Here is my favorite gingerbread cookies recipe and one of the most popular Christmas cookie recipes on this website. Soft in the centers, crisp on the edges, perfectly spiced, molasses and brown sugar-sweetened holiday goodness.
Whenever I think of Christmas cookies, gingerbread cookies come to mind first. Well, after Christmas sugar cookies of course! Their spice, their molasses flavor, their SMILES, and their charm are obviously irresistible. Gingerbread cookies, you have my heart.
Key Ingredients in Gingerbread Cookies
The full written recipe is below, but let’s review a few key ingredients here first. Gingerbread cookie recipes all start the same and mine comes from my mom. To her recipe, I add a little more molasses and increase the amount of spice flavors (cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and allspice). Because of the added sticky sweetener (molasses), I add a little more flour to help soak it all up. Just like when we are making pinwheel cookies, a bit of extra flour helps the cookies can keep their shape.
- Molasses + spices for flavor
- Egg so the gingerbread cookies have structure and richness
- Brown sugar instead of white granulated sugar. I always use brown sugar when its flavor fits.
How to Make Gingerbread Cookies
Let’s walk through the gingerbread cookie recipe so you feel confident when you begin baking.
Chill the dough: The dough is sticky once it’s all beaten together in your mixing bowl and therefore, it absolutely MUST be chilled for at least 3 hours. Give yourself enough time in the kitchen or make the cookie dough and chill it overnight. You want your cookie dough firm so the cookies hold their shape and you want your cookie dough manageable so you can work with it. You won’t have either unless you have chilled cookie dough!
Wrap up the dough: It’s easiest to wrap the dough in plastic wrap before chilling. Scoop out 1/2 of the prepared cookie dough, plop it onto a long sheet of plastic wrap, wrap it up, and flatten it out into a disc. Repeat with the other 1/2 of dough. Then chill. See that photo above? That’s what you’re doing, but you’ll have 2 discs. Why are you doing this? It’s easier to roll out the chilled cookie dough when it is in a disc shape. Also, the cookie dough chills faster when there is less volume. And it’s just easier to work with smaller portions when rolling/shaping!
Roll it out: After chilling, roll out the chilled cookie dough discs until about 1/4-inch thick. Don’t be afraid to flour your hands, rolling pin, work surface, and everything in the world. By that, I mean: the cookie dough can become sticky as you work. So, don’t be scared to add more flour to the work surface. The flour spots on top of your shaped cookie dough will bake off.
Place the cut-out cookies onto a lined baking sheet about 1 inch apart. The cookies won’t really spread, but you want to make sure they have enough room to breathe. They are gingerbread people, after all. 😉
How to Decorate Gingerbread Cookies
After they’ve baked and cooled, it’s time to decorate the cookies. We’re talking smiles, eyes, bow-ties, buttons, squiggles, whatever your gingerbread cookie loving heart desires. This is when it’s really fun to have a friend or little baker in the kitchen with you. You can use the easy cookie icing or my traditional royal icing recipe, whichever you prefer. For something even easier, you can decorate the gingerbread cookies with cookie decorating buttercream, and feel free to add a little cinnamon to it for extra spice flavor.
Tint the icing with a couple drops of food coloring to spice things up, too.
Many of the tools I include in my list of favorite cookie decorating supplies will be helpful for decorating these cookies. For more inspiration, here is my full tutorial on how to decorate sugar cookies (video included!).
It’s difficult not to love this recipe which is why they’re my favorite gingerbread cookies!
- The dough comes together easily
- The flavor is spot on—lots of molasses, ginger, cinnamon, all-spice, and cloves
- The edges are slightly crisp
- The centers are soft and chewy
- They’re so easy to decorate.
Don’t forget the other Christmas classics: Peanut Butter Blossoms and Snowball Cookies. And if you can’t get enough gingerbread flavor, try these gingerbread blossoms, chocolate ginger cookies, gingerbread latte cookies, iced gingerbread oatmeal cookies, gingerbread cookie bars (no dough chilling!), gingerbread cake, gingerbread cinnamon rolls, and gingerbread waffles next!
