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These easy Gingerbread Cookies are soft, chewy, and full of holiday goodness! A classic Christmas cookie recipe that’s perfect for decorating.
- Soft, chewy, cozy, and sweet. I’m a little picky when it comes to the texture of my gingerbread cookies. They MUST be soft and chewy! Also, you don’t want them to spread, and there has to be the right amount of molasses and spices for great flavor.
- Kid-approved cutout cookies. Cutout cookies in general are just so perfect for the holidays, whether they be these gingerbread ones or my cutout sugar cookies. They are both easy to decorate with frosting, sprinkles, and more. So much fun!
- Great for sharing! I love popping these soft gingerbread cookies into a festive tin or bag, along with some other Christmas cookies, to give to friends and family. They’re a guaranteed hit!
What You’ll Need
This gingerbread recipe requires molasses, some spices, and a few other ingredients. Here’s a quick look at what you’ll need along with my notes. Scroll to the recipe card below for a printable list.
- Flour – I use all purpose flour in these cookies.
- Baking soda and baking powder
- Spices and molasses – I like to use a mix of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.
- Salt – A touch of salt adds dimension to the flavor profile in these cookies.
- Vanilla extract
- Dark brown sugar – You could use light brown sugar in a pinch, if you like.
- Egg – Adds structure and chewiness to the cookies.
- Butter – An important base for a cookie that gets creamed together with the brown sugar.
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.
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.
Recipe
- Prep Time: 2 hours
- Cook Time: 6 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours 6 minutes
- Yield: 30-32
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
These soft and chewy gingerbread cookies are perfect for a Christmas party. They’re almost as fun to decorate as they are to eat!
Ingredients
Gingerbread Cookies
- 3 3/4 cups (488g) all purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup (168g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 10 tablespoons (140g) packed dark brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup (172g) unsulfured molasses
Easy Cookie Icing
- 1 1/2 cups (173g) powdered sugar
- 1 1/2 – 2 tablespoons water or milk
- 1 tablespoon corn syrup
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and salt in a medium sized bowl and set aside.
- Cream the butter and sugar together in a large mixer bowl on medium speed until light in color and fluffy. You should be able to see the change in color happen and know it’s ready.
- Add the egg and vanilla extract mix until well combined.
- Add the molasses and mix until well combined.
- Add the dry ingredients and mix just until the dough is well combined. Dough will be thick.
- Divide the cookie dough into two equal parts, then roll each out to about 1/4 an inch thickness between two pieces of parchment paper. It helps to shape the cookie dough into a bit of a log and then roll it out.
- Transfer the parchment lined cookie dough onto a cookie sheet and into the freezer for about 6-8 minutes.
- Remove cookie dough from freezer and immediately cut into shapes. You’ll leave the cutouts on the parchment paper to bake them, so try to space them as they should be for baking with about an inch between each cookie.
- While cookie dough is still cold, transfer the parchment paper/cookies onto a cookie sheet and bake for 6-8 minutes.
- Remove cookies from oven and allow to cool on baking sheet for 3-4 minutes, or until you can transfer them. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Repeat process with remaining cookie dough.
- When cookies are baked and you’re ready to decorate them, making the icing. Add the powdered sugar to a small-medium sized bowl, then add 1 tablespoon of water, the corn syrup and vanilla extract and whisk until well combined. It will be thick to start, just keep whisking together. Add additional water as needed, for it to come together. You want to be careful not to thin it out too much. You can always add more liquid, but you can’t remove it once you add it. You want the icing to just be drip-able (and therefore pipeable), but not so thin it won’t stay in place.
- Add the icing to a piping bag fitted with a small round piping tip (I used Wilton tip 3) and decorate your cookies. Add sprinkles or other decorations, if you’d like.
- Allow cookies to dry, then store in an airtight container. If well sealed, cookies should be good for 5-7 days.
Notes
- To store. 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.
- To freeze. You could also freeze them for up to 6 months, but it’d probably be best to freeze them in a single layer.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 138
- Sugar: 10.9 g
- Sodium: 72 mg
- Fat: 4.6 g
- Carbohydrates: 22.5 g
- Protein: 1.8 g
- Cholesterol: 17.3 mg
If I have salted butter would I just not put the 1/2 tsp of salt in the recipe
Correct.
These turned out perfectly!!! I’m so excited we found your recipe!!
So glad you enjoyed them!
