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.
I was looking for a ginger molasses cookie recipe and this one looked delicious! I reading the comments… many said this was the best they came across, others said too much baking soda after taste, some commented on cake like cookie, not chewy, some added double spices, etc, vanilla, in fact as I was reading the reviews I thought maybe I shouldn’t try this one so I started looking for others but I kept coming back to that one. So I decided to make it and see for myself. I made it identical to the recipe except I’m a vanilla person so I added about a tablespoon vanilla… left them in the bowl put them in the refrigerator for about four hours… sprayed avocado oil on my scooper which was 1 inch, leveled it off, plopped it right in my bowl of sugar, came out very easy, rolled it around to form a better ball in the sugar, put in 350 oven, first batch of 12 nine minutes wasn’t enough I left it in for 11 minutes pulled them out left them on the cookie sheet for five minutes, WHICH IS THE KEY, FIVE MINUTES, After that took them off to Cool after a couple minutes I tasted one it did taste a little cakey, so on the next batch, that was already still in the oven and every bass there after I left in at 12 minutes let them stay on the hot pan for five minutes took them off they were chewy and hands down the best recipe and I will never find another recipe and I will always have this is my go to and I will make this continuously over and over and over again and I’m glad I didn’t listen to the comments abba not make them! I found myself going back getting one, then another, then another… THIS IS A BLUE RIBBKN COOKIE for all the ones that are torn in making them or not! U will lose out if u don’t! Thank u so much for sharing! Also, for those questioning the flower and the grams blah blah blah take a spoon fill up your cup that way with the spoon level it off at one cup do the same for the half cup that’s 4 1/2 cups perfect consistently throughout… Best recipe out there! 🥇🥇🥇🥇
I agree with the folks who were disappointed with this recipe. I followed the recipe exactly and found that while the cookies looked good, their texture was cakey, not the chewy I was looking for. Also, there was too much baking soda. I could taste it in the cookies. I loved the combination of spices, but there should have been more of each. I liked the comments about increasing them by 50% or more.
Although this recipe looked very promising, it did not give me what it said it would – a crisp bur chewy cookie. I am very sad.
Because of life, the dough chilled overnight in the fridge instead of 2 hours, so to get the spread I wanted, I did mush them down with a drinking glass. Otherwise followed the recipe to a T and they turned out pretty good baked for 10 min. The ginger was very prominent but not so much on the other spices or molasses. Maybe my spices were just old, but next time I’ll probably double everything but the ginger and use dark molasses instead. Maybe just a touch less soda since that bitter flavor kind of crept through a little, but overall this was a good little cookie that I’ll come back to!
I followed the recipe exactly and the cookies were perfect. The spread properly and the taste was good.
Made 1/3 of a batch and they are AMAZING! Didn’t roll in sugar (lazy) and liked that they weren’t too sweet. Sat 2 nights in fridge and let them soften up a bit before baking. Spread great. Cooked about 14 minutes @ 350. Soft, puffy goodness!!
Great recipe!!
We live in a high altitude so baking someday can be a challenge.
I had to bake these for 15 mins each batch in order to get a great cookie texture.
The proportions in this recipe are totally off for us – we’ve baked them 2x and they failed ea. time.
4.5 cups of Flour to only 1.5 cups of butter? The cookies come out super flour-y, not flat and moist at all.
Has anyone tried using bloats instead of traditional blitzed up oats instead of flour?
I LOVE this recipe. They are crispy and chewy, great molasses flavor. They remind me of the molasses cookies I used to love as a kid. I have made them for a lot of folks since finding the recipe here and they all say they are the best molasses cookies they’ve ever had.
This is an addition to my previous rating.
The written recipe includes brown sugar however the video does not.
Also the written recipe states to bake at 350 and the video states 375. I used the brown sugar and baked the cookies at 350 could this be the reason my cookies did not spread?
Thank you,
Lucille