Gingerbread Cookies
- Prep Time: 4 hours
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 4 hours, 30 minutes
- Yield: 24 four-inch cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: German
Description
This is my favorite gingerbread cookies recipe and it’s also loved by millions. Soft in the centers, crisp on the edges, and perfectly spiced. I played around with the spices a lot and really loved the flavor of these cookies when using a full Tablespoon each of ground ginger and ground cinnamon. Make sure you chill the cookie dough discs for a minimum of 3 hours.
Ingredients
- 3 and 1/2 cups (440g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 Tablespoon ground ginger (yes, 1 full Tablespoon!)
- 1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 10 Tablespoons (142g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 3/4 cup (150g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 2/3 cup (160ml; about 200g) unsulphured or dark molasses (do not use blackstrap; I prefer Grandma’s brand)
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- optional: easy cookie icing, royal icing, or cookie buttercream
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves. Set aside.
- In a large bowl using a handheld mixer or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter for 1 minute on medium speed until completely smooth and creamy. Add the brown sugar and molasses and beat on medium high speed until combined and creamy. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Next, beat in egg and vanilla on high speed for 2 full minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. The butter may separate; that’s ok.
- Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, and beat on low speed until combined. The cookie dough will be quite thick and slightly sticky. Divide dough in half and place each onto a large piece of plastic wrap. Wrap each up tightly and pat down to create a disc shape. Chill discs for at least 3 hours and up to 3 days. Chilling is mandatory for this cookie dough. I always chill mine overnight.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line 2-3 large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. (Always recommended for cookies.) Set aside.
- Remove 1 disc of chilled cookie dough from the refrigerator. Generously flour a work surface, as well as your hands and the rolling pin. Roll out disc until 1/4-inch thick. Tips for rolling—the dough may crack and be crumbly as you roll. What’s helpful is picking it up and rotating it as you go. Additionally, you can use your fingers to help meld the cracking edges back together. The first few rolls are always the hardest since the dough is so stiff, but re-rolling the scraps is much easier. Cut into shapes. Place shapes 1 inch apart on prepared baking sheets. Re-roll dough scraps until all the dough is shaped. Repeat with remaining disc of dough.
- Bake cookies for about 9-10 minutes. If your cookie cutters are smaller than 4 inches, bake for about 8 minutes. If your cookie cutters are larger than 4 inches, bake for about 11 minutes. My oven has hot spots and yours may too—so be sure to rotate the pan once during bake time. Keep in mind that the longer the cookies bake, the harder and crunchier they’ll be. For soft gingerbread cookies, follow my suggested bake times.
- Allow cookies to cool for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet. Transfer to cooling rack to cool completely. Once completely cool, decorate as desired.
- Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: Baked and decorated (or not decorated) cookies freeze well – up to three months. Unbaked cookie dough discs (just the dough prepared through step 3) freeze well up to three months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator then continue with step 4.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowl | Whisk | Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper | Rolling Pin or Adjustable Rolling Pin | Gingerbread Cookie Cutter | Cooling Rack
- Gingerbread House: This cookie dough is not sturdy enough for gingerbread houses. Here is my gingerbread house recipe.
WHAT HAVE I DONE?
Reader Comments and Reviews
Are these cookies hard/crisp or soft cookies? Thanks
Hi Mickey! They’re softer gingerbread cookies. If you’re looking for a harder cookie, you may enjoy our gingerbread house cookie recipe instead!
Loved by very picky men who are bakers and cooks!!! I made these and my husband and father in law absolutely loved them. My husband really enjoyed them the next day.
Question?
How long does the dough last refrigerated? Thank you!
Hi Angie, We are so happy these were such a hit! You can store the dough in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
My wife and I have made literally made thousands of Gingerbread Boys with this recipe for decorating!!!!
I highly highly recommend this recipe for making gingerbread men to decorate… absolutely the best!!!
Thank you so much for making and trusting our recipe, Larry and Karen!
Could I use a different cutter for this eg. snowflake?
Absolutely!
These are the BEST gingerbread cookies I have ever had! My daughter and I have made three times in the last two weeks. Everyone we have shared them with has loved them. They have such a nice spicy kick. So far we have not had the time to cut shapes and simply rolled in a log before refrigerating and then cut into 1/4” slices. Thank you so much for sharing recipe
I love love love your recipe. I made so many for me and my family and it was so fun. I love baking and this is one of my favorite recipes. It really felt like Christmas when I made them.
Hello, can I replace baking soda with baking powder? Does it change the texture?