If you’re looking for that nostalgic christmas wonder, look no further! These are awesome! The dough is easy and soft to roll out. With just 6 minutes in the oven, these turned out slightly crisp on the edges and super soft in the center! The spice ratio is perfect, and I would recommend this to anyone making christmas cookies. If you’re looking for that nostalgic christmas wonder, look no further!
So glad you enjoyed them!
Great recipe!My hubby got the butter wrong so I had to add more at the end and they still turned out amazing!
Can the dough be frozen?
Yes, that should be fine.
Hi, I plan to make these but am wondering – can these be frozen? I like to bake early December for Christmas.
They should be fine to freeze.
What can you replace molasses with …in my country there isnt something similar I think
There isn’t a replacement that I know of. Sorry!
It’s treacle in the UK
I made these cookies for Christmas this year and gave them out to family.
They were fantastic. Followed the recipe almost exactly using the weights given.
The only change I made was instead of nutmeg, I used allspice.
Dough was easy to work with and kept its shape well when baking.
I’ll be making these again next year!
I just made a recipe for something like molasses but I had to make half of what it called for it to equal what this recipe called for. Here is the link if you still need a substitute. https://www.thespruceeats.com/molasses-substitute-1388891
Thanks for sharing!
I found the gingerbread man recipe and was delighted to find out wonderful they turned out! this will become a tradition for my granddaughter and I to do . thank you so much!
This recipe is PERFECTION!! It was my first time ever making gingerbread with my girls and they came out amazing. My kids must think I am some sort of baking genius but I just followed your recipe to a T! I even measured the ingredients with a scale. We are going to make this recipe one of our Christmas time traditions! Thank you so much!!! The flavor of this cookie is so amazing and everything is just right!
So glad you enjoyed them!
Hi! I was wondering, how long did it take for your icing to dry? I know humidity and such can have an affect on this but I would like a ballpark of how long I’ll have to leave these out for lol. Thanks in advance!
I would think 1-2 hours should be fine.
Hello Lindsey, I would like to make these tomorrow I was wondering if I could substitute the molasses with black treacle, thank you
I’ve never use that before so I’m not sure.
I made these cookies today and they are truly 5-star. They are a beautiful color, well balanced ginger/spice flavor, and soft and chewy just as the described. I have never made gingerbread cookies before and was worried about choosing the right recipe. I chose 3 different recipes from Pinterest and analyzed the ingredients and instructions from each one. The other 2 recipes called for more flour and less ginger, one recipe said to chill the dough 3 hours before rolling out. One recipe cited many times in the comments that the dough was crumbly and the taste had a very strong molasses and clove flavor and neither of the other 2 recipes called for both baking powder and baking soda. I’m so glad I chose this recipe by Lindsey, I followed the recipe exactly and made a few instructional changes that I will write into the recipe as I plan to make it my go-to Gingerbread recipe, it’s that good. The cookies held their shape beautifully and they were a little crisp on the very edge but super soft and chewy throughout. Can’t wait to decorate them. The dough was soft and easy to roll, I did refrigerate it for about an hour only because I had to run a quick errand, but I let it come up to room temp and after 15-minutes it was easily ready to roll out. I rolled the dough out on a Silpat silicone mat with parchment on top and used a rolling pin with 1/4” guides, it was the perfect thickness, and the key to transferring them to a cookie sheet is definitely place the silpat on a cookie sheet with the cutout dough in the freezer for 5-6 minutes before removing the cutouts from the excess dough. I used an offset spatula to run under the cookies and they lifted off the silicone mat very easily, I was able to place them on parchment paper and bake them. I baked them in a convection oven at 350 for exactly 8 minutes for the gingerbread men and 7 minutes for some of the smaller cutouts, snowflake, tree, star. My family loves these cookies. This recipe made 36 cookies, (12 gingerbread men, 24 slightly smaller shapes). They are safely packed in an airtight tin can, wrapped in Saran and foil in the freezer to be decorated next Sunday. I highly recommend this perfect Gingerbread Cookie recipe.
I made these cookies last year for a Christmas cookie package that I sent last year and they were delicious! I’m making them again this year but I’m wondering if I can make dough ahead of time and chill overnight? I’m making your white chocolate cranberry pecan cookies as well (first time) so I’m trying to plan ahead so I’m not baking 100s of cookies in one night! 🙂
So glad you enjoyed them! It should be fine to chill the dough before hand.
Oh I forgot to ask. Can you add a little fresh ginger to this recipe? I was going to try adding a little grated fresh ginger in the wet ingredients.
That should be fine.