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!
This recipe contains affiliate links.
Can these be made with Free flour (KAF 1 TO 1 GF FLOUR substitute)?
I made them this weekend and they are so good! My ginger powder wasn’t the freshest so it could’ve had more heat (but that’s due to my ingredients).
To boost the heat, I added ginger powder to the sugar for the crust YUM! Highly recommend doing that if you like ginger like we do.
Is the dough supposed to be so soft and sticky?
I just made this recipe for the first time and the cookies were amazing- gone already! Reading about the cookies falling, thought I’d share what may be a happy accident. My cookies came out perfect with no chilling time for the dough. I was in a hurry to make them for a party and completely missed that direction in the recipe. However, I also mis-measured the butter. When I was creaming the sugar I initially only used 1-1/2 sticks thinking that was the correct amount. It did seem a bit dry and got even drier as I slowly added the dry ingredients. I then had to fold in the additional 1-1/2 stick of butter that I’d mistakenly omitted from the creaming step. It took me a few minutes to soften the butter and blend it into the dry dough. That roughly 10-15 minutes I believe gave time for the gluten to stiffen the dough. I immediately used the dough without chilling and the cookies came out perfectly. I also made 36 much larger cookies. Baking time was 15 minutes. I used large granule turbinado sugar which gives them a nice outer texture. When I make this recipe again, I plan to cream with one cup butter, add the dry ingredients, let rest for 10 minutes and fold in the remaining butter. Thanks for sharing this wonderful recipe.
I went to make these and realized I didn’t have any brown sugar. Instead I used all white sugar. The cookies came out great. Soft and chewy, but they didn’t “crack”. Instead they are fluffy and have the texture on top of a wind blown field of snow. Would not using brown sugar be the cause of this?
Hi, i am looking for the recipe that I thought you had here but it used vegetable oil and didn’t require cooling the dough. Can you tell me how i can find that recipe again? We all loved it and it was the perfect amount of cookies for a family. Thanks
Nice flavour, crisp outside and chewy inside. I missed the part about the number of cookies it makes – LOADS! I made enough for my work potluck and have almost half the dough still! I was hoping they’d flatten out but didn’t. Maybe I should have let the dough balls warm to room temp before baking?
Will definitely repeat.
I believe the weight of 41/2 cups of flour is 540 grams. You have the weight listed as 639 grams. Please let me know which is the correct amount. Thanks.
Can you freeze the uncooked dough? I wanted to make the dough ahead of time but not bake them for a couple of weeks. Thanks
I made these for an office get together. When they first came out of the oven, I wasn’t impressed, but the next morning, after having cooled, OMG!!! They were so good.
I made the made the batter and refrigerated 24 hours, baking the next even, and it was perfect. I used the recipe for 90 and actually got 80, but this recipe is a keeper
Thank you