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Soft Molasses Coconut Oil Crinkle Cookies

Averie Sunshine

4.60 from 25 votes

Updated: Nov 04, 2025

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😍❤️🙌 Soft Molasses Crinkle Cookies are the BEST molasses cookies you’ll ever make! Ultra chewy, easy to make, and you can really taste the spices. Make these for Christmas, or just because!

Easy Molasses Christmas Cookies

I have a recipe for Soft Batch Dark Brown Sugar Cookies and a recipe for Molasses Chocolate Chip Cookies, and I love them both. You’d think I’d just be happy and leave well enough alone. No, that would be too easy. I took my favorite elements from both of those recipes and rolled them into these cookies.

• They’re supremely soft on the inside, in a tender, almost falling-apart way.
• The tenderness is encased by a chewy exterior with a chewiness and texture boost from the cinnamon-sugar coating. The texture from the sugar granules is exquisite, and the fine grittiness just melts away.
• I use coconut oil, meaning there’s not a drop of butter in this recipe. I promise they don’t taste like coconut at all!
• I used 1/3 cup of molasses for only 17 medium cookies. Many recipes use 1/4 cup for 2 dozen, so these are very molasses-intense cookies.
• The cookies are boldly spiced with cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg, plus they’re rolled in a cinnamon-sugar coating before baking.

These are undoubtedly the best ginger/molasses cookies I’ve ever had. Thank you so much for sharing these! I’ll have to make them again since I’m going to eat these lol

Melissa

Ingredients You’ll Need

To make traditional molasses Christmas cookies, you’ll need:

• Egg
• Dark brown sugar – I used dark brown sugar, which has twice the molasses content that light brown sugar has. A tip, if you ever run out of brown sugar, is that you can stir molasses into white sugar until you get it as brown as you like
• Coconut oil
• Unsulphered molasses – I used a robust molasses because I wanted a bold flavor. Use your favorite, with a caveat that blackstrap is likely going to be too pungent and bitter, but suit yourself
• Vanilla extract
• Spices – With the robustness of the molasses and the intensity of the dark brown sugar, the only way for me to go with the spices was to use a heavy hand. If you prefer milder-spiced cookies, dial the spices back, possibly even halving them
• All-purpose flour
• Baking soda
• Granulated sugar

Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.

How to Make Molasses Crinkle Cookies

I made the molasses spice cookies using my stand mixer, but in retrospect, there’s no reason you can’t just whisk the batter together. A nice time-saver not to do mixer dishes.

1. Stir together the wet ingredients.
2. Add the spices and the dry ingredients.
3. Scoop the dough into balls and chill for at LEAST 3 hours before baking them. Don’t skip chilling! The coconut oil must re-solidify, or your cookies will spread into oily, molasses puddles.
4. Just before baking the dough balls, roll them in a cinnamon-sugar mixture.
5. Bake just until the edges are set and the tops are beginning to set. Cool on the baking sheet, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

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4.60 from 25 votes

Soft Molasses Crinkle Cookies

By Averie Sunshine

😍❤️🙌 In a word, these are the BEST molasses cookies you'll ever make! Ultra chewy, easy to make, and you can really taste the spices. Make these for Christmas, or just because! 

Prep Time: 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 9 minutes minutes

Chill Time: 3 hours hours

Total Time: 3 hours hours 24 minutes minutes

Servings: 17 servings

Equipment

• 1 Stand Mixer Fitted with a Paddle Attachment
• 1 (2 inch) Medium Cookie Scoop
• 1-2 Baking Sheets
• 1 Wire Rack

Ingredients 

Cookies

• ▢ 1 large egg
• ▢ ¾ cup dark brown sugar, packed (light brown sugar may be substitued)
• ▢ ½ cup coconut oil
• ▢ ⅓ cup unsulphered molasses (I used robust molasses
• ▢ 2 tablespoons vanilla extract, yes tablespoons, not teaspoons
• ▢ 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• ▢ 1 teaspoons ground ginger
• ▢ 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• ▢ ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ▢ pinch salt, optional and to taste
• ▢ 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ▢ 1 teaspoon baking soda

Cinnamon-Sugar Coating

• ▢ ½ cup granulated sugar
• ▢ 1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions 

• To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or use large mixing bowl and hand mixer; or simply whisk together in a large bowl), combine the egg, brown sugar, coconut oil, molasses, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until well-mixed, smooth, and glossy about 4 minutes.
• Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the 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, baking soda, and mix until just combined, about 1 minute.
• Using a medium 2-inch cookie scoop, form heaping two tablespoon mounds (I made 17). Place mounds on a large plate, cover with plasticwrap, and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, or up to 5 days, before baking. Dough will be very soft, mushy, limp, and is not suitable for baking; it must be chilled so the coconut oil re-solidfies. Do not bake with warm dough because cookies will spread and bake thinner and flatter.
• Preheat oven to 350F, line baking sheets with Silpats, or spray with cooking spray; set aside.
• Cinnamon-Sugar Coating: Add granulated sugar and cinnamon to a small bowl and stir to combine.
• Roll each ball of dough through the coating, liberally coating all sides. After all cookies 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 8 to 9 minutes, or until edges have set and tops are just beginning to set, even if undercooked and soft center. Do not bake longer than 9 minutes for soft cookies because they firm up as they cool; bake for 9-10 minutes if you like firmer cookies (The cookies shown in the photos were baked with dough that had been chilled overnight, allowed to come to room temp for 10 minutes while rolling them through the coating mixture, and were baked for 8 1/2 minutes).
• Allow cookies to cool on baking sheets for about 5 minutes before removing and transferring to a rack to finish cooling.

Notes

Coconut oil: Measure like you’d measure vegetable or olive oil; you need 1/2 cup of liquid-state coconut oil. If your coconut oil is in a solid state, microwave enough so you get 1/2 cup liquid-state coconut oil.

Storage: Store cookies airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 4 months. Alternatively, unbaked cookie dough can be stored airtight 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. Do not roll cookies through cinnamon-sugar mixture until you plan to bake them.

Nutrition

Serving: 1serving, Calories: 213cal, Carbohydrates: 32g, Protein: 3g, Fat: 8g, Saturated Fat: 6g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.5g, Monounsaturated Fat: 1g, Trans Fat: 0.01g, Cholesterol: 53mg, Sodium: 91mg, Potassium: 152mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 21g, Vitamin A: 79IU, Vitamin C: 0.02mg, Calcium: 38mg, Iron: 1mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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