Gingerbread Cookies
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Ready, set, decorate! These festive gingerbread cookies are as fun to create as they are delicious to eat—with warm spices, a crisp edge, and a soft center, they’re a holiday classic.
Decorating holiday and Christmas cookies is one of my favorite things to do. I can spend hours happily piping colorful icing and adding sparkly candies to everything from dapper gingerbread men to cut-out sugar cookies. The trouble with iced holiday cookies, though, is that they’re often more about looks than taste—and gingerbread cookies especially can fall short. But not these!
Flavored with molasses, ginger, and warm spices, these cookies have a crisp-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside texture—they’re as delicious as they are adorable. When you want the same cozy flavor but don’t have time to decorate, my old-fashioned molasses cookies are a great choice.
What You’ll Need To Make Gingerbread Cookies
- Flour: Forms the base of the dough, providing structure and stability to the cookies.
- Baking Soda: Helps the cookies rise.
- Ground Ginger, Cinnamon, Allspice, Cloves, Black Pepper: Infuse the cookies with warm, aromatic spices, giving them that classic gingerbread flavor.
- Butter: Adds richness and flavor to the cookies, ensuring they are tender yet crispy.
- Granulated and Dark Brown Sugar: Sweeten the dough and contribute to its moisture.
- Egg: Binds the ingredients together, adding structure and helping the cookies hold their shape.
- Molasses: Imparts hints of caramel and toffee flavors and adds moisture to the cookies.
- Royal Icing or Store-bought Icing: Used for decorating.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
Step-By-Step Instructions
To begin, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices in a medium bowl.
Whisk to combine.
Combine the butter and sugars in the bowl of an electric mixer.
Beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
Beat in the egg and molasses.
Add the flour mixture and mix until combined.
The dough will be quite sticky.
Divide the dough into two discs, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for at least one hour or up to a few days. (At this point, the cookie dough can be also frozen for up to 3 months.)
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and place on a lightly floured work surface. Dust more flour over the dough. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough to about 1/8-inch thick.
Cut out shapes with a cookie cutter and transfer to parchment-lined baking sheets.
Bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes, then let the cookies cool on the baking sheets until set before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Use royal icing or store-bought icing to decorate the cookies.
Gingerbread cookies will keep nicely stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days; freeze for longer storage.
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Gingerbread Cookies
These festive gingerbread cookies are fun to make and delicious to eat.
Ingredients
- 2¾ cups all purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled-off
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- Heaping ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ⅛ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1½ sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
- ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 6 tablespoons unsulphured molasses, such as Grandma's Original
- Royal icing or store-bought icing, for decorating
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and black pepper.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or beaters, beat the butter and sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the egg and molasses.
- Add the flour mixture and mix on low speed until combined. Divide the dough in half and shape into two discs. Wrap the discs in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator until firm, at least 1 hour or up to three days.
- Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350°F ; set two racks near the middle of the oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Remove the dough from the refrigerator. (If the dough has been in the fridge for longer than an hour, you'll need to let it sit out at room temperature for 10 to 15 minutes and knead it briefly until it is supple enough to roll.) Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface. Dust more flour over the dough. Roll, turning and adding more flour under and over the dough as necessary, to about ⅛-inch thick (or for softer cookies, roll to ¼-inch thick). Cut out shapes with a cookie cutter and transfer the cookies to the prepared baking sheets, using a spatula if necessary. Gather the dough scraps and knead into a ball, then roll out and cut again, adding more flour as necessary. Repeat until scraps are used up.
- Bake the cookies, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back midway through, for 8 to 10 minutes or until they feel firm. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for several minutes until set, then transfer to a rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining dough.
- When the cookies are completely cool, decorate with icing. Let the icing set completely, a few hours, then store in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
- Freezer-Friendly Instructions: The cookie dough can be frozen for up to 3 months. Shape it into 2 discs, wrap each in plastic wrap, and place them in a sealable bag. When ready to bake, thaw the dough until pliable and proceed with the recipe. The baked cookies can also be frozen for up to 3 months. Once cooled, store in an airtight container, separating layers with parchment paper or foil. Before serving, let the cookies thaw to room temperature.
Nutrition Information
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- Serving size: 1 cookie without icing
- Calories: 78
- Fat: 3 g
- Saturated fat: 2 g
- Carbohydrates: 11 g
- Sugar: 6 g
- Fiber: 0 g
- Protein: 1 g
- Sodium: 73 mg
- Cholesterol: 12 mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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What temperature do these cook at??
Hi Susan, they bake at 350°F/175°C. Hope you enjoy!
The recipe says, we can roll them thick or thin. The first round of cookies had both and I asked my guinea pigs which they preferred. Their response was, it was the best gingerbread cookie ever tasted. The thinner men held their shape, the thicker men look like sumo wrestlers.
Thanks Jen for perfecting another recipe.
Just made these. The recipe worked great. The house smells like Christmas. I made Christmas stars. They held their shape nicely and came out firm, lightly crisp and perfectly spiced.
The absolute best gingerbread recipe. I make them year after year.
Love them
Hello Jenn, May I ask if this recipe could be used to make a stackable tree of stars? I am not sure if the recipe is crisp enough. Thank you in advance!
Hi Sam, I think these are probably sturdy enough to work for that. Please LMK how it turns out!
Texture is amazing for this recipe, I think I messed up on measuring the molasses, it’s so thick and difficult to measure in tablespoons. Mine came out really good, it’s just that they have too much molasses flavor and I don’t taste the ginger at all. They taste really good.
These sound amazing.
Would I be able to use this recipe for a gingerbread house?
Cheers from Vancouver,
Anita
I don’t recommend it, Anita – they are too soft. Sorry!
Hard to find temperature setting
Hi Pam, Sorry you had a hard time finding the temperature setting. The oven should be heated to 350°F/175°C. Hope that helps!
I consider myself a seasoned baker and have been baking for 60 years. I started baking gingerbread at the age of 8 and have had a love hate relationship ever since … until Now. Jenn this is the best recipe I ever made or tasted. Usually the dough has been hard to handle being too dry but this just perfect. I love the taste of the extra salt and the ground pepper. I made it at work and everyone said exactly the same. I shared your website with the staff. I just made another batch at home today but have eaten too many lol Thank you so much Barb
This dough was very easy to mix up and even easier to roll out and cut out shapes with. I heard on a podcast recently about a baker saying she always doubled the spices in any gingerbread cookie dough recipe she tries and I think I will try that next time. This was ginerbread-y but I wanted it even more intense! I used Jen’s royal icing recipe to decorate these cookies with my nieces and I think some more spice would compete with the icing a little better.
I made these at Christmas. Except I made gingerbread lobsters. They were cute! The dough is a good consistency for rolling out and working with.
Our family made these cookies for the first time during our quarantined holidays this last year, and they were SO good, I immediately wanted to make another batch. Super moist even a few days in. We used ninja cookie cutters for extra fun.