Soft & Chewy Molasses Gingerdoodles — These soft molasses cookies taste like a cross between chewy gingerbread cookies and crinkly snickerdoodles. An unbeatable holiday cookie recipe!
Soft Molasses Cookies Recipe
I combined three favorite cookies into one — soft molasses cookies, chewy gingerbread cookies, and crinkly snickerdoodles. That way I didn’t have to choose among favorites because I love them all. And I loved these ginger molasses cookies more than I should have. I couldn’t keep myself away from them.
I used my recipes for Soft Molasses Coconut Oil Crinkle Cookies and The Best Snickerdoodles as the jumping off point. I absolutely adore soft molasses cookies that have rich, deep, bold molasses flavor and the cookies deliver. The molasses flavor profile dominates.
There’s plenty of cinnamon, ginger, and warming spices in the dough, as well as a cinnamon-sugar coating, creating a very well-spiced cookie that packs tons of flavor in a pillowy, crinkly little package.
The cookies are super soft in the center with slight chewiness around the edges, and I always underbake slightly to ensure they stay soft for days. If you like crunchier cookies, bake them longer.
The flavor of the cookies improves and enhances in the day or two after baking. Everything just blends together beautifully, but it’s very hard for me to save any that long. They’re my new favorite molasses cookies.
What’s in Soft Molasses Cookies?
To make these soft and chewy molasses cookies, you’ll need:
- Unsalted butter
- Dark brown sugar
- Granulated sugar
- Egg
- Unsulphered molasses
- Vanilla extract
- Spices
- Salt
- All-purpose flour
- Cornstarch
- Baking soda
- Cream of tartar
How to Make Soft Molasses Cookies
To make these ginger molasses cookies, you first need to cream together the butter, sugars, and egg. Add in the remaining wet ingredients and the spices, then mix in the dry ingredients.
Scoop the molasses cookie dough into balls, then chill for at least 3 hours before baking. Once chilled, roll the cookie dough in a generous amount of cinnamon sugar.
Bake the soft molasses cookies until the edges have set and the tops have crackled. Don’t overbake for soft cookies (I bake mine 8 to 8 1/2 minutes and they’re extremely soft and a touch underdone but firm up in time; for crispier cookies, bake longer).
Can I Omit the Cornstarch?
If you need to omit the cornstarch due to an allergy, that’s fine. Your molasses cookies won’t be quite as soft, but they should be delicious regardless.
Can I Omit the Cream of Tartar?
Probably not if you want them to have a great pillowy texture. I have only made them as written though and cannot say for sure what will happen if you omit it.
Can I Make These Gluten-Free?
I’ve only made these soft molasses cookies as written, so I’m not sure if you can make these with a gluten-free flour blend. If you try it out, please leave me a comment below letting me know how they turn out.
Tips for Making Soft Molasses Cookies
I used dark molasses in these soft and chewy molasses cookies because I really love the intensity of it, but use your favorite. I think blackstrap molasses would be too strong, though.
Also note that if you prefer more mildly spiced cookies, you can halve the amounts of all spices used.
The dough is very soft and must be chilled before baking because chilled dough spreads less in the oven. Chilling also gives the flavors time to marry and the dough tastes better on the second or third day after it’s made. You can keep the dough in the fridge for up to 5 days before baking.
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Soft and Chewy Molasses Gingerdoodles
Ingredients
Cookies
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ½ cup dark brown sugar, packed (light brown sugar may be substituted)
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- ⅓ cup unsulphered molasses, I used robust molasses (dark; light or medium may be used; blackstrap will likely be too pungent)
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- pinch salt, optional and to taste
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon cream of tartar
Cinnamon-Sugar Coating
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 2 to 3 teaspoons cinnamon
Instructions
- For the Cookies
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or large mixing bowl and electric mixer) combine the butter, sugars, egg, and beat on medium-high speed until creamed and well combined, about 4 minutes.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the molasses, vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, optional salt, and beat on medium-high speed until combined and smooth, about 1 minute.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, cream of tartar, and beat on low speed until just combined, about 45 seconds.
- Using a medium 2-inch cookie scoop, form two tablespoon mounds (I made 20). Place mounds on a large plate or tray, cover with plasticwrap, and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, up to 5 days. The dough is soft, mushy, limp, and isn’t suitable for baking until it’s been chilled. Do not bake with unchilled dough because cookies will bake thinner, flatter, and be more prone to spreading.
- Preheat oven to 350F, line baking sheets with Silpats, or spray with cooking spray; set aside.
- For the Cinnamon-Sugar Coating
- Add sugar and cinnamon to a small bowl and stir to combine.
- Roll each mound of dough through the coating, liberally coating all sides. After all mounds have been coated, I like to go back and double-dip each mound to get an extra-thick coating.
- Place coated mounds on baking sheets, spaced at least 2 inches apart (I bake 8 cookies per sheet).
- Bake for about 8 to 9 minutes, or until edges have set and tops are have crackled; don’t overbake for soft cookies (I bake mine 8 to 8 1/2 minutes and they’re extremely soft and a touch underdone but firm up in time; for crispier cookies, bake longer). Cookies firm up as they cool.
- Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for about 10 minutes before serving. I let them cool on the baking sheet and don’t use a rack.
Notes
- Cookies will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week or in the freezer for up to 6 months. Alternatively, unbaked cookie dough can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, or in the freezer for up to 4 months, so consider baking only as many cookies as desired and save the remaining dough to be baked in the future when desired.
- Adapted from Soft Molasses Coconut Oil Crinkle Cookies and The Best Snickerdoodles.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Molasses Recipes:
25 Holiday Cookie Favorites — The tried-and-true favorites are all here! If you need a holiday cookie recipe, this collection has you covered!!
Soft Molasses Coconut Oil Crinkle Cookies — No butter, no problem. One of my favorite molasses cookie recipes!
Molasses Triple Chocolate Cookies – Chocolate is used three times for a fun twist on the traditional. No mixer required!
Soft and Chewy Gingerbread Molasses Chocolate Chip Bars — Rich, chocolaty & like eating a piece of molasses fudge!
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies — Between the molasses, pumpkin pie spice, and pumpkin pie spice extract that I used, these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies beautifully showcase the flavors of fall!
Chocolate Gingerbread Toffee Cake – An EASY, no mixer cake that’s perfect for the holidays!! Chocolate and ginger are amazing together! The GINGER spiced whipped cream is the literal icing on this cake!!
Gingerbread Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting – Gingerbread bars are so much FASTER AND EASIER than making gingerbread cookies!! The sprinkles and tangy cream cheese frosting will put everyone in a festive mood!!
Originally published December 2014 and republished December 2019 with updated text.
Love the look of these! Is it just me and my old computer stuff, but is the save button gone from the recipe (used to be next to “save”)? It’s quite likely me, but thought I would ask.
Ziplist shut down on Dec 5 and anyone using it, both bloggers and readers, is out of luck. So…you can copy/paste to yourself and send in an email or print or get my nightly email by signing up and the recipes will be delivered to your inbox.
These are gorgeous cookies, I love the cinnamon sugar coating!
Really love these beauties! And that you use dark brown sugar. MY FAV!
I feel like I would LOVE these dunked in earl grey tea.
Oh my gosh, my first thought was… “3 in 1 cookies?? Does that mean I can only have a third as much?” Because I totally want 3x as many to fully enjoy each cookie’s components! And like you said, ’tis the season for cardio, so… Why stop eating cookies now?? ;)
3x as many sounds perfect :)
You read my mind … any sort of molasses cookie catches my attention, and one combined with snickerdoodles? OH yeah. So funny about the spices–we have a family favorite molasses cookie (similar to this but I can’t wait to try yours) and I think the reason we like it is because, years ago, mom doubled the spice amounts. Maybe you and my mom are secretly related. ;)
These Looks scrumptious! ;)
I think too, they are scrumptious. :D
I am a huge molasses fan this time of year. These look super yummy!
I can totally see why these are your new fav. HOLY SMOKES! They look so chewy!!
These cookies sound like a dream! I definitely prefer the soft, chewy molasses cookies over the hard, crunchy ones (but I mean if you gave me a crunchy cookie I wouldn’t say no to it).
These look fantastic! I love molasses cookies, but a lot of times they’re so hard you nearly chip a tooth – but it seems that you’ve combined the best of several [cookie] worlds here!
they’re so hard you nearly chip a tooth = I used that line in the last molasses cookie post I wrote last year and almost said it again here. Those tooth-chipper kinds are for me!
I pink puffy heart these. I am so addicted to gingerbread it’s not funny, and with snickerdoodles, even better. (BTW, I have a snickerdoodle version coming Monday…thank goodness it’s not gingerbread!!) :)
Tis the season for snickerdoodles, gingerbread, molasses, etc…can’t wait to see what you made! And I didn’t know you were a huge gingerbread cookie fan. Like…I would eat it and blog about it all year long. I love it. I could drink molasses I think :) Thanks for pinning too!
Thanks for this one. They look delicious! I also really like the pictures, pinned it :)
Will try to make this with christmas.
Thanks for pinning and hope you can make them!
I am in love. Love that you made up the name Gingerdoodles. I have been obsessed with anything with molasses in it lately, so I am so excited to make these.
Love how you combined 3 cookies into 1. These look delicious.
Funny you mentioned baking off your freezer stash–I just made your oatmeal choc chip dough late last night and wanted to make one more batch of something for the freezer…something in a totally different flavor/spice direction. Molasses is on my grocery list but I’m between these and the molasses pumpkin cookies from your cookbook. Might just have to do a coin toss!
These are more traditional molasses cookie whereas you get the pumpkin infusion with the cookbook version. Being that I made those so long ago and I just recently made these, I can tell you that in the recent past, other than the oatmeal choc chip cookies (good call on those!) that I inhaled and hoarded these and most of the time I just donate everything, but not these! LMK what you try!
I went with these–I really liked the 3 in 1 concept! I baked a few to try (though I could tell I was going to love them based on the dough) and they deliver a wonderful mix of holiday flavor!
Oh I am so glad to hear you’re happy and I’m glad you liked the 3 in 1 idea :)