Chewy, heavily spiced + molasses-rich Gingerbread Cookies
These gingerbread cookies are my mother’s. And this is an absolutely sacred recipe. They are not only my favourite Christmas cookies, but I think they have to be my favourite cookies of all time. A friend of mine calls them “grown-up gingerbread cookies”, and I’d say that’s a pretty appropriate description of them. They are heavily laced with molasses, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves galore. In other words, they’re very strong-tasting…and that’s precisely why I love them so much. Not to mention, the texture is just amazing. Perfectly chewy and moist…so yum. The flavour is very similar, and certainly the same in terms of strength, as my Gingerbread Loaf. I write in the foreword for that recipe that it’s “not for the faint of heart”…and this holds true for these cookies as well. If you love molasses and strong warming spices, you’re going to absolutely die (…in a good way). But I would absolutely not recommend this recipe for children who prefer blander foods, or indeed for adults with a similar palate. I hope that you will love these sensational gingerbread cookies as much as we do, and that they will become a Christmas staple for you and your family for years to come.
I make the easiest and fastest frosting ever to pipe onto the gingerbread cookies. You literally just whisk together powdered sugar, cream, and vanilla with a fork, and you’re good to go! And as I mention in the notes, if you want a super runny icing that will “pool out”, just add more cream. You could also use eggnog in the place of the cream…and you could add more warming spices to it as well, if you’d like. If you want to get fancier, and pipe a larger amount of frosting onto your gingerbread cookies, you could whip up a brown butter buttercream (maybe with some added cream cheese)…a classic cream cheese frosting…a cream cheese frosting with orange zest…a chai frosting…an eggnog frosting…go nuts. Those are just some ideas off of the top of my head!
Recipe:
Makes about 20 small gingerbread cookies. Cookie cutters vary in size, so it’s difficult to give a precise number. This is not a lot if you are making large gingerbread men, so double the recipe if you want lots of cookie dough!
Notes
Store the cookies at room-temperature.
The kind of molasses that you use is crucially important to the success of your cookies. It must be organic unsulphured blackstrap molasses (very high quality). I used the brand Wholesome.
I specify the type of salt used, as different salts are more or less salty than others. If you don’t have the same kind of salt used, be mindful of this and adjust accordingly. Generally speaking, pink Himalayan salt is less salty than most others.
If you want a super runny icing that will “pool out”, just add more cream.
If you want to add some sparkly sprinkles (or candy!) on top, that looks really lovely too. Do that when the icing has just been piped, before it sets.
If you want to make the dough the day before, that’s totally fine. Just take it out of the fridge about 30-45 minutes before you want to roll it out, so that it’s not too hard.
Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients
305 g (2 cups) all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp + 1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp + 2 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt (pink Himalayan)
110 g (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
85 g (1/2 cup) brown sugar
250 g (3/4 cup) organic unsulphured blackstrap molasses
Instructions
Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt.
In a large bowl, add butter and brown sugar. Beat on high speed with an electric mixer for 2 minutes.
Add in molasses, and beat on high for another minute.
Add in half of the dry mixture. Fully combined on low speed. Add in the other half of the dry mixture. Combine. Do not over mix.
Formal instruction: taste the finished cookie dough—it contains no eggs, so it’s fully safe! YUM.
Form the cookie dough into a ball. Take out a large sheet of plastic wrap, and lay it down on your working surface. Put the ball of dough on top. Cut another large piece of plastic wrap, and lay it on top. Press down on the cookie dough to form a disk—2-3 cm high. Finish wrapping it up in the plastic wrap, and refrigerate for about an hour.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit and ensure that oven racks are positioned in the middle.
Take the gingerbread dough out of the fridge and unwrap it. Lay down a large sheet of plastic wrap. Put your cookie dough on top. Lay down another large sheet of plastic wrap overtop. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough so that it’s about 0.5 cm thick. [Cool trick eh? This removes the need for flour to prevent sticking, and makes for zero cleanup of the table.] Remove the top layer of plastic wrap, and cut out your gingerbread cookies, placing them on your baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Tip: if your dough still isn’t easy to handle, feel free to put it back in the fridge for another 15 minutes or so, to harden up a touch more.
Bake for 6 minutes. [Truthfully, whether the cookies are small or large, they come out perfectly and chewy after 6 minutes. So you can include a mix of sizes on the same baking sheet/know that you don’t need to stress over adjusting the baking time.]
Let your gingerbread cookies cool before frosting them. Feel free to eat some warm ones plain while you wait…I’d recommend dipping them in a glass of cold milk…mmm.
Simple Frosting
Ingredients
130 g powdered sugar
44 g (1/4 cup) cream, cold (this is for a looser icing; do 1 tsp less for a stiffer frosting)
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions
Mix all ingredients in a bowl with a fork until fully combined.
Spoon the frosting into a piping bag. Cut off the tip with scissors.
Have fun frosting the gingerbread cookies!
Enjoy!
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