Looking for gingerbread cookies without molasses for Christmas season? Here's one super easy and super yummy recipe for you!
These gingerbread cookies are crispy and perfectly spiced with ginger. They don't require molasses and do not have any other spices added in. They make perfect Christmas cookies for Christmas time.
To compensate for the molasses, I used my homemade golden syrup. Golden syrup is super easy to make, all you need is sugar and lemon. See my recipe on how to make golden syrup here.
I used a gingerbread people cookie cutter to cut out the delicious cookies and chose to decorate them with simple gold dragees. I have also used this very same gingerbread cookie (without molasses) recipe to make decorated gingerbread boys and girls cookies. For these boys and girls, I used royal icing (in piping bags) to decorate the cookies. Check out the full tutorial (including a video) here.
Table of contents
How to Make
Ingredients
- Plain flour + baking soda + salt
- Self-raising flour
- Soft dark brown sugar
- Butter
- Golden syrup
- Egg
- Ground ginger powder
- Gold dragees for decoration optional
Mixing the dough
- Start by creaming the butter, brown sugar and golden syrup in a large bowl on medium speed with a hand mixer until creamy. Use a paddle attachment if using a stand mixer.
- Add the egg and beat again until all traces of the egg are no longer visible. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.
- Sift in both the flours, ground ginger, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients into the creamed wet ingredients. Mix with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon until a soft dough is formed.
- The dough will be quite soft at this stage. So, for easy handling of the sticky dough, divide the dough into smaller sections. And wrap each section with cling film or wrap, and refrigerate them for about 10 minutes.
- 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, I placed 2 dowel rods on either side of my cookie dough and rolled my rolling pin on the dowel rods. That way, my cookie dough thickness was consistent at ¾ cm.
- Cut out the cookie dough with a floured cookie cutter. I used a gingerbread men cookie cutter but you can use other cookie cutters you prefer.
- Carefully lift the cut cookies onto a baking tray lined with a piece of parchment paper.
- Press in the gold dragees for the eyes and buttons.
- Bake cookies in a preheated oven at 175 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes.
- Remove the cookies and let them rest in the tray for a few minutes before lifting them onto a cooling rack to cool completely to room temperature.
- Keep the baked cookies in an airtight container.
Notes
Flour
- To make these gingerbread cookies without molasses, I used a combination of all purpose flour and self-raising flour, however, the self-raising flour is significantly lower in proportion at 5:1.
- And I used baking soda as the raising agent. The resulting cookies were just nicely puffed as how gingerbread cookies should be and not overly increased in size.
Sugar
- 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.
Golden syrup
- Golden syrup is a significant ingredient in these gingerbread cookies without molasses. Because it is liquid in nature, the amount added into the recipe is pretty limited, or else the texture of the cookie dough will be too soft and sticky.
- Not all gingerbread cookie recipes use golden syrup. Some use molasses and treacle but I prefer to use golden syrup simply because I make it my own. It's super easy to make and cheap too. Plus it produces great tasting cookies.
Ground ginger
- This is the most important ingredient in these cookies because after all, ginger forms part of the name of these cookies and the cookies are called gingerbread for a reason.
- I used ground ginger (comes in fine powder form) and used a whole 2.5 tablespoons of it in my gingerbread cookies. That did not overpower the taste of the cookies with ginger. In fact, it was just the perfect amount for subtle ginger flavored cookies.
Cutting & shaping the cookies
- This gingerbread cookie dough is rather soft. To ensure it does not stick to my rolling pin, I rolled it between 2 sheets of parchment paper. Also, to ensure my cookies are of consistent thickness, I used 2 dowel rods on either side of my cookie dough when rolling it. And I literally rolled my rolling pin on the dowel rod. That way, my gingerbread cookies did 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.
Decorating the gingerbread men
- As for the decoration, gingerbread men are typically decorated with raisins and cherries and glaze icing or royal icing. I choose not to use any of these. In fact, I used only gold dragees. I used 2 for the eyes and another 2 for the buttons. And I must say, not only was it an easier decorating option, the gingerbread man cookies looked pretty good too.
- I saved some of the cookies to decorate them into gingerbread boys and girls and have created a separate tutorial on it, you can check them out here.
Like this easy cookie recipe? Here are my other posts you might want to check out
- Homemade Golden Syrup - A Quick and Easy Recipe
- Snowflake Sugar Cookies
- Jam Filled Shortbread Cookies
- 3 Ingredients Shortbread Cookies
- Orange Ginger Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting
- Tools Birthday Cake - A Decorating Tutorial
- Christmas Sprinkle Cookies
- Gingerbread Boys and Girls Cookie Tutorial
- Moist Light Fruit Cake - The Best Ever!
- Coffee Chocolate Chip Cookies
Recipe (Printable)
Here is the full, printable version of my recipe for the gingerbread cookies without molasses:
Perfect Gingerbread Cookies without Molasses
These old fashioned gingerbread cookies without molasses are perfect holiday cookies. They are quick and easy and super yummy too!
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Yield: 50 cookies
Ingredients
- 280 g plain flour
- 60 g self raising flour
- 170 g soft brown sugar
- 100 g butter
- 60 ml golden syrup
- 1 egg
- 2 ½ tablespoon ground ginger ginger powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- Gold dragees for decoration optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 175°Celsius and line baking trays with parchment paper.
- Sift plain flour, self-raising flour, ground ginger and baking soda together and set aside.
- In a separate bowl, beat butter, brown sugar and golden syrup till creamy.
- Add egg and continue to beat until the egg is well incorporated into the creamed mixture.
- Carefully add in the sifted dry ingredients and mix until it is all well incorporated and forms a soft dough.
- Wrap the dough with cling wrap and refrigerate for 10 minutes. Remove from the refrigerator and roll out between 2 plastic sheets or parchment paper to about ¾ cm thickness.
- Cut the dough with a gingerbread men cookie cutter. Transfer cookies onto prepared baking trays and press in gold dragees for the gingerbread men eyes and buttons.
- Bake the gingerbread cookies until they turn slightly brown, for about 10 minutes.
- Remove cookies from the oven and let them rest for 2 minutes in the tray before transferring them to a wire rack. Let the cookies cool completely before storing them in an airtight container.
Nutrition
Calories: 58kcal | Carbohydrates: 10g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 2g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 8mg | Sodium: 65mg | Potassium: 16mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 55IU | Calcium: 5mg | Iron: 1mg
Tried this recipe?Mention @decorated_treats or tag #decoratedtreats!
And that's that. My super easy, super yummy, gingerbread cookies without molasses.
Enjoy!
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