Starbucks Starbucks Bearista Gingerbread Cookie

The Starbucks Bearista Gingerbread Cookie costs £3.30 and carries 183 calories with 1.4g of saturated fat. A decorated gingerbread biscuit in the shape of the Starbucks bear.

1.4g of saturated fat is remarkably low for a biscuit and the lowest of any sweet baked item in the category, well under the all butter shortbread at 10g. Gingerbread is made with golden syrup or treacle doing much of the work that butter does in a shortbread, so the same sweetness arrives with a fraction of the fat.

Total fat at 3.9g follows the same pattern, and at 183 calories it is one of the lighter sweet things on the menu. 17g of sugar against 34g of carbohydrate means about half is sugar and half is flour, which is a more balanced split than most of this category manages.

It is bought as much for the shape as for the biscuit, and that is a fair transaction. The Bearista is a long running Starbucks character and the cookie is the cheapest thing in the shop carrying it, which is most of why it sells to children and collectors alike.

Decorated biscuits change with the season and the character stays the same. Starbucks runs the Bearista through winter, spring and summer designs, and the biscuit underneath is the same gingerbread each time, so the figures on this page hold regardless of which one is in the case.

Egg and wheat are the only declared allergens, with no milk, which is unusual for a decorated biscuit and means the icing is not dairy based. No diet labels are published even so.

Ground ginger, cinnamon and treacle are what give gingerbread its keeping quality as well as its flavour. Spices and syrup together slow staling considerably, which is why a gingerbread biscuit is still good a fortnight after baking where a plain butter one is not. It is the practical reason the form survived long before anyone thought about shelf life.

Prices reach £3.65 on delivery, which is a lot for a single biscuit and the honest weakness of the item next to the packet of ginger biscuits at £2.20.