These Chewy Ginger Molasses Cookies are easy to make, super-soft and chewy, and irresistibly delicious.
It seems a bold move to declare an all-time favorite cookie. But after having been on Team Molasses for going on over three decades now, and already whipped up my third batch of molasses dough in a month, I’ve gotta say that I don’t foresee any allegiance shifts happening soon. So with that said, allow me to introduce you to my all-time favorite cookies…
…the most delicious, soft, chewy, gingery, life-changing molasses cookies. ♡♡♡
My love for these molasses cookies is entirely thanks to my mom, who baked fresh batches of cookies for our family pretty much every week when we were growing up. Granted, she was always a bit mystified that her oldest daughter (hi, Mom) never inherited her obsession with all kinds of chocolate cookies, which will forever and always be her all-time faves. But molasses cookies were always a compromise we could both agree on. We both love these cookies.
This time of year, they are still the first recipe to which I always turn for holiday cookie baking. And this year in particular, they’ve been extra fun to share with all of our European friends who — as it turns out — maybe love them even more than we do! Ha, every time that we have served them to our friends, and our Spanish class, our neighbors, everyone goes crazy for them. Which means that we never come home with leftovers. Which just means that we have to keep baking more, naturally. Which requires exactly zero twisting of my arm. More molasses cookies for all!
Anyway, these cookies are clearly a hit. So as part of our week of cookies here on the blog, I thought I would bump this recipe back up to the top of the pile today for some non-chocolate cookie inspiration. I initially shared this recipe on the blog nine years ago. But that said, a number of you have reported over the years that your cookies have spread a bit more than you like. So I’ve been tinkering around with our family recipe this fall, and have made a few small adjustments to the recipe below that should help them to stay nice and thick and chewy, without compromising the flavor of the cookies at all. (Although if your cookies do ever flatten out, I promise they’ll still be delicious.)
So I hope that you enjoy them as much as we do, and if you decide to bake up a batch, I’d love to hear how they go! Enjoy, everyone!
Chewy Ginger Molasses Cookies Recipe | 1-Minute Video
Chewy Ginger Molasses Cookies Ingredients:
To make this chewy ginger molasses cookies recipe, you will need:
- Butter: Completely softened to room temperature (not melted, or else it will not cream properly with the sugars)
- Sugars: I use half granulated (white) sugar, half packed brown sugar, plus extra sugar for rolling the dough balls.
- Molasses: I typically opt for “original” (versus dark) unsulphured molasses.
- Eggs and baking soda: Two soft and chewy cookie staples.
- Flour: I typically use all-purpose flour for this classic recipe, but white whole wheat flour can work too.
- Spices: We will use a mixture of ground ginger, cinnamon and cloves. Feel free to tinker around with the spice proportions to taste.
- Salt: To bring out all of those delicious flavors.
How To Make Molasses Cookies:
To make these homemade molasses cookies, simply:
- Whisk together dry ingredients. Flour, soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and salt.
- Cream together butter and sugars. Using a separate mixing bowl, either with a stand mixer or a hand mixer, cream together the softened butter and sugars on medium-high speed until the mixture is light and fluffy and a pale yellow color, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides occasionally as needed.
- Mix in the remaining wet and dry ingredients. Mix in the eggs (one at a time) and molasses, and beat on medium-low speed until each is combined. Gradually add in the dry ingredient mixture and beat until it is evenly incorporated.
- Chill the dough. Transfer the dough to an airtight container and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or until the dough is completely chilled. I know — the extra chilling time is substantial, and very tempting to skip. But this particular dough, with all of its butter and molasses, really does need a thorough chilling to prevent the cookies from spreading. Worth the wait, I promise. :)
- Preheat oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat, and set aside.
- Roll the dough balls. Once the dough is chilled and firm, roll the dough into small balls, about 1-inch in diameter. Fill a separate small bowl with sugar, and roll each ball in the sugar until it is completely coated. Place dough balls on the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake. Bake for about 8-10 minutes, until the cookies begin to slightly crack on top. (They will crack more while cooling.) Remove from the oven and let cool for 4-5 minutes. Then transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool completely.
- Serve. Serve warm and enjoy, or store in a sealed container for up to 4 days. Or freeze for up to 3 months.
Possible Variations:
Want to mix things up with your ginger cookies? Feel free to:
- Add in extra ginger: I also really love adding some chopped crystallized ginger to these cookies for added ginger flavor and crunch.
- Frost your cookies: A really light glaze is delicious atop these cookies. Or if you really want to go for it, cream cheese frosting is divine.
