Homemade soft molasses cookies with crackly tops are super chewy and perfectly spiced. They stay seriously soft for days—if they last that long—and are always a holiday favorite.
Molasses cookies have always been my top choice because they bring me right back to my childhood. I grew up helping my mom bake them. After rolling the dough in the sugar and watching them bake through the little oven window, my sweet reward was biting into a warm cookie fresh from the oven. In addition to the nostalgia, the soft texture paired with cozy molasses puts them above any other cookie.
Sorry, chocolate chip cookies, you don’t even compare.
Molasses Cookie Comparison
Since they’re a favorite, I have plenty of gingersnap/molasses cookie recipes on my website and in my cookbooks. Most stem from the same-ish recipe with the exception of the crisp variety. Let’s review what makes each one individually and undeniably delicious:
- Soft White Chocolate Chip Molasses Cookies: Studded with white chocolate chips, these cookies are lusciously soft and mega chewy. You’ll love the combination of cozy spices and white chocolate.
- Ginger Pistachio Cookies: I add salty pistachios to my mom’s classic recipe. These ginger molasses cookies are soft, salty, sweet, and spiced. Find this recipe in Sally’s Cookie Addiction cookbook.
- Crisp Molasses Cookies: Another favorite! These are extra crisp. If you’re looking for a crunchy molasses cookie, this one’s for you—they actually snap when you break them!
- Chocolate Ginger Cookies: These are an elevated twist to our classic molasses cookies. You’ll appreciate the added cocoa flavor and how they are beautifully finished with dark chocolate and crystallized ginger.
- Gingerbread Blossoms: Think of this recipe as a new take on these holiday-favorite spiced soft molasses cookies, with the chocolatey appeal of peanut butter blossoms. They capture so many of the things we love this time of year—warm spice; cozy molasses; a soft, chewy texture; and a melty chocolate kiss in the center.
If I had to choose, I would always reach for my mom’s recipe that lives in Sally’s Baking Addiction cookbook. Nothing compares to mom’s.
What Makes These Molasses Cookies Different?
Another molasses cookie recipe? Yes! These cookies are different from my other varieties and here’s why: they’re soft, crackly, and chewier than all the rest. I used my gingerbread blossoms recipe as a starting point. My goal was to produce a flatter, chewier cookie with the same amount of softness. To accomplish this, I used the same ingredients but slightly altered the ratios:
- Flour: I reduced the flour considerably to yield a flatter cookie.
- Baking Soda: To avoid a super flat and overly greasy cookie, I increased the baking soda. Need that lift!
- Spices: Same amount. This careful blend of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves is exactly what every molasses cookie needs!
- Butter, Brown Sugar, Egg, + Vanilla: Same amounts. Brown sugar is what helps produce the softest molasses cookie ever. (In fact, it’s the first thing I changed when making my crisp molasses cookies.)
- Molasses: Make sure you’re using unsulphured or dark molasses, but do not use blackstrap because it is too intense for these cookies.
Mission accomplished. These cookies are mega chewy, mega soft, and mega crackly!
Which Molasses Do I Use?
There are varying intensities of molasses on store shelves from lighter molasses to blackstrap molasses. Go for an unsulphured or dark molasses, also sold as “robust” molasses. Blackstrap molasses can be quite intense—I don’t bake with it too often.
I’m not working with any of these companies, but I prefer Grandma’s, Brer Rabbit, or Wholesome brands. Wholesome’s organic molasses is super dark, so it will make your cookies a little darker. Look how dark it makes my spiced gingerbread loaf. As opposed to the same recipe as a cake (gingerbread cake) made with Grandma’s brand. What a difference in color!
How to Make Soft Molasses Cookies
- Whisk the dry ingredients together.
- Combine the wet ingredients together.
- Mix the wet and dry ingredients together.
- Chill cookie dough. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
- Roll cookie dough into balls. Use about 1 Tablespoon of dough per cookie.
- Generously roll each cookie dough ball in granulated sugar. For sparkle, of course!
- Bake. The cookies will puff up as they bake then gently sink back down. This is what creates those familiar crinkles and crackles we love. If your cookies aren’t cracking, gently bang the cookie sheet on the counter 2–3x which will help those warm cookies spread and crack on top. See recipe direction #5.
This is a wonderful make-ahead recipe because the cookies stay seriously soft for days (if they last that long!).
This recipe is part of my annual cookie countdown called Sally’s Cookie Palooza. It’s the biggest, most delicious event of the year! Browse dozens of cookie recipes over on the Sally’s Cookie Palooza page.
