Ingredients
- 1 1/2 sticks (170 grams) unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
- 1 1/4 cups (250 grams) granulated sugar, divided
- 1/4 cup (50 grams) lightly packed light brown sugar
- 1/3 cup (113 grams) unsulphured molasses (NOT blackstrap)
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 2 1/4 cups (286 grams) all-purpose flour
Directions
-
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
-
In a large bowl, use an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment to beat the butter, 3/4 cup granulated sugar, and brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the molasses and egg and beat until combined. Add in the salt, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and flour, and beat until combined.
-
Place the remaining 1/2 cup sugar in a shallow dish. Scoop the dough into 1 1/2 tablespoon balls and roll in the sugar before placing on the baking sheet, leaving plenty of room for spread. Bake for 15 minutes or until the cookies are spread and the surface looks crackled.
-
Let cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 7 days.
hi! just made these..no cracking snd bs was fresh! weighed everything. made 35. taste is incredible!! i like the idea of cayenne!!!
Would you kindly provide the amount of butter in cup[s}? Thanks.
Hi Shirley! This recipe calls for 1 1/2 sticks or 170 grams of butter. 1 stick = 1/2 a cup, therefore 1 1/2 sticks is equal to 3/4 cup. I hope that helps! Let us know what you think of this recipe once you’ve given it a try 🙂
Made it last Xmas, everyone loved it. For my husband and a few others, it was a bit sweet (mostly we don’t eat white sugar and I use only brown sugar in my baking). I found it sweet too, and I don’t eat sugar but that didn’t stop me from eating every last one of these cookies. I made double the quantity to gift to colleagues. It’s been 6 months but people still talk about those gingersnaps. I diced up homemade candied ginger nice and tiny and added it like orange zest. Added extra bite and spice to the cookies. Come to think of it, some of the sweetness must have come from that.
I wanted to make these again and been hunting for recipes with molasses and found a lot of other recipes but they didn’t look right. Found this again after a lot of hunting and so bookmarking, reviewing, sharing on socials etc. coz this is one recipe I never want to lose again.
They came out perfect, even though I didn’t have cloves. Great recipe. Thank you!!
Perfect gingersnap cookie. I got 28 cookies with 1 1/2 cookie scoop. Will be making again.
A little hashish and canna butter goes great in these ginger snaps!
I love these cookies! I’ve made them four or five times. Today I decided to play around a bit and added ⅛ tsp cayenne pepper, 1 tsp black pepper, and one cup of toffee bits. They turned out great, and are positively addictive, but I didn’t get the cracks in the top. Wondering why.
Hi Laura! So glad you enjoyed these cookies – your additions sound so good! As Tessa explains in the pink tip box above the recipe, the crackly appearance comes from your baking powder. Baking powder can lose its effectiveness long before the expiration date printed on the packaging. Tessa has a whole article dedicated to the differences between baking powder vs. baking soda, and how to test both for freshness – check out that article here! The other possible reasons for lack of cracks could be too much flour (easily done when measuring by volume instead of weight – more on that here!) and butter that’s too warm (butter is ideally 65-67°F when creaming to make cookies – more on that here!). I hope something here helps, Laura! Thanks so much for your comment and Happy Baking!
I made this recipe, they burnt, they didn’t crack.
What position should have I had my oven rack? Maybe that caused the unfavourable result.
Hi Marion! I’m sorry to hear that your cookies didn’t turn out as they should. It’s difficult to know exactly what went wrong without having baked alongside you, but I do have a couple of thoughts as to what might have happened.
– Ovens – you mentioned oven rack position and it’s typically recommended for any cookies to bake on the middle rack (and the same goes here). This is best for the most even distribution of heat and therefore the most even baking. Beyond the rack position, though, is your oven’s temperature – do you have an oven thermometer to check that? Most ovens are lying to us about their real temperature, and many can run much colder or warmer. If your cookies burned, my suspicion is that your oven is running quite hot. Check out this article, where Tessa explains this in more detail.
– How do you measure your flour? By weight using a digital scale, or by volume using cups? Weighing vs. measuring by volume can have a huge impact on your baked goods. It’s so easy to accidentally add too much flour if measuring by volume, and too much flour can change the intended outcome greatly. Tessa talks about how best to measure ingredients in this article here!
– Another issue could be your leavening agents may not be fresh. If your baking powder or soda are not fresh, this can impact the cookie’s ability to rise and spread properly, prevent crinkles/cracks, and more. Tessa talks about how to test for leavener freshness in this article here!
– Another thing could be how long you creamed your butter and sugars together for, and how warm your butter was at this time. Both have a huge impact on a cookie’s outcome. Have a look at this article, where Tessa discusses both and the repercussions on the resulting baked goods!
– Lastly, what type of pan are you baking on? Different materials of pans conduct heat differently, so some darker-colored pans will cook the bottom significantly faster than other lighter-colored pans. Tessa discusses and shows the differences between a variety of baking pans in this article here!
I hope something here helped, and I hope you give these cookies another try sometime – they really are delicious! Happy baking 🙂
Very good. I love gingersnaps but never took the time to make them. These turned out better than I hoped. Your recipe said it yielded 28 cookies and I got 29 so that’s a first! Thanks for the recipe.
