Gingerbread Cookies without Molasses (Soft & Chewy)

❤️Why you will love this recipe

• This is a simple gingerbread cookies recipe with common ingredients and makes super delicious gingerbread cookies.
• With just this single recipe, you can bake yourself a perfect batch of soft and chewy gingerbread cookies if you like them that way, or you can also bake soft and crispy gingerbread cookies if you prefer them crispy.
• The cookies are perfectly spiced and you can use this recipe to make delicious cookies in any other shape by using different cookie cutter shapes.
• The mix of ginger makes this recipe perfect to for Christmas cookies.

📋Ingredients

• All purpose flour + baking soda + salt - mix and sift these together. Use fine salt.
• Self-raising flour - only used in very small quantity to give the cookies a slight puff.
• Soft dark brown sugar - contributes to the molasses taste in the cookies.
• Butter - I use salted butter. If using unsalted butter, you may need to increase the salt in the recipe slightly.
• Golden syrup - can be homemade or purchased.
• Egg - use large egg
• Ground ginger (ginger powder)
• Ground cloves (cloves powder)
• Ground cinnamon (cinnamon powder)
• Gold dragees for decoration (optional)

🧾Substitution and variations

• Golden syrup can be replaced with honey. Use exact same quantity as the golden syrup.
• For added flavor, you can add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract after beating the egg in the creamed mixture.
• Cinnamon powder and cloves powder can be replaced with mixed spice. You can also completely leave them out if you wish. It will result in the cookies being less spiced, but will not alter the texture.
• Brown sugar is the best for making gingerbread cookies, more so if the gingerbread cookies are without molasses like this recipe. Unlike white sugar, brown sugar gives these cookies the dark color and depth in flavor (similar to molasses flavor) which is most befitting for these traditional gingerbread cookie recipe, almost like molasses cookies. Dark brown sugar can be substituted with light brown sugar.
• The gold dragees can be replaced with other decoration like raisins and cherries and glaze icing or royal icing.

Mixing the dough

1. Start by creaming the butter and brown sugar in a large bowl on medium speed with a hand mixer until creamy. Use a paddle attachment if using a stand mixer.
2. Add the egg and beat again until all traces of the egg are no longer visible. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.
3. Add the golden syrup and beat again until it is well combined into the creamed mixture. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl half way through.
4. Sift the flour, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, baking soda, and salt. Add these dry ingredients into the creamed wet ingredients.
5. Mix with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon until a soft dough is formed.
6. The dough will be quite soft at this stage. For easy handling of the sticky dough, divide it into smaller sections. And wrap each section with cling film or wrap, and refrigerate them for about 10 minutes.

Rolling the cookies

1. Remove the dough from the fridge and remove the plastic wrap. Roll each section out between 2 sheets of parchment paper on your work surface. For consistent thickness, place 2 dowel rods on either side of the cookie dough and roll on the dowel rods. That way, your rolled dough will be of a consistent thickness. Mine was ¾ cm thick.
2. Cut out the cookie dough with a floured cookie cutter. I used a gingerbread man cookie cutter but you can use other cookie cutters you prefer.
3. Carefully lift the cut cookies onto a baking sheet or baking tray lined with a piece of parchment paper. It is easier to lift them off the parchment using a flat rubber spatula. Press in the gold dragees for the eyes and buttons.
4. Bake cookies in a preheated oven at 175 degrees Celsius for 6 minutes. Increase the baking time to 8 minutes if you prefer crispy gingerbread cookies. Remove the cookies from oven and let them rest in the tray for a few minutes before lifting them onto a cooling rack (wire rack) to cool completely to room temperature. Keep the baked cookies in an airtight container.

🍽️Serving & storage

• Once baked and completely cooled, store the cookies in an airtight container. The soft cookies can last up to 2 weeks.
• If baked to a crisp texture, the cookies can last up to one month if kept well.

💡Expert tips

• This gingerbread cookie dough is rather soft. To ensure it does not stick to your rolling pin, roll it between 2 sheets of parchment paper. Also, to ensure the cookies are of consistent thickness, use 2 dowel rods on either side of the cookie dough when rolling it. And I literally rolled my rolling pin on the dowel rod. That way, my gingerbread cookies will not go any thinner than the diameter of the dowel rods and remained constant for all cookies.
• The gingerbread men cookie cutter I used was not a very large one, so each gingerbread man measured 6.5 cm long (from head to the toes) and 5 cm wide (at the widest part of the cookies which is the feet). For this size, I managed to get a total of 50 gingerbread cookies for the recipe measure below.

💭FAQs