Soft Gingerbread Cookies with Maple Glaze

4.8

| Published on November 13, 2024

Let’s make Soft Gingerbread Cookies this holiday season! Soft, pillowy gingerbread with sunken centers and slightly crisped edges, plus little nooks and crannies packed with ginger spice and molasses. These are SO GOOD!

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Soft Gingerbread Cookies with Maple Glaze

Prep Time:

20 mins

Cook Time:

10 mins

Total Time:

30 mins

Servings:

24

Yield:

24 cookies


Jump to Nutrition Facts

Deliciously SOFT Gingerbread Cookies

It’s hard to describe just how good these are, these spicy-sweet little gingerbread pillows. There’s certainly a time and a place for the darker, more crisp peppery gingerbread, but that is not this. These cookies are suuuuper soft, light and coppery, almost melty in their ginger spice, with the slightest crunch from the edges and little sugar sprinkles.

And if your family has always gathered round a floured surface, armed with rolling pins and cookie cutters, fear not! Sure you may not be stamping out little shapes or battling with royal icing, making sure the gingerbread people don’t look like sorta scary clowns with drippy icing smiles, all while making sure your toddler isn’t eating too much dough…but will you miss that part? (Okay fine, maybe…these are the beautiful chaotic memories we cherish). 

But there are memories to be made around these as well. Gently rolling the soft gingerdough balls in the snowy sugar. Getting the perfect half dip of creamy maple glaze once they’re out of the oven. Going a little extra and piping tiny little holly leaves and berries on them or maybe just a few festive sprinkles. Gathering round the oven to see who can smell the warm sweet ginger bake first. 

Also, can we talk about that maple glaze? Subtle, sweet, and smooth taking these just one notch above magnificent. Just…come on.

Gingerbread cookies with icing and holly sprinkles on a sheet pan

Key Ingredients For Gingerbread Cookies

For these truly remarkable gingerbread cookies, you’ll need the staples — flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and salt. There’s a little extra baking soda in there to ensure a good spread, so they go wider and flatter in the oven. This is key to their positively clutch texture. Beyond that, let’s round up this delicious list, shall we?

  • molasses
  • ground ginger
  • extra sugar for rolling
  • maple syrup
  • confectioner’s sugar
  • lil’ holly sprinkles if you’re extra (so cute, so fun, so merry)

Gingerbread cookies on a plate

How To Make Gingerbread Cookies From Scratch

Once your ingredients are assembled and your heart is ready and your kitchen windows are fogged from the heat of your oven, it’s cookie-baking time, and is there any other better time on this planet?

  1. Make your dough. Cream butter and sugar, and then incorporate egg and molasses. Add your dry ingredients and mix until you have a soft dough. Pinch off a piece because it’s the holidays, but also don’t eat raw dough, and also merry everyday to you.
  2. Roll and bake. Scoop dough into small balls and then take one teeny extra step to gently roll them in sugar until they literally sparkle. Line your sheet and bake.
  3. Maple glaze. Whisk together your glaze ingredients until smooth. Dip one side of your slightly cooled, slightly flattened cookies in to coat. Now’s the time to add sprinkles if you’re feeling it.

There is already so much joy in cookies and these are big-time joy-bringers. There’s just something so special about gingerbread, with all its cozy and merry and bright. So fill your jars, your holiday platters, your care packages and gift boxes, your kiddos’ eager hands. Leave them on your plates for Santa and sneak them in the night like magic.

We hope your holidays are filled with all the best things this year, like family and friends and gingerbread.

Gingerbread cookies with a bite out of them

Ingredients

gingerbread cookies

  • 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • granulated sugar for rolling
  • 1 large egg
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 12 teaspoons ground ginger
  • 2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour (300 grams)
  • 1/3 cup molasses
  • 1 cup granulated sugar

maple glaze

  • 2 tablespoons milk (and a very tiny bit more if you need more)
  • 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
  • 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar (180 grams)
  • pinch of salt, to taste
  • 1 tablespoon melted butter

Directions

Step 1

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Step 2

Cream butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and molasses; mix until incorporated.

Step 3

Add flour, baking soda, salt, and ginger. Mix until a soft dough forms.

Step 4

Scoop into small balls (a little smaller than the size of a golf ball) and roll in sugar. Bake for 9-11 minutes; remove from pan so the cookies can sink / flatten slightly as they cool.

Step 5

Whisk maple glaze ingredients together until smooth (it will be very thick – if it’s too thick, just add a teaspoon more milk at a time until it becomes dippable, but we want this to be very thick so it sets nicely). Dip one side of the cooled cookies into the maple glaze, run the edge of the cookie along the side of the bowl to remove excess drips, set on a piece of wax paper, and add a few festive sprinkles before the glaze sets!

Editor's Note:

300 grams of flour is the perfect amount to achieve the texture and crinkly flat look of these cookies. If you find that your first batch is a bit flatter than you’d hoped, mix in a tablespoon or two of flour to the rest of the dough to get a thicker center. For this recipe I use unsulphured molasses. For most of my testing I used the Grandma’s brand which can be found in the baking section of many grocery stores. Blackstrap molasses is less sweet and would not be recommended here. The glaze should set to become fully dry to the touch with just an hour or two of sitting on the counter. For the best / most beautiful and travel-proof glaze results, you might want to wait to glaze until within a day of serving. The cookies can be baked ahead and stored (without glaze) in the freezer until you’re ready for glaze! I prefer the flavor of the maple glaze which is why that’s how the recipe is written, but if you need a glaze that is more sturdy, melting 1/2 cup white chocolate chips with 1 tablespoon coconut oil will also work and it will hold its shape better for travel.


Nutrition Facts(per serving)

176

Calories

7g

Fat

27g

Carbs

2g

Protein

Show Full Nutrition Label

Nutrition Facts

Servings per Recipe: 24

Calories: 176


% Daily Value *


Total Fat: 7g

9.0%


Saturated Fat: 3g

15.0%


Cholesterol: 25mg

8.3%


Sodium: 216mg

9.4%


Total Carbohydrate: 27g

9.8%


Dietary Fiber: 1g

3.6%


Total Sugars: 18g

36.0%


Protein: 2g

4.0%


Vitamin C: 0mg

0.0%


Calcium: 0mg

0.0%


Iron: 1mg

5.6%


Potassium : 94mg

2.0%


* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

** Nutrient information is not available for all ingredients. Amount is based on available nutrient data.

(-) Information is not currently available for this nutrient. If you are following a medically restrictive diet, please consult your doctor or registered dietitian before preparing this recipe for personal consumption.

Keywords:

Cookie recipes, soft recipe, gingerbread recipe, cookies recipe, maple recipe, glaze recipe, Soft Gingerbread Cookies with Maple Glaze recipe

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