I made these today 5/22/2023 and they are the best ginger snaps cookies I have ever made. I also used a farm fresh organic ginger powder ,that made the flavor so good. I will keep this one as I am a long time home cook and love baking.
I made this, but I’m wondering, is the molasses needed?
Hi Sally! We hope you enjoyed these cookies! Yes, molasses is vital to the flavor and texture of these cookies. Check out the pink tip box (above the recipe) for more information and details about why and how the molasses is needed 🙂
I’ve been baking for just a short time. Full disclosure, I’m making edibles. This is the best ginger snap recipe I’ve found by far, although I’ve substituted canola oil for butter. Oh, and I increased the powdered ginger to 2 teaspoons.
Delicious, and they are so… snappy!
Delicious recipe!! I made these using extra ginger because I like it to have a little more burn but the crisp is exactly what I was looking for. I used a flat-bottomed glass to press them down so they would spread out more and it is perfection.
Absolutely fantastic. Super easy but just delicious!
Exactly what you want in a gingersnap. Easy to make and delicious. I had no trouble deciphering the instructions!
Teeny nitpick. The instructions say to mix the butterS and sugar. I think it should be butter and sugarS. I spent a while making sure I wasn’t missing some special kind of butter!
Hi Sadia! Thanks so much for pointing out that typo. I have fixed it now! Let us know if you ever give these cookies a try – we’d love to hear what you think 🙂 Thanks again!
I love these cookies. They are my guilty pleasure!
Hi Tessa,
I am a bit confused by the instructions. It says 250grams of Granulated sugar and 50 grams of Btown Sugar. However, the instructions then say 3/4 cups of sugar combined to he used in the sugar/butter mixture and that 1/2 cup should be put aside for rolling the dough in.
Can you please clarify EXACTLY how many grams of the granulated sugar is supposed to be used when mixing the butter and sugar?
Thanks in advance.
Laura
Hi Laura. As you noticed, this recipe uses a total of 1 1/4 cups (or 250 grams) granulated sugar.
3/4 cup (or 150 grams) goes into the dough.
The remaining 1/2 cup (or 100 grams) is for rolling the dough.
All the brown sugar gets mixed into the dough only.
I hope that helps 🙂 Happy baking!
A little stiff. Not the best recipe imo
Hi Jan! I’m sorry to hear that these cookies didn’t turn out as they should. It sounds like you accidentally added too much flour. How do you measure your ingredients? By volume (using cups), or by weight (using a digital kitchen scale)? When measuring by volume, it’s so easy to mis-measure ingredients (particularly flour) and throw off the entire chemistry of a recipe. Check out Tessa’s article here, where she talks about how to best measure ingredients to ensure accuracy every time. I hope that helps, Jan, and I hope you give these cookies another try sometime – they really are delicious! Happy baking!
FABULOUS !!!
These are DELISH and CRISPY just as promised!
Thank you – they’re a bit hit at my house!
Fantastic cookies. I added some chopped, candied ginger. They definitely snap:)
Great addition, yum!
Thank you so much for this recipe Tessa! My first try at baking cookies. Was looking for ginger snap recipe and I found the perfect one!! Came out as you described. And thank you for the comments about the flour. Just before adding I remeasured and, voila! I don’t know how but had close to 1/2 cup too much ready to go. Thank you!!!
The cookies came out puffy and thick as appose to thinner and crispy. Am I beating the eggs too long? Or over mixing? I was trying to make them crisp like the picture. They are more like cake. Kind of. They still get hard. Just thicke. And taste great. I rolled them in sugar with 1/2 of ground ginger for extra kick.
Hi Karen! I’m sorry to hear that these cookies didn’t turn out as they should! Without having baked alongside you, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what went wrong here, but here are a couple things that I’d recommend looking at first:
– How do you measure your ingredients? By volume (using cups), or by weight (using a digital kitchen scale)? When measuring by volume, it’s so easy to mis-measure ingredients (particularly flour) and throw off the entire chemistry of a recipe- and wind up with a cookie that’s thicker and cakier than it’s supposed to be! Check out Tessa’s article here, where she talks about how to best measure ingredients to ensure accuracy every time.
– How old are your leavening agents? If your baking soda/powder are not fresh, they won’t do their jobs and your baked goods can not rise properly, fall after baking, and much more. Tessa talks about the science behind leavening agents, and how to test for leavener freshness, in this article here!
I hope this helps, Karen, and I hope you’ll give these cookies another try sometime – they really are so good! Happy baking 🙂
I made these cookies a couple of days ago. Fantastic and my husband’s new favorite. Actually, he asked me to bake another batch because this one disappeared too quickly. I followed the recipe and didn’t add or take anything away.
Thank you!
These are sooooo good! Crispy and delicious! Reminds me of my grandmother’s house.
I am not one to change a recipe because I think I know better than the originator, but necessity requires it sometimes. Used salted butter, & Sorghum for molasses. Best cookie ever! Even my cookie snob grandson loves these (had to coerce to try them). I hate making cookies but honestly, these are worth the time and effort…little of both, actually ☺️