Soft Gingerbread Man Cookies

What Kind of Molasses Do You Use for Gingerbread Cookies?

I use unsulphured molasses in these gingerbread man cookies. This kind of molasses is made from mature sugarcane, which is clarified and concentrated. By contrast, sulphured molasses is made from sugarcane that isn’t quite mature. As a result manufacturers need to add sulfur dioxide to the mixture when processing the immature sugarcane.

How to Make Gingerbread Man Cookies

Let’s take a quick look at how to make the best gingerbread cookies ever. Here’s how to do it:

• Combine your dry ingredients. Whisk the flour, spices, and salt together and set them aside.
• Add the wet ingredients. Start by creaming the butter and sugar together, then add the egg and vanilla extract. Next up is adding the molasses and combining everything well. Add the dry ingredients and mix everything together just until combined.
• Roll out the cookie dough. Divide the cookie dough into two halves and roll them out to about 1/4 inch thickness between two pieces of parchment paper (no flour-covered messes! yay!). It can help to mold the cookie dough into a little bit of a thick log before rolling it out so that it covers the parchment paper well. You’ll leave the cookies on the parchment paper to bake.
• Chill the cookie dough. Once your dough is rolled out, pop it in the freezer for about 7-8 minutes.
• Cut out your cookies and bake them. With the cookie dough nice and firm, it should be quick to cut out the cookies using your favorite cookie cutters. Move the parchment paper with the cut cookies over to a cookie sheet and bake them.
• Decorate. Once your cookies are baked and cooling, make the simple icing and decorate your cookies as you like.

Decorating Ideas

There are endless options for decorating gingerbread man cookies. I’ve included a simple cookie icing below, but you could also use my royal icing recipe and see my tips for decorating using royal icing.

Beyond the icing, you can use sprinkles, color your icing, or use little candies for adding eyes, buttons or other decorations. I used the red, white, and green sequins from a pack like this one. You could even just dust them with powdered sugar for something super simple.

Tips for Success

• Measure accurately. I say this all the time and will say it again – the best way to measure this is with a food scale. A HUGE influence on how your cookies turn out is having the right amount of flour. Too much, and the cookies will turn out dry. Too little, and they’ll spread too much. Even a difference of a couple tablespoons can make a big impact, especially if another ingredient is measured a little inaccurately (like the sugar – which adds more moisture and would make a cookie spread more as well).
• Use both baking soda and baking powder. After testing these cookies with just baking soda and just baking powder, I can say that I much preferred the resulting texture of using both. Just baking powder made a cookie that was a little firmer, more cakey, and that dried out more quickly. Just baking soda made the cookies feel a little flimsy and just not the right texture I wanted. So I used mostly baking soda (which lends a more tender cookie that stays softer for longer), with a little baking powder (to be sure they had the best chewy texture).
• Don’t over-bake. Your cookies are done when the edges are slightly crisp. It’s tempting to bake them until the middles are also crisp, but this results in a hard, crunchy cookie. If you pull your gingerbread cookies just when the edges are done, then allow them to cool completely, you will end up with that ideal combination of soft and chewy.
• Cool completely before decorating. Wait until your cookies have come to room temperature before decorating them. It’s tempting to rush the decorating, but if you try and put icing on warm cookies it will just melt and slide off the sides of your cookie. Best to wait until they are cool and then go to town with the icing!

Proper Storage

• Room temperature. If the cookies are kept in a well sealed container, they should be good for 5-7 days. If you were to cover them in royal icing, it seals in the moisture and they’d probably be good for a few more days.
• Freezer. You could also freeze them for up to 6 months, but it’d probably be best to freeze them in a single layer.

More Christmas Cookie Recipes

• Gingerbread Cookies with Eggnog Icing
• Candy Cane Cookies
• Classic Spritz Cookies
• Classic Chewy Snickerdoodles
• Easy Sugar Cookie Recipe