Seriously Soft Molasses Cookies
- Prep Time: 1 hour, 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours
- Yield: 30-32 cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These seriously soft molasses cookies are the most tender and chewy gingersnap cookies around!
Ingredients
- 2 and 1/4 cups (281g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup (12 Tbsp; 170g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1/2 cup (100g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup (80ml) unsulphured or dark molasses (do not use blackstrap; I prefer Grandma’s brand)
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Rolling
- 1/3 cup (67g) granulated or coarse sugar, for rolling
Instructions
- Whisk the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt together until combined. Set aside.
- In a large bowl using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and both sugars together on high speed until creamy and combined, about 2 minutes. Add the molasses and beat until combined. Then add the egg and vanilla extract and beat until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.
- On low speed, slowly mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until combined. The cookie dough will be slightly sticky. Cover dough tightly with aluminum foil or plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour and up to 2–3 days.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. (Always recommended for cookies.) Set aside.
- Remove cookie dough from the refrigerator. If the cookie dough chilled longer than 2 hours, let it sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. The cookies may not spread in the oven if the dough is that cold. Roll cookie dough, 1 Tablespoon each, into balls. Roll each in granulated sugar and arrange 3 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 11–12 minutes or until edges appear set. If the tops aren’t appearing cracked as pictured, remove the baking sheet from the oven and gently bang it on the counter 2–3x. This will help those warm cookies spread out and crack on top. Return to the oven for 1 additional minute.
- Remove from the oven and allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Cookies will stay fresh covered at room temperature for 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: You can make the cookie dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 2–3 days. Baked cookies freeze well for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and bring to room temperature, if desired, before serving. Unbaked cookie dough balls (before rolling in sugar) will freeze well for up to 3 months. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes, preheat the oven, then roll in granulated sugar. Bake as directed. Read my tips and tricks on how to freeze cookie dough.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowl | Whisk | Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper | Cooling Rack
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
Reader Comments and Reviews
I would like to make these for a friend who has a dairy allergy but loves molasses cookies! Could I substitute a vegan or dairy-free butter here with fine results?
Hi Celeste, you could try solid coconut oil or a vegan butter substitute. Let us know how they turn out!
I used Country Crock vegan butter and it worked really well! The cookies were more flat than I was hoping for, so perhaps it affected that aspects a little bit. But I was told that the taste was still excellent!
Used plant butter and flaxseed for the egg. Perfect delicious cookies!
I made these. My only complaint is they need way more molasses to get the taste I was hoping for
I love this recipe, I normally don’t care for molasses cookies but these are delicious.
These were outstanding! We added some vanilla ice cream and made little ice cream cookie sandwiches. Delicious!
Made these cookies just as written today for my dad. It’s a super humid Father’s Day and no AC here, so I put plastic wrap over a couple large freezer icettes(used for the cooler) and dropped them from my scooper on there until I rolled them in the sugar. They stayed firm and came out fine! Thanks for the recipe and tips!
Of all cookies, Molasses is my fav! I’ve lived in China now for 10 years and I find getting out-of-the-ordinary items hard to get, Mt wife found me a large bottle one time and it didn’t take me long to use it up. I’ve been on a crave for years but couldn’t seem to find any. Sure the internet, but here you never know when it will come, how it will look if it does, of outright fake! Just recently I’ve mastered caramel sauce and have been making cold caramel lattes…yummy! Lying in bed last night with the thought/taste in my mind, it dawned on my that I could possibly substitute molasses with my Caramel sauce. I used your recipe, bumped up the spices a bit and went for it. OH MY SWEET TOOTH they were delicious!
I started to make these and realized I didn’t actually have any molasses on me! I ended up doing 40ml of honey and 40ml of dark brown sugar to substitute the 80 ml of molasses and it worked well! Still very chewy and holds up well, it just lacks that deep molasses flavour (of course lol)
These are delicious and my butter was not too warm! Did I need more flour?
Hi Kathy! Did your cookies spread? Here’s our best tips to prevent cookies from spreading.
What a keeper! For me they came out perfect!!
A cup of tea for me, a glass of milk for my better half.Ha ha they are going, going Gone!
Delicious! Some of mine cracked and crinkled, some didn’t, some were a little fluffier. Didn’t matter. They were all fantastic! lol. They were gone in record time. Thanks for the recipe!
Whenever I make any of your recipes I know they’ll be delicious! These molasses cookies reminded me of the ones my grandma made. I followed your recipe to a T and they turned out perfectly! Love how they’re a little crisp on the outside and soft on the inside!
Do you happen to know the nutritional value/calories?