Hi Lily, baking powder and baking soda are both leaveners, however they are chemically different and shouldn’t be swapped with one another. We have a post about the differences between the two if you’re interested!
Hi! I couldn’t find all of the spices mentioned in the recipe! Do you think it would be okay to use a gingerbread spice mix instead? And if so should I put as much as 3 Table spoons (the total amount of all the spices mentioned above)?
(the gingerbread spice mix includes cloves, ginger, and cinamon)
Hi Yvie, you can certainly try using that spice mix instead for 2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon to replace the individual spices in the cookies. Let us know how they turn out!
Can I make these cookies as drop cookies? Maybe criss-cross with a fork like peanut butter cookies? I don’t have alot of room to roll dough & use cutters.
Hi Suzanne! This dough is best as a roll-out cookie. For a drop cookie, you can try our soft molasses cookies or crisp molasses cookies instead.
Thank your for sharing, I made with treacle as it’s all i had, i know it needs the depth of flavour, treacle from sugar (corn syrup a no from me) .I also added a pinch of cloves and nutmeg for a Dutch ‘spekulaas’ kick! Fabulous recipe, i’m not clever enough for biscuit cutters so it was poorly created circles for me which i decorated as baubles, haha. Still divine, thank you!
I couldn’t find molasses anywhere, but used treacle and turned out great (for anyone else struggling to find molasses use treacle instead of golden syrup)
These turned out PERFECT!!! The last ginger bread I made was rubbish, this recipe is packed full of flavour! Made just shy of 40 4” gingerbread men have already made a second batch
I would have liked to have a nutritional breakdown. How many gm of fat, sugar, and carbohydrates
Hi Charlotte, We don’t usually include nutrition information as it can vary between different brands of the same ingredients. Plus, many recipes have ingredient substitutions or optional ingredients listed. However, there are many handy online calculators where you can plug in and customize your exact ingredients/brands. Readers have found this one especially helpful: https://www.verywellfit.com/recipe-nutrition-analyzer-4157076
Hi. Can I use this recipe to make gingerbread houses?
Hi Andrea! Here’s our gingerbread house recipe – it makes a sturdier dough/cookie to work with. Enjoy!
Hi, can I replace molasses with golden syrup pls? Molasses isnt available in my country. Thanks
Hi Maria, some readers have made that substitution with success, but there’s a lot of flavor lost. For best results, we recommend sticking with molasses.
Use treacle, if you can’t find molasses if you use golden syrup you’ll loose heaps of flavour and it throws the balance off.
I made this recipe 2 years ago and it’s amazing! I just made it again today, but I think I floured the surface (I used a mat) too many times while rolling and cutting the gingerbread men. The dough became very dry and broke apart easily. I’m wondering if there is something I could add to make the dough more pliable if too much flour is added to the cutting mat. Would you have any suggestions?
Hi Joan! How are you measuring your flour when making the dough? Be sure to spoon and level (or weight measure) to measure, so that there is not too much flour in the dough. That, together with using excess flour when rolling out the dough, can cause the cookies to dry out and crack. For next time, you can allow your dough to warm up a few minutes longer which should also make it easier to roll out. We don’t recommend adding any additional liquids to the cookie dough to make it more pliable, as that will affect the texture and how the cookies bake. Hope this helps!
Hi !
I prepare the dough yesterady and I put it on the fridge overnight, but yet I was not happy with the smell of the molasses. Argh, such a strong taste.. the dough got very dark colour and I was wondering if the cookies woult get tasty… And that was it! I put some cookies in the oven, I taste one and they had a very disgusting flavor. I threw all the rest away 🙁
I don’t know what got wrong…. however, I really don´t like molasses smell.
Last year I made them with honey and I think I will keep it this way.
I made these by hand so got quite the workout at the end of the mixing! I followed the recipe to the letter but they weren’t nearly as sweet as I’m used to using golden syrup so I might add a little more sugar with my second attempt -still a fantastic recipe and I love the molasses depth more than standard 🙂
Hi! I have pomegranate molasses, would that work?
Hi Aisha, Pomegranate molasses is reduced pomegranate juice and is very different from the unsulphured molasses used here. Unfortunately, the consistency of the dough and flavor (especially) will change without unsulphured molasses.