More Favorite Cookie Recipes:
Looking for more delicious cookie inspiration? Feel free to check out our full collection of cookie recipes, or any of these other favorite classic cookies:
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
- Peanut Butter Cookies
- Gingerbread Cookies
- No-Bake Cookies
- Brown Sugar Cookies
Chewy Ginger Molasses Cookies
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups (340g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup (200g) granulated white sugar
- 1 cup (213g) packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (170g) unsulphured molasses
- 2 large eggs
- 4 1/2 cups (639 grams*) all-purpose flour
- 4 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and salt. Set aside.
- Using a separate mixing bowl, either with a stand mixer or a hand mixer, cream together the softened butter and sugars on medium-high speed until the mixture is light and fluffy and a pale yellow color, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides occasionally as needed. Mix in the eggs (one at a time) and molasses, and beat on medium-low speed until each is combined. Gradually add in the dry ingredient mixture and beat until it is evenly incorporated.
- Transfer the dough to an airtight container and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or until the dough is completely chilled.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper; set aside.
- Roll the dough into small balls, about 1-inch in diameter. Fill a separate small bowl with sugar, and roll each ball in the sugar until it is completely coated. Place dough balls on the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake for about 8-10 minutes, until the cookies begin to slightly crack on top. (They will crack more while cooling.) Remove from the oven and let cool for 4-5 minutes. Then transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool completely.
- Serve warm and enjoy, or store in a sealed container for up to 4 days. Or freeze for up to 3 months.
Notes
Did you make this?Let me know how it turned out in the comments below!
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I’ve made these in the past and will give the recipe 5 ⭐️. For some reason this time they didn’t turn out….very buttery. Taste under baked and flat. Any suggestions?
I made these last night. These weren’t a hit at my place, unfortunately. None of us like them much. We’re probably fans of stronger flavors. I found the molasses flavor to drown out the other flavors. I bought good, new spices for this, so I know it’s not a matter of them being old. On the plus side, these have a great texture. I’d probably like these a lot by nearly doubling the spices. I fortunately didn’t cook all of it yet. I’ll try mixing in more spices to the remaining dough.
Fantastic texture, but tweak the amount of salt and beware the cook time.
I’m shit at eyeballing inches and prefer weighing out cookie dough balls. I did my best and used my scale to weight out 50 grams for each ball. The cookies baked out around 3 x 3 inches. Larger than my palm.
Following the suggested 8-10 minutes resulted in doughy, underbaked cookies, so I guess mine were larger than the recipe specified. The optimal time ended up being 13-15 minutes.
Also, my gut told me a whole teaspoon of salt felt like too much, so I reduced it to 3/4th a teaspoon, and the resulting cookies had a salty-sweetness along the level of a mild salted caramel. I’ll probably reduce it to half a teaspoon next time I make this. However, I bake with kosher salt, so perhaps that had an influencing factor.
Overall a good recipe that will produce cookies with that perfect texture. Crunchy edges, chewy, moist center. Just beware those two things.
Delicious soft and chewy cookies! I used the grams measurement for flour instead of cups. Using 30g of dough for each cookie, I came out with exactly 6 dozen cookies.
The first time I made these cookies, I weighed the flour and used 639 grams of flour, as called for in the recipe. Yesterday, I made them again. but after weighing, I measured and used the 4 1/2 cups called for in the recipe. They are not the same. Weighing produced far more flour than did measuring it
No vanilla??
Just like all your other recipes I’ve tried, these are just amazing. Crispy outside, chewy inside. I added an extra egg yolk for more chew and chopped up some crystallized ginger. Perfection. Just a note about your cup to g conversion: does 4 1/2 cups = 639g? Which conversion tool do you use? The one I use indicates it’s much less than that. I ended up just scooping and leveling and, like I said, they were perfect! My go-to now. Thank you!
Yummy! I didn’t roll the cookies in sugar because I was worried it would make them too sweet, but it wouldn’t have, the cookies are not overly sweet! I measured all ingredients per the recipe and was able to make 60 cookies from the dough. So, halve the recipe if you want less.
This is now my favorite cookie recipe. I’ve made this recipe twice. The first time I didn’t add enough flour (used 540g based on 120g/cup which has been my go to conversion) and they melted into flat rounds, no cracking, but still people LOVED them. My son, however, didn’t like the crunch from the sugar coating and I felt they needed more spice (we love ginger and cinnamon). So the second time not only did I add the correct amount of flour (639g as per the recipe), but 1.5 Tbsp ginger, and 3 tsp cinnamon. Rolled the dough into 1.5 inch balls, no sugar coating, and baked for 12-minutes. This time they looked more like the pics, had a little height, were soft and absolutely delicious warm. Best of all my son loved them. This will definitely be a family staple for the holiday season.
Never usually comment on recipes, but I have to say these are the best cookies I have ever made!! Wanted to make these because I love the ginger molasses cookies I get at a local bakery, and these ones are a perfect home copycat! Now I don’t need to leave the house to make bakery level cookies :)