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A staple of the holiday season, these chewy gingersnaps are a must! For a cookie exchange or just your family, everyone will love these chewy ginger molasses cookies!
*Please note* I’ve tweaked the recipe as of November 2021 to make these even better. I’ve also included instructions for using browned butter, if you wish!
You guys, these are THE cookies. The cookies that eluded me during the holiday season in 2019. I have recipe tested these sooo many times, I’m sure my family is so sick of ginger cookies! My recipe notes are scribbled and scratched over hard to read – BUT – I finally did it. Hooray! There is nothing more satisfying than finally nailing a recipe that you’ve tried again and again with no success. I made pretty tasty cookies, but they just weren’t fitting the image in my head.
For these chewy ginger molasses cookies, I had a very specific image. I wanted a fairly thin cookie, with a subtle ginger flavor and I needed them to be VERY soft and chewy! This is the cookie recipe that really opened my eyes to all of the components in a cookie recipe that can drastically change the way a cookie turns out. While I am no baking scientist, but I’ve determined that there are 3 main variables in this recipe available to play with to change the way the cookies turned out:
- butter
- sugar
- chill time (or lack of chilling)
More butter and sugar definitely caused more spreading and more chewiness, but if you add too much the cookies are way too flat and also a little greasy. I also experimented with chilling the dough vs not chilling. Conventional wisdom had told me that I must chill the dough for cookies like these before baking, but I kept ending up with rounded mounds of cookies, which were delicious but not what I was picturing. If you want your cookies a little more pillowy than these, then you may want to chill the dough for 10 minutes or so. More on that later!
Anyway, after all that testing and eating and chilling – I feel like I’ve got a winner! Soft and chewy!
How do you make soft and chewy ginger molasses cookies?
Start by sifting together the flour, spices and baking soda. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or using a handheld electric mixer, mix together the softened butter and both sugars until soft and fluffy.
Add in the molasses, egg and vanilla, and then slowly mix in the dry ingredients until just incorporated.
So, this is the part where you can either chill the dough for 10-30 minutes for puffier cookies, or roll them and bake them right away, to get flatter, chewier cookies like the ones pictured in my post. You can’t go wrong either way!
Roll the dough into balls using a 1 tablespoon cookie scoop and then roll them again in some extra granulated sugar.
Space the cookies a few inches apart from one another on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 8-9 minutes. You want to remove the cookies from the oven while they’re still very soft and unbaked looking – they will firm up as they sit cooling on the baking sheet.
Cool the cookies for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before removing them to a cooling rack. The cookies will gain more cracks as they cool!
How can you make these cookies with browned butter?
I am currently (as of 2021) obsessed with browned butter. To make these cookies using browned butter instead of regular butter, melt 1 cup of butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Let the butter “cook” for 7-8 minutes, stirring every so often, until the butter turns a light brown color and you can smell a nutty, fragrant aroma. Remove the saucepan from heat and pour the butter into a heat-proof container to solidify. This can take anywhere from 1 hour to 4 hours, depending on how warm your kitchen is. Sometimes I put the melted butter in the fridge until solid, then remove it until room temperature again!
Use the browned butter in the recipe as you would with non-browned butter.
How many cookies does this recipe make?
This recipe makes 28-30 cookies. You can always double the batch and freeze half, or use the extra half for gifts or cookie exchanges this holiday season!
Well, I hope you’ll give this recipe a try and let me know if I hit the mark as much as I think I did 😉
Some other holiday cookies from the blog for you to peruse:
PrintChewy Ginger Molasses Cookies
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 28–30 cookies 1x
Description
A staple of the holiday season, these chewy gingersnaps are a must! For a cookie exchange or just your family, everyone will love these chewy ginger molasses cookies!
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp all-spice
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature*
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar + 1/4 cup more for rolling
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
- 1/4 cup dark molasses
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, all-spice, nutmeg and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or using a handheld electric mixer, beat the butter together with both sugars on high until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add the molasses, egg and vanilla extract and mix for an additional 2 minutes on medium-high, scraping down the sides as necessary. With the mixer running on low, slowly add in the dry ingredients until everything is just combined**.
- Place the extra 1/4 cup granulated sugar in a shallow bowl. Using a tablespoon at a time, roll the cookie dough into balls and then roll the dough gently in the granulated sugar, placing the balls a few inches apart on the baking sheet. Bake the cookies for 8-9 minutes or until slightly flat and soft, with very slightly browned edges. The cookies will look under-baked! Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes until removing them to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Cookies can be stored at room temperature for 1 week in an airtight container, or up to 2 months in the freezer. Cookie dough can also be frozen for up to 2 months and then baked from frozen, increasing the bake time by about 2 minutes.
Notes
*To use browned butter in this recipe, read the post above for directions.
**If you prefer a more “pillowy” cookie vs a flat and chewy one, chill the dough at this point for 20-30 minutes before rolling the dough into balls and continuing with step 3.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Category: cookies
- Method: oven bake
- Cuisine: american
Now those are perfect ginger molasses cookies, that texture!! I am drooling just looking at them!! 😀
They’re sooo soft and chewy. I love these cookies!
Tasty but don’t thin out, even when put into the oven at room temp. Odd that all the five-star reviews are based on the photo and didn’t actually make the recipe.