Tried these for my coworkers this week and they loved them! So did I! I used half light brown sugar and half dark brown and they were PERFECT! I love the precise instructions. The Royal Icing for once came out shiny and tasty. Love your recipes and instructions! Now I’m making these for gift boxes for Christmas gifts!
Hi! As I live in Dubai, all spice can be anything indian, Middle estern, African, Chinese spices… I checked what it means in US and it says I can substitute with cinnamon+cloce+nutmeg. Is it ok??
Hi! Yes, that spice blend is typically a good replacement for allspice and would work just fine in this cookie recipe. Thank you for checking!
I love this recipe and make it every year. This year, I discovered an acorn cookie cutter and have the idea to make acorn shaped gingerbread with maple icing. I love the maple glaze for donuts and scones, do you think I can just add more powdered sugar and pipe the icing onto these cookies or is it better to use maple extract on royal or buttercream for decorating?
Hi Jessica, that sounds adorable! We’d recommend using our royal icing recipe and adding 1/2 teaspoon of maple extract when you add the water.
Hey, I just wanted to ask. How many cookies is this recipee for?
I wanted to give it a try tonight im just wondering how many batches of dough I need to make before hand. Thanks
I’ve been searching for a good gingerbread recipe to use with some cookie molds I have on order. Do you think this recipe would work well with a mold? They’re pretty detailed- a pine cone and a Dutch windmill. Love your recipes so you are my go to at this point… Love to know your thoughts!
Hi Chris, we haven’t tried this dough with a cookie mold, but we fear it may not hold the detailed shape very well. Instead, we’d recommend trying with this cinnamon brown sugar stamped cookies recipe instead! Let us know how it goes for you.
Hi!
I am reading in search of a recipe to use on a mold as well. Did you end up using this recipe or the cinnamon brown sugar stamped recipe?
Thank you Sally ! Adding extra flour worked 🙂
A complete fail! The dough is too soft and creamy so it’s impossible to cut shapes without it falling apart. The only thing I substituted was honey instead of the molasses. I left the dough in the fridge overnight too. Should I just throw the dough away or are there any remedies to hardening it up pls?
Hi Julia, honey is not an ideal replacement for molasses, especially when you need this much. If you don’t have/don’t like molasses, I recommend my regular sugar cookies recipe and you can certainly add these dry spices. For your dough, you can try adding more flour and refrigerating to see if it begins to hold up better.
First time making gingerbread cookies and they were absolutely delicious. I did put the cut out cookies in the freezer for 7 minutes before baking. This always help with the shape of the cookie cutter to stay true to the cutter shape. I made Mickey and Minnie Mouse gingerbread people. My granddaughter does not like the taste of the cookie but she loved decorating them.
Great recipe. I will make these again.
I just made this recipe tonight, but substituted Dark Corn Syrup for molasses since I had some on hand. The cookies were delicious but I’ll definitely be sure to grab some actual molasses next time to give a richer, deeper flavor. Though the substitution should work really well for any commenter who felt the recipe as-is was too molasses-forward.
Hi! This recipe looks amazing, thank you. I was wondering if it’s possible to make it without a mixer? Thanks!
Hi Athena, it will take a bit of arm muscle, but you can certainly cream the butter and sugar together by hand. This is a thick and sticky dough, but it could be done!
Thank you so much! I can’t wait to try this!!
Giving this a shot today. I’ve never made gingerbread cookies and was surprised by the smell of molasses. I dont really like it lol. I am hoping to make little baristas for my daughter’s Starbucks party! Thank you for sharing!
Hi, Love your recipe! I made 6 batches of cookie dough last year and put together 37 Gingerbread decorating kits to give away as Christmas presents to my kids’ friends and they absolutely LOVE IT!
I was just wondering how far in advance can I bake the cookies and store them before packaging them into kits? The reason I’m asking is because this year (and I know I’m crazy for doing this) but I’d like to make a kit for each student in my kids’ classes…and I have 4 kids, plus a few extras…so…looking at making 121 kits. 6 cookies per kit. HELP??
How fun! See recipe notes for our make-ahead and freezing instructions 🙂
I think I must be misreading something with the molasses I followed the recipe exactly but the dough came out very dark brown and butter bitter smelling and tasting. And yet I put 2/3 cup in to the mix- should this amount be less?? Everything else including the consistency seems right but it basically looks like a dark brown treacle smelling dough