Fresh Ginger and Molasses Cookies
It’s officially winter! And, weirdly in a good way, it’s also cookie season.
I love cookies, they’re the best things ever, and they’re so easy to make. It’s very hard to mess up a cookie in my opinion.
Winter and cold weather legitimately calls for warm, comforting flavors in food, including baking. And, I’m someone who loves using spices in baked goods, so this recipe was meant to be.
This post contains the recipe for melt-in-your-mouth soft, fresh ginger and molasses cookies. These are mildly spiced, just sweet enough, almost cakey, and incredibly delicious.
You might be wondering how these ginger and molasses cookies are different from gingerbread cookies. Well, these are a lot softer and flavorful than gingerbread cookies are. But, if you want to make gingerbread cookies too, here's my recipe.
Coming back to these fresh ginger and molasses cookies, they’re so easy to make, you can have a batch of these cookies ready in under thirty minutes. Moreover, these cookies have fresh ginger in them, which means they’re a total flavor bomb!
What goes into these fresh ginger and molasses cookies?
The two main ingredients for these cookies are already mentioned in the cookie name—ginger and molasses.
Let’s talk a bit about molasses. The type of molasses I’ve used for this recipe is blackstrap molasses. Molasses, if you’re unaware, is a byproduct of the sugar cane refining process.
It’s a thick, dark, sticky syrup that’s almost salty and bitter in nature, and also strangely sweet.
Without getting too technical, understand this, when you mix granulated white sugar with molasses, you get brown sugar. That’s it.
Molasses is a really strong ingredient, and we’ll only be using a little bit of it in these cookies. Molasses will add an extra depth, softness and chewiness to our ginger and molasses cookies.
The other ingredients you’ll need are brown sugar, an egg, some vanilla and almond extract, lemon zest, freshly grated ginger, dried ginger and cinnamon powders, all-purpose flour, some salt and baking powder.
Many recipes for ginger cookies will have you use only dried ginger powder, but I like using a combination of dried and fresh ginger to amp the flavor and add a bit of freshness to the cookies. I also add a little bit of lemon zest to cut through the heaviness of dried cinnamon and ginger.
Lastly, we will use only brown sugar for these cookies, because these are soft cookies. They’re almost cake-like on the inside, and they literally melt in your mouth.
We will also be rolling the cookie dough balls in some superfine caster sugar to add a bit of texture to the cookies.
The cookie dough is really simple to make, it’s essentially a one-bowl recipe and you don’t need a hand mixer or a stand mixer for it. The cookie dough will look a little wet, but you need not worry, the cookies will turn out just fine. There’s also no chill time involved, therefore the cookies are ready to be baked once you have the dough ready!
What equipment do you need to make fresh ginger and molasses cookies?
Like I said, this is a one-bowl recipe, you’ll only need one large mixing bowl, a wire whisk and a silicone spatula to make the cookie dough.
You’ll need a tablespoon measure or a kitchen scale to portion the cookie dough into dough balls.
Lastly, you’ll need some parchment paper and a baking tray to bake the cookies.
The recipe for fresh ginger and molasses cookies
Yields: 14 cookies
Time: 30 minutes
INGREDIENTS
112 grams (½ cup) softened butter
50 grams (3 tablespoons) blackstrap molasses
100 grams (½ packed cup) soft brown sugar
50 grams (1 large no.) egg
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 grams (½ teaspoon) vanilla extract
1 drop almond extract
2 grams (½ teaspoon) salt
190 grams (1 ½ cup) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons dried ginger powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 grams (¾ teaspoon) baking powder
METHOD
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Grease and line a baking tray with parchment paper. Set it aside.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the butter and molasses until smooth and creamy. Whisk in the brown sugar followed by the egg. Whisk until creamy, and almost fluffy.
Add the grated ginger, lemon zest, salt, and vanilla and almond extracts. Whisk until everything is incorporated.
Whisk together the dry ingredients separately and add them to the wet ingredients. Use a silicone spatula to fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
Portion the cookie dough into balls weighing 35 grams each (approx 1 ½ tablespoon).
Roll the cookie dough balls in superfine caster sugar and place them on the prepared baking tray. Leave a gap of 1 ½ to 2 inches between each cookie.
Bake the cookies in the preheated oven at 180°C/350°F for 11-14 minutes until the cookies have spread a little and have cracks on the surface.
Let the cookies cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool fully.
Notes
You can store these cookies in an airtight container for up to a week.
You can easily double or triple this recipe. If you want to make these soft ginger and molasses cookies in bulk but don't want to bake them all at once, you can follow the recipe as it is until the point before baking. Freeze the baking tray with the cookie dough balls until they’re firm. Then, transfer them to a resealable bag and freeze until you want to bake them. This way, you can have fresh, warm cookies in a matter of less than 15 minutes.
If you want to make these cookies eggless, substitute the egg with a flax egg (1 tablespoon ground flax seeds + 3 tablespoons water).
If you liked this recipe or tried it, let me know in the comments below or post it to my Instagram and Facebook, I'd love to see your creations!
#gingercookies #molassescookies #winter #dessertsandpastries