleading molasses color. Don’t let edges get dark.
• Use molasses but not blackstrap molasses which is saltier and inferior to the former.
• Use this for extra help planning holiday baking: How to Plan Your Christmas Sourdough Baking Schedule

Savor and Share

I love recipes with lots of spice and flavor so these are one of my favorite things around a holiday appetizer or snack.

Make sure to share this recipe with a friend! And if you make it, I’d love to hear about it–you can comment on this post or tag me on instagram @livingbreadbaker!

Just getting started with sourdough?

A competent guide transforms sourdough baking from overwhelming to uncomplicated and fun!

Get My Free Quick Start Sourdough Guide: Learn the key terms and concepts in sourdough baking, including the differences between active sourdough starter and sourdough discard, and how to care for your starter.

Start Baking Sourdough Confidently—Take the Intro to Sourdough Course for Just $27!

Time Planning Help for Sourdough Baking

The #1 need for sourdough bakers is help with time planning, so I created a resource for you.

Sourdough Time Planning Workbook: Perfect for new or experienced bakers, this workbook includes 8 templates ready to fill in and a baking journal. The templates cover 4 different ways to make classic sourdough country breads, 3 time planning worksheets for enriched sourdough bread depending on serving time target, and a blank template. The baking journal goes over baker’s percentages and how to take notes on your sourdough bakes.

Get a free sample of the workbook: Use this sourdough time planning worksheet sample to simplify your baking.

Living Bread Baker posts mentioned

What is a Starter?

What is sourdough discard?

Why use Sourdough Discard?

How to Store Sourdough Discard for Starter Discard Recipes

How to use Sourdough Discard

The Best Sourdough Discard Graham Crackers Recipe

Easy Savory Sourdough Discard Crackers Recipe

Gingerbread Crackers made with Sourdough Discard

Delicious Sugar Sourdough Cookies for making cut out shapes is so much fun!

Try making Sourdough Christmas Trees with soft buttery rolls

Sourdough Oatmeal Cookies with Raisins

Sourdough Kanelbullar (Swedish Cinnamon Cardamom Knots)

How to make Sourdough Chai Spice Star Bread Recipe

Soft Cranberry Orange Holiday Cookies with Sourdough Discard

Sourdough Jam-Filled Star Bread

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5 from 2 votes

Gingersnap Crackers with Sourdough Discard

This recipe is similar to our family favorite sourdough discard graham crackers, but has lots of holiday spices mixed in that smell amazing as they bake! It's also a great way to use up extra sourdough discard. If you have the patience, these would be fun to cut into holiday shapes with cookie cutters! One important tip is not to overbake these. They will crisp up as they cool but their thin shape can take them to perfectly bake to overdone. These ginger snaps are delicious with coffee, milk, or maybe some decadent ice cream!

Servings: 1 sheetpan

Author: Jenny Prior

Ingredients

• 30 grams melted butter cooled to warm
• 80 grams sourdough starter discard
• 80 grams all-purpose flour
• 20 grams molasses
• 25 grams brown sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger ground
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon ground
• 1/16 teaspoon clove ground

Instructions

• Melt butter and set aside until it cools to 100°F or less.
• Add all ingredients into a mixing bowl. Add the butter last.
• Roll the dough out, shape it, and bake right away or cover the dough and allow to ferment 2-3 hours for better digestibility.
• Preheat oven to 350°F.
• Roll the dough out onto parchment paper until it is 1/16 to 1/8 inch thick. Make sure the thickness is even across the dough, as it will impact the bake time and texture.
• Cut dough into squares, strips, diamonds, or other cracker shapes. Use a fork to poke the tops of each cracker. Place parchment paper with shaped crackers onto a baking sheet.*
  
• Bake for 16-22 minutes or until all crackers are fully baked. The tops should NOT be squishy when tested with a fingertip.*
  
• Let cool on the pan to crisp up after baking.

Notes

Note 1: if you cut the dough into shapes and place spaced out on a baking sheet, reduce baking time to 12-16 minutes.
Note 2: Do NOT overbake; the crackers will crisp up as they cool. The thin cracker can go from perfect to over-baked quickly.