Hi Jo, 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
Good link, as I was scanning ratings, the dough chilling. Love all your recipes that I’ve tried, so surely this will be a 5
When the world is imploding, make molasses cookies. Yummy. I measured the butter and flour to with a scale to get the correct ingredient ratio. The cookies turned out beautiful. Cracks galore! My husband is enjoying his first two cookies with green tea as I type. He said, “I don’t remember the last time I had molasses cookies.” He’s a happy man! Thank you!
Mine also turned out cakey, even with correct measurements. Flavor was good though, so I will probably keep it in the rotation but continue to look for a chewy cookie recipe
This recipe is perfection! I did throw in a tiny pinch of nutmeg but other than that o followed it exactly. The consistency and flavor are . Best molasses cookies I’ve ever tasted
For these cookies, will chilling 90 minutes vs chilling 150 minutes make a difference in terms of flavor, or would you imagine the flavor difference between those batches to be indistinguishable in a blind tasting? I have mine in the fridge now and I am very excited to bake them.
Hi Robert, we can’t imagine there would be a noticeable difference, as long as you chill the dough at least an hour.
Thank you!
Love these, and they’ve gotten many compliments eg: “These have no right to taste this good.” Chalk it up to a great recipe and clear instructions 🙂
I’ve never quite managed to get the crackle effect but I blame this on my ancient oven, which only has fan-forced mode. I have to reduce the temperature slightly or they get crispy edges (I tried at the normal oven temp once…for culinary science of course!). They fan-forced lower-temp attempts have all been soft and delicious though, so I don’t mind the lack of crinkles!
They taste great but why did my cookies come out flat ? I was hoping to have them look like yours. They were soft on the inside and crunchy on the ends. I will definitely make them again
Hi Donna, thank you for giving these a try! We’re glad you enjoyed them. If you had troubles with the cookies spreading, it sounds like your butter may have been a bit too warm. Here’s more about what room temperature butter really means, as well as our best tips to prevent cookies from spreading. Hope this is helpful!
Delicious, but no crackle. I pounded the pan like you said but no change.
I just made them and also had no crackling on the tops. Mine were on the smaller size (yielded 48 cookies) and I pressed a cinnamon heart into the center before baking, I’m wondering if slightly flattening them was the issue. I may also have been a tad impatient and did not allow the dough to fully chill before baking. They taste great though, I will definitely try it again (and maybe pay closer attention to the chill time next time around…)
Can these be made bigger with adjusting cook time of course?
Hi Christine, absolutely. Bake time will vary depending on the exact size of your cookies. Enjoy!
This recipe was all it promised- soft, chewy and absolutely delicious. This will be my go-to recipe from now on
Tip: Before putting these in the refrigerator, I turned the dough out onto plastic wrap and formed it into a 5 x 6 rectangle. After taking out of the refrigerator, it was really easy to cut the dough into 30 pieces that i rolled into balls. It works great.
A good starting point. Not as sweet as I had hoped… seems to need more molasses flavor. Also I over cooked them at 11 minutes 350°, they were softish but now chewy. I’m gonna try for 9 minutes with the rest of the batch.
So good! This is one of my husbands favorite kinds of cookies and I had never made them from any book or site. These were great! They didn’t crackle wven with banging the cookie sheets but I will make these again! Thanks for another wonderful recipe.
These cookies are so good! I used pumpkin pie spice instead of the spices listed only because it needed to be used up. Still turned out delicious
I don’t even like molasses cookies (I made them for my dad bc they’re his favorite). But I LOVED these! They came out perfect and stayed soft and chewy. I guess i actually do like molasses cookies, just never had really good ones until these!
Soft and fluffy with chewy edges. Hands down best scratch cookies I’ve ever made.
I tried these at a friend’s house and became instantly obsessed. I tried recreating them but can’t seem to get them right. Mine turned out a bit dry, too puffy and not cracking. They’re also not as dark on the inside. I made sure to spoon and level the flour. What could I be doing wrong?
Hi Maya, even spooning and leveling can sometimes pack in too much flour. Do you have a kitchen scale by chance? That’s the best way to measure. Could your baking soda be old? We find it loses strength after just a few months. Hope these tips help!
Loved them tasted great but only issue is mine came out fluffy not flat idk what I did wrong
Hi! Mine didn’t have cracks like the ones from the picture and were much cakier. The cookies are still delicious, but would love tips on how to make them chewier! Thank you!
Hi Iorra, A cakey cookie could be the result of too much flour in the dough – how are you measuring? Make sure to spoon and level (not scoop!) to avoid this in the future.
If you make 30 cookies what is the calorie content per cookie ?
Hi Paul, 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