Also check out Peggy Weaver’s Gingerbread Cookies and how to make your own Cookie Cutters.
More favorite Cookie Recipes and Secrets To Making Perfect Cookies. Also learn How To Have A Successful Holiday Cookie Exchange or Cookie Swap.
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter or vegetable shortening, room temperature
- 1 cup (firmly-packed) brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup molasses (regular or un-sulphured)*
- 2 1/4 cups flour (all-purpose)
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ground**
- 1 teaspoon ginger, ground**
- 1/2 teaspoon cloves, ground**
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- Sugar (granulated) for rolling cookies in
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In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg, and molasses until light and fluffy. Add flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt; stir or beat until well blended. Cover the dough and refrigerate at least 1 hour or overnight.
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Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
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Note: Make sure your oven is fully heated before baking the cookies. They need to get hit with the full force of the heat to start the cookies baking on the outside. As the inside cooks and rises it should force the cracks in the cookie as they expand. If your oven is not getting hot enough, you may need to increase the temperature by 5 to 10 degrees for the next batch.
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Lightly grease or spray with non-stick cooking spray your cookie sheets.
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Place some granulated sugar in a bowl large enough to roll the cookie dough balls.
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Using your hands, shape dough into 1-inch balls. Then roll the balls of dough into the granulated sugar, coating them thoroughly.
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Place balls, 3 inches apart, onto prepared cookie sheets.
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Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until light brown (cookies will puff slightly and then collapse slightly, and tops will be covered with little cracks). Remove from oven and cool on wire racks.
* Lightly grease or spray (non-stick cooking spray) your measuring cup before adding the molasses. This prevents the molasses from sticking to the cup.
** Check your ground spices (cinnamon, ginger, and cloves) to determine if they are still fresh, as stale spices will make your gingersnaps flat tasting.
More Delicious Ginger Cookies:
Chewy Ginger Cookies – Ginger cookies have been popular with children for generations. Add these chewy ginger cookies to your holiday cookie plate.
Molasses Crinkles – This recipe originally came from an older 1950’s Betty Crocker Cookbook that I received for a wedding gift.
Moravian Ginger Cookies – This paper-thin ginger cookies are absolutely fantastic! Moravian ginger cookies are cut into shapes and baked. These cookies are considered a signature cookie of the town of Winston-Salem, NC.
8 Responses to “Best Gingersnap Cookies Recipe”
Beth
Can you tell me what you can do with gingersnap cookies if they are to hard. They are
not burned, just more than crisp but hard?
K
We place a piece of bread on a tupperware lid (or something similar) in the cookie box on top of the cookies for a day or two and the cookies draw the moisture out of the bread and become soft!! It turns hard, hopeless, cookies into delicious soft cookies! Good luck! (Just don’t allow the bread to sit directly on the cookies or they will become soggy.) 🙂
abgogal
Put them in the food processor and grind them up. Use them for a base for a Pumpkin Cheesecake instead of graham crumbs.
abgogal
“Lightly grease or spray your measuring cup before adding the molasses. This prevents the molasses from sticking to the cup.” Really? Wouldn’t it just be simpler to get a decent kitchen scale with a tare feature and weigh out all the ingredients? A quick search on-line shows 1/4 cup of molasses weighs 85 g.
Pamela Gruber
You are cooking them too long for sure. I cook them only until they start to crack on top. Lift one from the cookie sheet to see if bottom is very light brown, if it is they are done. Try 8 minutes.
Spud
Dip them in a cold glass of milk. There called ginger SNAP for a reason. Its the sound they make when you break them in two just before you dunk them in milk.
Mmcslc
If you like spicier cookies, we use this recipe and add a pinch of cumin, a tiny pinch of cayenne and a little finely minced crystallized ginger. Definitely makes them “adult” cookies at that point, but if your family prefers things with heat, these will be a winner.
Nancy
This sounds like a fun idea to try, thank you for your “adult” additions!- Nancy