Gingerbread Cookies Recipe (Cut-Out)
- Preparation 20 min
- Refrigeration 2 h
- Cooking 7 to 13 min
- Servings 20 to 24
- Freezing Absolutely
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🎄 The cookies that make the whole house smell like Christmas!
Ginger, cinnamon, clove and molasses warming up in the oven: nothing smells more like the holidays than that. These gingerbread cookies come out cleanly cut, with sharp edges, and they taste exactly like the smell promises. Properly spiced, just sweet enough, with that little molasses note that lingers. Bake a batch in December and you will be making a second one before Christmas, I guarantee it!
⏱️ Soft or crisp, the oven decides
Same dough, same thickness, and two completely different cookies depending on the time you give them. Seven to nine minutes and they stay tender in the center with a little bend. Eleven to thirteen and they go crisp edge to edge, perfect for dunking in coffee or a glass of milk. You can even do both from the same batch of dough and let everyone pick a side.
👦 A recipe to make with the kids
I really wanted a recipe like this to make with my boys. I looked at plenty, took what I liked, and built my own version. We made them together and they loved it: rolling the dough, picking the cutters, and above all decorating with the icing. My guys are older, so it went really smoothly, but this recipe forgives small hands too. The dough rerolls for as long as there is any left.
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⏱️ Same thickness, time makes the texture
I always roll my dough to a quarter inch, whichever cookie I am after. What changes is the bake. Seven to nine minutes for a soft cookie, eleven to thirteen for a crisp one. Keep the thickness even across the whole sheet, otherwise the thin ones burn while the thick ones stay raw. And bake one sheet at a time, in the center of the oven.
👀 They look soft coming out, and that is normal
Trust the timer, not your eyes. When you pull the sheet, the cookies look genuinely soft and you will want to put them back in. Don’t. They firm up as they cool, first five minutes on the sheet, then on the rack. If you wait until they look done in the oven, they come out hard as a rock.
🧊 The dough comes out of the fridge hard as a brick
After two hours in the cold it goes very hard, which is exactly what you want so it holds the shape of the cutters. But it will not roll like that. Let it sit on the counter for ten to fifteen minutes before you reach for the rolling pin. It relaxes, it stops cracking at the edges, and the flavors settle at the same time.
♻️ Reroll the scraps to the very end
I gather the scraps and reroll until nothing is left. The dough does not toughen from being worked, it does the opposite: it softens as it warms up in your hands. If it gets too soft to cut cleanly, put it back in the fridge for a short while to firm up, then keep going.
🍯 Fancy molasses, the regular grocery store kind
This is the everyday molasses, mild and sweet. Never use blackstrap for these cookies: it is far more bitter and it takes over everything.
🎨 Icing, homemade or store-bought
The vanilla royal icing in the recipe takes two minutes, and it takes care of the egg white left over from using only the yolk in the dough. It has to be thick enough to stay on the cookie: add the water drop by drop. Honestly, I used a store-bought icing sugar glaze, and it does the job perfectly well when you have kids waiting to decorate. Either way, let it dry for four hours before stacking.
📅 Make-ahead prep
The dough can be made the day before with no trouble, well wrapped in the fridge. It freezes too: I did it, thawed it and made cookies again. The other way, even more practical: cut your cookies raw, set them on a sheet, freeze them like that, then move them to a bag. When the day comes, let them thaw, bake them and decorate. For a decorating afternoon with kids, bake the cookies in the morning and have your icing and piping bags ready ahead.
🎁 A week in an airtight container
They keep for about a week in a well-sealed container. They soften a little over the days, which is no flaw if you like them tender. And they make a perfect gift: a box of hand-decorated gingerbread cookies, nobody says no to that.
✅ What to serve with my gingerbread cookies
With coffee, hot chocolate or a tall glass of milk, and the crisp ones are made for dunking. On a holiday tray they bring the spice and the decoration. Set them next to my soft and chewy molasses cookies, the thick and tender side of the same family, and my soft pumpkin cookies, which run on the same spices. To round out the cookie tin, my double chocolate sea salt cookies bring the dark note and my chocolate mint cookies bring the holiday classic.
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Cookies
- ½ cup (125 ml) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
- ⅔ cup (160 ml) dark brown sugar, firmly packed
- ⅓ cup (80 ml) fancy molasses (regular unsulphured, not blackstrap)
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract
- 2 ¼ cups (560 ml) all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp (10 ml) ground cinnamon
- 2 ½ tsp (12 ml) ground ginger
- ¼ tsp (1 ml) ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp (5 ml) baking soda
- ½ tsp (2 ml) fine sea salt
- ¼ tsp (1 ml) ground cloves
- 1 tbsp (15 ml) milk
Royal icing
- 1 egg white
- 1 ½ cups (375 ml) icing sugar
- ½ tsp (2 ml) vanilla extract
- A few drops of water, as needed
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Preparation
- With a stand or hand mixer, cream the butter with the brown sugar until completely smooth. Beat in the molasses, egg yolk and vanilla. Keep the egg white in the fridge for the icing.
- In another bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, baking soda, salt and cloves.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, mixing on low speed after each addition. Mix in the milk, just enough to bring the dough together.
- Gather the dough into a ball, divide it into 2 equal portions and flatten each into a disc about 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick. Wrap tightly in plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
- Take one disc out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter for 10 to 15 minutes. The dough comes out very hard and needs to relax before it will roll.
- Preheat the oven to 350 °F (180 °C) and line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to ¼ inch (6 mm) thick. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters and set them on the sheets. Gather the scraps and reroll until no dough is left.
- Bake one sheet at a time in the center of the oven: 7 to 9 minutes for soft cookies, or 11 to 13 minutes for crisp cookies.
- Let them cool for 5 minutes on the sheet, then transfer to a rack and cool completely.
- For the royal icing, beat the egg white, icing sugar and vanilla with a mixer or whisk until smooth. Add a few drops of water if needed to loosen it.
- Dip the tops of the cookies in the icing, or decorate them with a piping bag. Let them dry on a rack for about 4 hours at room temperature.
By pulling them from the oven sooner. The dough and the thickness stay the same, a quarter inch, and the bake time decides: seven to nine minutes for a soft cookie, eleven to thirteen for a crisp one. Take them out even if the centers still look soft, they firm up as they cool on the sheet and then on the rack.
Because cold dough holds the shape of the cutter. Right after mixing it is soft and sticky, impossible to cut cleanly. Two hours in the fridge firms it up, and the cookies keep sharp edges in the oven instead of spreading. It comes out very hard, so let it sit on the counter for ten to fifteen minutes before rolling.
Yes, two ways. You can freeze the dough as a disc, tightly wrapped, then thaw and roll it. Or you can cut your cookies raw, freeze them flat on a sheet, then move them to a bag: when the day comes, let them thaw, bake them and decorate afterward.
About a week in an airtight container. They soften a little over the days. If you ice them, wait until the icing is completely dry, roughly four hours, before stacking or boxing them.
Coffee, hot chocolate or a glass of milk. For a holiday cookie tin, add my soft and chewy molasses cookies and my soft pumpkin cookies.
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