With soft yet chewy centres and a sweet sugary crust, these gingerbread crinkle cookies are a must-make for Christmas. They’re loaded with classic gingerbread spices (think warming flavours like ginger, cinnamon and cloves) and rich molasses.
These melt-in-the-mouth, tender ginger crinkle cookies taste amazing and they’re super easy to make too! They’re a gorgeous new way to try gingerbread cookies.
Want something even more decadent? Try these gingerbread cupcakes. Or check out our cookie recipes section for loads of different Christmas cookie inspiration.
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What are crinkle cookies?
Crinkle cookies are a classic Christmas cookie that’s soft and a little fudgy in texture. The term crinkle likely refers to the cracks that are created as they bake revealing cracks of cookie contrasting with the bright white powdered sugar coating on the outside.
Ingredients for crinkle cookies
Aside from the obvious cookie-making ingredients like eggs, butter and flour, every other ingredient is geared to making the ginger crinkles cookies really sing with that classic gingerbread flavour.
Jump to the recipe for full ingredients and instructions.
- Flour: You’ll just need plain flour / all-purpose flour.
- Spices: Ground ginger, ground cinnamon and ground cloves, plus a little salt, make up the spice component and give these cookies a nice spicy kick.
- Baking soda: Baking soda here is used to give a little rise but also to make the cookies spread out.
- Brown sugar: I use dark brown sugar for added treacly flavour but you can use light brown sugar instead. While you could use granulated sugar it will substantially change the texture and flavour of these cookies as the recipe intended.
- Molasses or treacle: Both molasses and treacle will work. Molasses has an intense flavour while treacle is similar, just a little milder. For a different flavour, you could swap the molasses in full or in part for honey too.
- Butter: Just use unsalted butter or, if you want to use salted butter, leave out the extra salt in the recipe.
- Eggs: I use large eggs in these cookies. One whole egg plus an extra yolk adds extra richness and chewiness.
- Vanilla extract: Make sure to use vanilla extract as opposed to vanilla essence which is a synthetic product.
- Icing sugar: Icing sugar, also known as powdered sugar or confectioners’ sugar is what is used for the sugar crust on the outside.
How to make crinkle cookies
Crinkle cookies look like a cookie that requires effort to create the perfect cracks but in truth, you just need a good recipe and a little patience to let the cookie dough chill.
The cookie dough is incredibly easy to make. There is no creaming of butter and sugar so it comes together very quickly too.
Jump to the recipe for full ingredients and instructions.
- Start by whisking together the dry ingredients and setting them aside.
- Mix together the sugar and wet ingredients until well combined.
- Now add in the flour mixture and beat again until fully combined.
- It’s really important to chill the dough for at least 1 hour but overnight is even better. You want it to be quite firm.
While I use a stand mixer and paddle attachment to mix the dough, you can certainly use just a wooden spoon or spatula and a large bowl. The dough does become quite thick but still able to be mixed by hand.
- Once the dough has chilled, you can roll it into small balls – about 2 tablespoons of dough is good for one cookie. The dough is a little firm for a cookie scoop so I just weigh out balls of about 33g of dough for each cookie (or just over an ounce). See tips if you want to use a cookie scoop.
- Now roll the cookie dough balls in icing sugar / powdered sugar generously.
- Place them onto a baking sheet, 2 inches apart, then bake for 10 minutes.
Tips and tricks
You want perfect gingerbread crinkle cookies right? Then make sure to read through these quick tips first.
- Weigh the flour and sugar: You will always get the best result in your bakes from weighing ingredients whenever a weight is given. If you love to bake regularly, grab yourself a kitchen scale (tip: it also saves on washing up since you can measure straight into the mixing bowl). If you don’t have one, spoon the flour into the cup measure, then level it off with the back of a knife without packign it down. For the sugar, pack it down.
- Don’t skip chilling: Chilling helps the dough to keep a little shape and not spread out into flat cookies. They will spread but, if chilled first, they’ll still be nice thick cookies.
- If you want to use a cookie scoop (which is easier than weighing out balls of dough), scoop the balls of dough before chilling and place them onto a large tray. Cover well and chill. Once chilled, just roll them into neat balls and proceed.
- Coat the dough balls generously in powdered sugar. The best way is to just keep rolling them round and round so the sugar builds up on the outside.
- Don’t overbake the cookies – they need to be soft and a little fudgy on the inside so 10 minutes is generally perfect. It’s always worth baking a test cookie or two first and let it cool a little before tasting – this way you can see what works great in your oven.
Storing your crinkle cookies
Keep your molasses crinkle cookies stored in an airtight container in a cool place, like the pantry for 4-5 days. They can be frozen too. Just store them again in an airtight container or ziplock bag for up to 3 months in the freezer.
FAQs
This could be due to outdated baking soda or your oven wasn’t at full temperature when you put them in. Make sure to give your oven a good 1/2 an hour to come up to temperature even if it says it’s already at the correct temperature.
Using eggs tends to create a softer cookie and also baking time will affect the texture.
No. Gingerbread is a combination of spices like ginger, cinnamon and cloves with ginger being the larger portion.
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Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups plain flour (all-purpose flour) (325g / 11 ½oz)
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger (4 tsp, see notes 1)
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup brown sugar (200g / 7oz)
- ⅓ cup molasses or treacle (80ml)
- 115 g unsalted butter, melted (4oz / 1 stick / ½ cup)
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 1 egg yolk, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup icing sugar (powdered sugar) (130g / 4 ½ oz)
For best results, always weigh ingredients where a weight is provided
Equipment
- Mixing bowl and wooden spoon
- 2 Large baking sheets
Instructions
- Start by combining the flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, ground cloves and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk to combine and set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer using a paddle attachment or just in a large bowl using a wooden spoon mix the sugar, molasses, melted butter, egg, egg yolk and vanilla until well combined.
- Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined to a thick dough.
- Chill for 1 hour or overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan forced) / 350F and line two large baking sheets with baking paper.
- Roll balls of about 2 tablespoons of cookie dough then roll the cookie dough balls generously in the icing sugar.
- Transfer to the prepared baking sheets about 2 inches apart and bake (one tray at a time) for 10-12 minutes.
- Let them cool for a couple of minutes on the trays, then carefully transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
- Please take a moment to leave a comment & rating. It's appreciated and so helpful.
Notes
- Tablespoons: I use a standard Australian 20ml tablespoon (equal to 4 teaspoons). Check yours before measuring.
- Treacle is a lighter form of molasses and has a slightly less intense flavour.
- Nutrition details are approximate only – scroll below the recipe to find the full nutritional information.
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