Super Soft Molasses Cookies

Reasons You Will Love These Super Soft Molasses Cookies

• seriously soft and chewy
• a holiday favorite
• perfectly flavored with molasses, ginger, and cinnamon
• lightly rolled in granulated sugar to give them a nice, sweet crunch
• they stay soft for days
• perfect for cookie swaps

This soft molasses cookie recipe couldn’t be any easier to make, and they taste fantastic! They are a definite must-make heading into the holiday season!

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Where Does Molasses Come From?

Molasses is commonly used as a sweetener in baking, cooking, coffee, or oatmeal and comes from either sugar cane or sugar beets, where it’s boiled down to syrup. After removing the sugar crystals, what’s left is the dark molasses!

There are a variety of molasses flavors like light/mild, full/dark, and blackstrap. The light/mild flavor is the lightest and sweetest of the three, followed by the full/dark, which is thicker and has a stronger flavor (great for recipes like this!). Blackstrap is the thickest of the three and has no sweetness to it. You’ll typically see blackstrap molasses used in savory dishes.

How to Make Soft and Chewy Molasses Sugar Cookies

Here is a brief overview of how to make this soft molasses cookie recipe!

1. Whisk the dry ingredients together. This includes all-purpose flour, ground cloves, ground ginger, cinnamon, and salt.
2. Mix the wet ingredients together. Start with vegetable oil and granulated sugar. Next, you will add in the full-flavored molasses and egg.
3. Combine the dry and wet ingredients. Unless specified in the recipe, always add the dry ingredients to the wet. Mix the cookie dough together until just combined. The cookie dough will be a thin to medium consistency.
4. Chill the dough. A minimum of 2 hours is best or until you can form the cookie dough balls. Make sure the mixing bowl is covered with plastic wrap.
5. Roll and Coat. Roll the molasses cookie dough into 1-inch balls, then roll in a small bowl of granulated sugar (or you can use pure can organic sugar). You only need about 1/2 cup to coat all 36 cookies this recipe yields.
6. Bake, then Cool. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 375ºF. Mine seem to bake perfectly right at the 8-minute mark. Your cookies should have a nice sparkling crinkle top with golden brown edges. Cookies should cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before you transfer them to the wire cooling rack.

What is a Good Substitute for Ground Cloves?

Ground cloves are not something I always have on hand when baking. So if you find yourself in the same situation, you can use nutmeg.

Can I Freeze Molasses Cookie Dough?

Yes! Follow the recipe instructions up until you have chilled the molasses cookie dough. Roll the cookie dough into the 1-inch balls, but skip rolling them in the granulated sugar.

Place them onto a parchment paper or wax paper lined baking sheet and freeze until firm.

Remove from the freezer and place the frozen cookie dough balls into a well-sealed freezer bag. Molasses cookie dough balls will keep for up to 3 months in the freezer.

When ready to bake, add 1-2 minutes to your baking time.

Quick Tips for Baking Molasses Cookies

• Measuring sticky molasses. One thing that can be tricky sometimes is measuring sticky ingredients, so I suggest lightly spraying the inside of a measuring cup with some baking spray. This will help let the molasses slide out a lot easier when you’re pouring it into the mixer.
• Don’t skip chilling the dough. I recommend at least 2 hours of dough chilling or until you can easily form the dough into 1-inch balls. If they haven’t properly chilled, things can get pretty messy.
• Use a cookie scoop. For more consistently sized cookies, use a 1-tablespoon-sized cookie scoop. A regular spoon will work fine, too.
• Shape the cookies. This is totally optional, but if your cookies come out a little flatter than you like or you’d like them to be about the same size, you can shape them! Check out my Salted Brownie Cookies recipe to learn how to shape them!