Molasses ginger cookies are soft and chewy with the perfect amount of ginger flavor
I love cookies that are bigger than my hand! They make it that more enjoyable to eat because it’s like a never-ending cookie. But all good things must come to an end so of course these hand-sized cookies only prolong the heavenly cookie effect for a tad longer than regular sized cookies :)
If you haven’t looked at your calendar, you may not have noticed that today is 12/12/12. I’m obsessed with dates that have some kind of pattern to them. Like 10/11/12 or 11/12/13. I wish I could get married on a “cool” date. My wedding photographer got married on 10/10/10, how fun! Ok, that’s my random tangent of the day.
So I think I’ve made these cookies over three times already since Lauren posted the recipe. I love how soft and chewy they are and I LOVE the ginger flavor. They’re definitely like a ginger snap cookie but without the snap. I’d call them ginger chews if I could, but then that sounds like a candy.
A great holiday cookie that is chewy in the center but crispy on the edges!
- 2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup molasses
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and brown sugar until creamy and fluffy. Add in the the egg and molasses. Beat until incorporated.
- Slowly add in the dry ingredients until just combined. Drop onto prepared baking sheets with a cookie scoop. To make extra large sizes, I did two scoops of cookie dough, rolled in a ball, and gently pressed the tops down.
- Bake for 12-14 minutes. I took mine out a minute before they were done as I like mine softer and chewier.
- Let sit for 5 minutes before removing baking sheets. Let cool completely on a wire rack.
- Store in an airtight container.
Source: adapted from Climbing Grier Mountain
Giant cookies are my best friend… or the devil since they’re clearly not the friend of my waistline but jeez I want one!
Julie,
These look wonderful! I am a fan of larger cookies as well, although my maple almond brown butter glazed cookies may not have showed that. :)
Take care,
Lauren
I bet everyone loved to receive these in the mail from you :)
You can’t go wrong with a giant cookie! These look so good – dark and spicy and chewy and GIANT! Yum.
GETINMYFACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! omg
These cookies look perfect, Julie! Such a classic!
This is the kind of cookie I dream about!
These look incredible!!! I may have to add these to my Christmas cookie list!
Squeel!! Yay! So excited you liked the cookies. They are super yummy! Thanks for sharing the recipe, Julie! xoxo
Um, hi awesome huge cookie! I want you in my face.
These look delicious, Julie!
I can never get enough molasses cookies in my life. thank you for feeding my addiction miss Julie! They look like completely perfection – so crinkly, large & in charge. 12/12/12 – love it!
oh these look fab!
umm….cookies the size of my face are, like, my favorite thing ever. and molasses? I need these.
I love molasses. I love cookies. And you say the size of my face? SWOON!
Wow these cookies are HUGE!! Super jealous of your matches…these photos are making me droooool. :)
What an awesome cookie swap!! I LOVE that this is for a charity! thanks for sharing Julie!
Oh my word – I want cookies the size of my face!! Especially molasses and ginger, they’re like my favourites ever!
I’d have to lock myself away with them of course, no sharing – I’ve added them to my “to bake” list :)
LOVE these cookies Julie! I think I need to make them – especially if you say they are bigger than your hand…that’s my kind of cookie!!
I’ve seen so many good molasses cookies these past few days! It’s going to be hard to decide what ones to make first….
I also have a little place in my heart for big cookies.
These looked so good I had to make them right away! Delicious recipe, thank you for posting.
Those look chewy and soft and perfect!
Christmas is not complete without molasses ginger cookies!!
These cookies scream…”It’s the holidays!” Swoon.
I wish I was the recipient of these cookies!
OMG … Ginger… love love love!
These look perfect – big, soft, and full of flavor!
Loved how chewy these were. My kind of cookie for sure. Thank you so much!
Julie, these look delicious! Ill have to add them to my to-do list :) I’m glad you liked my cookies, too!! (And the packaging! Its always nice to meet another baking designer :) Love your blog!)
These look like they might be the size of my face! My kind of cookie!! They look amazing Julie!
Look at how gorgeous your cookies came out!!! O-m-g I want some now.
Gah! Those look amazing! Sweet and chewy with a little bit of kick from the ginger? Want!
These cookies look incredible! I want to read through the screen and grab one! ;)
yum! i’ll have to give these a try.
