Ginger Molasses Cookies

Prepared with classic Christmas ingredients like ginger, cloves, and cinnamon, Ginger Molasses Cookies flood the senses with thoughts and memories of home. These extra large, soft cookies are loaded with Christmastime flavour!

If you ask me to define the taste of Christmas – and, I know that sounds weird! – I would certainly include molasses into the description. I think that’s why these Ginger Molasses Cookies conjure up memories of Christmases past for me. Molasses has always been a staple ingredient in my mom’s pantry just as it has been in mine. Have you tried my molasses bread? It’s the best bread you’ll ever eat!

I’ll try to describe the taste of Christmas to you – just for fun! To me, based on my upbringing and traditions, Christmas tastes sweet and warm. It’s inviting and friendly, it’s comforting and hearty, and it’s also homey and amateur. There’s no room for perfection in Christmas baking!

The taste described above would be the result of ingredients like cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and allspice; and of granulated sugar, brown sugar, confectioner’s sugar, molasses, and corn syrup. Are you conjuring up the taste?

If you’re having difficulty, then all you need to do is imagine the taste of these Ginger Molasses Cookies – or better yet, bake them in your home and you won’t need to use your imagination. You’ll know exactly what Christmas tastes (and smells!) like to me!

MORE CHRISTMAS COOKIE RECIPES!

Did you know that I’ve been posting a 24 Cookies of Christmas series for a few years now? There are over 100 Christmas cookie recipes that you can find right here at Lord Byron’s Kitchen! To make it easier to find, I have created a page for each series. Just click on the image below and you’ll find the full series for that volume all one page!

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HERE IS WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO MAKE THESE GINGER MOLASSES COOKIES:

DRY INGREDIENTS

• Flour – No need for anything special. Just use regular all-purpose flour. I have not tried this recipe with any other type of flour.
• Baking Soda – Commonly known as sodium bicarbonate, or just bicarb, it is a baking ingredient that’s activated by a liquid and an acid to help with leavening or rising.  In most cases, you will see baking soda in recipes with lemon juice or buttermilk, but that’s not always the case.
• Ginger – Ground ginger is fresh ginger that has been peeled and dried before being ground into a powder.  It has a pale yellow in colour and has a pungent, spicy smell.  It adds a warming, spicy flavour to recipes.
• Cloves – Ground cloves come from whole cloves which have been finely ground.  They are a flower bud that come from the clove tree.  Whole dried cloves look like small nails.  The name clove comes from the Latin word for nail.  They are extremely fragrant and commonly found in spiced cakes and confections.
• Cinnamon – Cinnamon is a spice created from the inner bark of the Cinnamomum tree.   The bark is dried until it curls into a roll known as a cinnamon stick.  These are ground into powder.  Commonly found in baked goods, cinnamon is an aromatic with a warming flavour.
• Salt – This is a common ingredient in baking and cooking.  In baking it helps to enhance and balance sweetness.  In cooking it helps to bring out natural flavours in things like vegetables.
• Brown Sugar – First of all, it has way more flavour than regular white sugar! And, in this recipe, brown sugar helps to keep the cookie moist and soft.
• Turbinado Sugar – It is sugar that has been partially refined, meaning that it retains some of the original molasses, which is what gives it that slight caramel flavour and colour.

WET INGREDIENTS

• Butter – Make sure your butter is at room temperature! To be perfectly honest, I have made these with both salted and unsalted butter and there’s no difference in taste or appearance once all is said and done. Use what you have on hand.
• Egg – One large egg is all you need. Whenever you set out to bake, make sure your eggs are at room temperature too – just like your butter!
• Molasses – This gorgeous, sticky, sweet concoction is basically just boiled cane sugar.  When baking, the best molasses to fancy molasses.  Stay away from dark or blackstrap molasses unless instructed otherwise.  Fancy molasses is a light molasses. 

LET’S TALK ABOUT MOLASSES!

There are basically three types of molasses – light, dark, and blackstrap. If you boil cane sugar once, you will get light molasses. If you boil it twice, you’ll get dark molasses. So, boiling it three times, must mean that you’ll get blackstrap molasses. Remember, the darker the molasses (blackstrap) the less sweet and more bitter it is.

Never use blackstrap molasses in a recipe unless instructed to do so by the author of the recipe. You can use light or dark without changing the taste drastically. There’s also sulphured and unsulphured molasses. The difference between the two is that the sulphured molasses has been chemically treated with preservatives.

If you buy molasses to make these cookies and have lots left over, there’s plenty you can do with it. One of my favourite sources of recipe inspiration is Taste of Home. Here’s a list of 33 Amazing Molasses Recipes!

CAN I USE TREACLE INSTEAD?

Yes. In essence, treacle is the British version of molasses. It comes in two forms: light treacle or golden syrup, which is very similar to a light molasses. Black treacle is similar to blackstrap molasses, but is lighter in colour and not as bitter. I use unsulphured fancy molasses and black treacle interchangeably.

TURBINADO SUGAR

Turbinado, or raw sugar, is made from sugarcane. The crystals are also much larger than regular white granulated sugar. Do you need it? No. You can roll the cookie dough into turbinado or sanding sugar, often called pearl or decorating sugar.

You can skip the rolling in sugar part completely, but if you choose to do that, you will not end up with a glistening, shiny cookie like the one you see in the photographs. Do not attempt using regular granulated sugar as the granules are too small to hold up to the heat of the oven, so they will break down and melt.

It’s also worth mentioning that if you don’t have cinnamon, cloves, and ginger in separate amounts, you don’t need to buy all three. You could buy just one jar of pumpkin spice mix and use that. The taste will be almost exactly the same.

MORE CHRISTMAS CONFECTIONS!

In some cases, we want more than a cookie. That’s why I have two more Christmas-themed collections you might want to consider. The first, is my 12 Bundt Cakes of Christmas, and the second is my 12 Biscotti of Christmas. Click on the image below to see each collection all on one page with links to each recipe!

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STORING, PACKAGING, AND FREEZING

Ginger Molasses Cookies will stay fresh for about 3-5 days in a covered container and in a cool place. But, if you plan to freeze these cookies, use a food-safe container that can be frozen. You’ll want to ensure a very tight fitting lid too. (I use these quite often when freezing baked goods.) I like to place a sheet of plastic wrap over the top of the container before pushing the lid on. This helps to create a better seal. The goal is to keep all of that cookie freshness locked in!

You can freeze these cookies for up to three months. They will come out of the freezer looking just like they did when you put them in there. Once you thaw them, they will taste just as fresh as the day you first made them. When thawing, place the cookies onto a wire cooling rack in a single layer. Wait about 20 minutes or so and they will be perfectly thawed and ready to devour!

CONCLUSION:

I’ve given you more information than you needed to read through to get to the recipe, but I want to make sure you have the best Ginger Molasses Cookie experience!

These are a favourite among many of my friends who has ever tried one and I’m sure they will be a success for you too. Also, these make a lovely gift for a neighbour when packaged in a cellophane bag or cookie tin. (That’s if you can part with them!)

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