In my opinion, it’s definitely important to have a good recipe for ginger molasses cookies in your bag of tricks. This one is a homemade version of your favorite Starbucks ginger molasses cookie and it happens to be completely vegan as well!
When it comes to cookie recipes, there are a few go-to essentials that every home baker should have up their sleeve for holiday baking and throughout the year: The perfect old-fashioned oatmeal cookies, a crowd-pleasing recipe for chewy chocolate chip cookies, basic shortbread, and these amazing ginger molasses cookies, which are like Christmas magic right out of the oven. These are the best cookies to bake if you have a craving for the famous Starbucks ginger molasses cookies and if you have any plant-based friends or family members to feed at your big gathering, these are sure to be a hit with everyone.
Ingredients Needed for the Ginger Molasses Cookie Recipe
To make your cookie dough, you’ll need:
- Unsalted plant-based butter (Regular butter can be substituted if that’s what you have in the house)
- All-purpose flour
- Fancy molasses
- Brown sugar (dark brown sugar or light brown sugar both work)
- Cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger
- Vanilla extract
- Baking soda
- Granulated white sugar
So simple but so good. Just like all the best recipes are.
Try this one next: Festive Candy Cane Shortbread for Christmas
Preparing and Baking the Cookies
These are just the best cookies and they really take no time to throw together. I shared a quick glimpse of these cookies the other day in my stories after I made my first batch and I got so many requests for the recipe right away. So it’s definitely worth the five minutes that it takes to make the dough.
These are definitely a very soft, chewy, bakery style cookie, not a crispy gingersnap or crumbly gingerbread cookies, so keep that in mind when you’re planning how and when to share these cookies.
Pair them on your cookie tray with these: Double Chocolate Chip Cookies With Roasted Almonds
I used my stand mixer, but you could definitely do this by hand in a mixing bowl. You want your butter to be softened, but not melted, and to keep your two types of sugars separated. Make sure you blend the butter and the brown sugar together really well, add in the other wet ingredients, then incorporate the dry ingredients.
It’s not necessary with this recipe to wrap the dough in plastic-wrap and cool it in the fridge before working with it like you sometimes need to do with certain cookies. The dough is quite easy to handle right away, evem if you don’t refrigerate it so that saves some time.
To make the cookies, roll about 1.5 tablespoons of dough into a ball, then flatten it just slightly. Dip the flattened ball into white sugar to create a granulated-sugar coating on all sides. I fit 8 cookies on my parchment-paper lined baking sheet quite nicely, and I think I probably could have squeezed in ten if I really wanted to because these cookies don’t spread too much.
Once your cookies have baked, let them rest for a few minutes on the cookie-sheet, then transfer them to your wire racks. Leave them on the cooling rack until they have cooled completely.
I’m definitely going to be making an extra batch or two of these to hide away in and airtight container in the freezer for after Christmas because they’re just amazing with a cup of chai tea on a snowy day. 🙂
See also: Amazing 3 Ingredient Applesauce Bread
Here’s the full printable recipe!
Such a classic cookie! In my opinion, it's definitely important to have a good ginger molasses cookie recipe in your bag of tricks.
- 1/4 cup Molasses
- 3/4 cup Brown sugar
- 3/4 cup Plant-based butter
- 1 tsp Vanilla
- 2 1/4 cup All-purpose flour
- 2 tsp Cinnamon
- 1 1/2 tsp Ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp Nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp Ground cloves
- 1 1/2 tsp Baking soda
- 1/4 cup White sugar (for rolling)
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In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter and the brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and molasses and mix in until combined.
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Add the flour, spices, and baking soda and mix until a ball of dough forms.
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Place the white sugar in a small bowl. Roll about 1.5 tbsp of dough into a ball, flatten it slightly, then roll it in the sugar on all sides. Repeat until you've used up all the dough. Place the cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silpat, about 1.5 inches apart.
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Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10-12 minutes, until the tops are cracked and the bottoms have just browned.
Do you love a good ginger cookie as much as I do?
Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.