Bahaha, i love that we made basically the same exact cookie for the swap! Great minds think alike, right? =)
For sure@ We got married on 07/08/09 and decided to have the celebration on 09/10/11 but that was postponed. Lucky me coz hub has no excuse to forget our anniversary. :)
Yum! I love having ginger on cookies, very heartwarming and perfect for the holidays.
I made these with The Ginger People Ginger Juice since I was out of ginger :(. They were delicious but they came out more cakie. Super yummy!
Beautiful cookies Julie! I want one of the giant versions!!!! :D
I made these tonight and the flavor is very good, but for some reason mine turned out cakey in texture not the chewy I was going for. Any suggestions on how I went wrong? Two things that occur to me as likely having an effect: I only had light butter on hand, which is part oil part butter, the other being that I had two pans in the oven and somehow didn’t realize it until I took the last cookies out. I’m not sure if either of these did it but I do plan to use unsalted butter next time and of course make sure my oven is empty, but if you can think of anything else let me know please since I’m dying for the chewy cookies I’ve been craving since i saw these on Pinterest!
I’m not too positive as to why yours turned out cakey, the more oil content from your butter might’ve done it, or you could try to add more molasses. Maybe also try to cook them 1 pan at a time in the middle of the rack.
Just made these!! Mine were the perfect texture! I love the tang of the molasses and the zip of the ginger! Great work Julie! I will surely be sharing this recipe on my blog! It’s too delicious not to!
Oh no! I only have light brown sugar! Will that work!? I am a baking novice and just left the grocery store.
Yes, that’ll be fine!
Hi Julie, these look great!
Do you think be possible to swap part of the ground ginger for grated fresh ginger?
Have a great day :)
Hi Mayra! I guess you could, but I wouldn’t just because I wouldn’t want little pieces of fresh ginger in my bite because those guys could be potent! I’d stick to ground ginger :)
I am currently OBSESSED with molasses everything. These look pretty awesome. I’ll need to try them.
They’re one of my favorites and I love how chewy they are. I hope you make them, Carrie! :)
I made these yesterday and they turned out good! I wasn’t sure how much to press down on the dough before putting them into the oven, so the first batch turned out smaller and thicker.. but nonetheless delicious! Thank you for this recipe :) Happy Holidays!
I’m so glad you enjoyed this Kelli! Happy holidays :)
:( I tried these too as they look so yummy!!! Sadly mine we weird tasting and turned out crumbly and dry so I tried again with a bit more butter but then they just turned mushy and powdery. I’m not sure what I can do . I followed so carefully! :( Any tips??
Hi Keira, sorry yours didn’t turn out right. I’m not sure why yours tasted weird and turned out crumbly – are you baking with fresh ingredients and/or at an altitude? I recently posted these new soft & chewy ginger molasses cookies that I think you’ll have high success with if you want to give them a try: https://www.tablefortwoblog.com/2014/02/03/soft-and-chewy-ginger-molasses-cookies/
Thanks for the recipe Julie! Made these today, and they were great- soft and very tasty, like a soft gingerbread cookie.
I didn’t quite get the flat crackled effect like yours though, mine came out puffy and domed. Wondering if you have any tips?
Grace
You could smash them down a bit with the palm of your hand prior to baking to get that crackled effect — mine were puffy and domed but when they collapsed a bit, the crackling happened!
I nearly didn’t make these cookies today – I always read the comments first to see if there were issues for some people or if they liked the taste….what I found was post after post after post of …sound good, must make, love ginger and molasses, trying these soon…why post if you haven’t even tried it? It’s frustrating for the rest of us to go through it all to find out if anyone HAS made it. Thankfully I did find a couple posts from people who tried it…these are really good! I didn’t flatten them before baking and they came out nice and chewy. I dipped the tops in turbinado sugar for a bit of an extra sweet crunch! My son’s favorite cookies are ginger so I can see myself making these often :)
Hi Jane! I’m glad you ended up trying them and found some comments to support your decision! I’m sorry that you had to sort through comments — the reason why there are comments where people merely comment to just comment is because a lot of us in this food blogging community like to support each other so it’s bloggers giving some love and creating a forum type dialog. Additionally, I do know of many people out there (not bloggers) who leave comments on blogs that have not necessarily made the recipe yet or are just thinking out loud. I kind of like to think of the comments section like an open forum — I can understand your frustration but hopefully this explanation helps a bit. Happy holidays! :)