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These easy, homemade gingersnap cookies are thin and crispy, and rolled in sparkly coarse sugar for the perfect crunchy ginger snap cookie recipe. These ginger snaps are a great make ahead cookie - either bake them ahead, or store the frozen cookie dough in the freezer for later!
Hi hi!
Just popping in to share the recipe for these homemade gingersnap cookies! These cookies are an addition to my collection of holiday cookie recipes that I am working on, and something that I have been meaning to work on for a while.
This ginger snap cookie recipe is a twist on my soft and chewy ginger molasses cookies - I tweaked the recipe to make it a little thinner, and baked them longer to give the perfect thin gingersnap cookie that is crunchy around the edges and slightly chewy in the middle. You could also call them a molasses crinkle cookie, or if you're familiar with gingernut biscuits, these are my perfect version of that! They make a great Christmas cookie, but to be honest, I make these year round.
Gingersnap Cookie Ingredients
These homemade gingersnap cookies are super easy, have a quick prep time, and are a no chill ginger snap cookie recipe, meaning that you can have them in the oven super quickly, and baked in about 16-17 minutes!
- Butter. I use unsalted, make sure that it is at nice room temperature.
- Granulated sugar. Either Caster sugar or regular granulated sugar works - this is the beauty of baking by weight, 200g of sugar is 200g sugar!
- Brown sugar. Either light brown sugar or dark brown sugar works here.
- Egg. Just one to bind - I haven't tried subbing it sorry!
- Molasses. Molasses adds to the depth of flavour in the ginger snap cookie. If you can't get your hands on molasses, you can use treacle or golden syrup, but it is worth getting some molasses if you can! I use unsulphured molasses, but I have tested this with blackstrap molasses and it works great.
- Vanilla. I use vanilla bean paste, but extract works great.
- All-purpose flour. Also called plain flour - nothing fancy here.
- Spices. These are a pretty spicy gingersnap cookie recipe - I use ground ginger, cinnamon, and cardamom in my recipe. The cardamom really gives the ginger snaps something special. You can use extra cinnamon if you don't have it, but I love what is does here.
- Baking soda. I use baking soda in this recipe to give the cookie spread, and baking soda also reacts with molasses.
- Salt. Skip it if you are using salted butter, but properly salting your baking, especially your sweet baking, makes such a difference! You won't necessarily notice the salt, but it rounds things out so nicely.
How to make Thin and Crispy Cookies
I often get a lot of questions about how I tweak a recipe - now that I have been running my food blog for a number of years, I often turn to my own recipes as a jumping off point when working on a new recipe.
For this ginger snap recipe, I used my ginger molasses cookies as a starting point. I love the recipe, but wanted something slightly thinner and crunchier, so here are the changes that I made, which are often changes I make in other cookie recipes too to manipulate them how I like.
- Changed the ratio of brown sugar to white sugar. My ginger molasses cookies have a higher ratio of brown sugar to white, which makes them thicker and spread less. I switched up the ratios for these ginger snap cookies, meaning the cookies spread more, and have a perfect chewy texture which gets crunchy around the edges.
- Drop the flour content sightly. This increases the ratio of butter to flour, meaning the cookie spreads a little more in the oven.
- Increase the molasses. I tweaked it by just a little, but this help with spread.
- Increase baking soda. I use baking soda rather than baking powder in the cookies, and increased the quantity slightly to ensure there was enough to give the cookies a little rise and not be cancelled out by the molasses. My general rule is baking soda helps with spread, and baking powder helps with puff.
- Bake for longer. This is a pretty simple one, but to get that lovely crunchy gingersnap cookie, I increased the bake time slightly. If you want them even more crunchy, bake them for a little longer!
Community Review
“These are amazing!! Will absolutely be making again. May have smashed back one too many when soft and warm out of the oven but they're just as good when cooled and crispy. Giving me crunchy dunkable gingernut vibes which I haven't found in a recipe before!”
—Kylie
Read more reviews »
Can Ginger Snap Cookies be made ahead of time?
These gingersnap cookies are great to make ahead of time, as they are a super robust cookie and keep super well in a container. Alternatively you can make the dough ahead of time and store the cookie dough balls in the freezer until you are ready to bake, or bake some off and then freeze the rest of the dough.
How do you store Ginger Snap Cookies?
Store gingersnap cookies in an airtight container at room temperature. They will keep for up to a week stored correctly.
I haven't tried freezing the baked cookie - I would freeze the dough as fresh baked is always so much nicer!
How to freeze cookie dough
This gingersnap cookie recipe is great to make ahead - the dough stores super well frozen, so you can pull it out and bake whenever you need.
It is important to not coat the balls of dough in the sugar before you freeze them, otherwise the sugar will get all weird and weepy when you bring them out to re bake.
To freeze the dough, scoop it out, roll into balls, then flash freeze the dough and store in the freezer in an airtight container or bag for up to three months.
For more tips and tricks on freezing dough and baking from frozen, check out my post: How to freeze cookie dough
How to bake Gingersnaps from Frozen
I tested this out with some of the gingersnap cookie dough that I had frozen, and found that the best way to bake the frozen dough and get the most similar outcome is to bake it at a lower temperature - 325°f / 160°c (I cover this more on other cookies in my post on how to freeze cookie dough). This gives the frozen dough more time to spread.
When you are ready to bake from frozen, remove the dough from the freezer and leave it to stand at room temperature to soften very slightly while the oven preheats. This makes the surface of the cookie dough ball slightly sticky, and means the sugar will stick to the outside.
Roll the cookies in sugar and bake for 17-18 minutes or until the cookies are your desired level of doneness.
Frequently Asked Questions
What tools and equipment do you use?
You can find a full list of the tools and equipment I use on my products page
Can Ginger Snaps be made Gluten Free?
I haven't tried it sorry, so I'm not sure!
Can this recipe be made without a stand mixer?
Yes, if you don't have a stand mixer you can use an electric hand mixer, or make by hand if you have a lot of elbow grease!
Can I roll the gingersnap cookies in something else?
Yes - do whatever you like here! You could roll the cookies in ginger sugar like I did in my ginger molasses cookie recipe, or roll them in a cinnamon sugar mixture.
For more holiday cookie recipes, check out:
- 30 Minute Shortbread Cookies
- Red Velvet Sugar Cookies
- Hundreds and Thousands Biscuits
- Hot Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
❤️ Made this recipe and love it? ❤️
I would LOVE for you to leave me a review and star rating below to let me know how you liked it! Also, please make sure to tag me on Instagram!
Answers to your baking questions
Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:
- baking in grams
- adjusting oven temperatures
- what kind of salt to use
- and many more!
I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!
30 Minute Thin and Crispy Gingersnap Cookies
5 Stars4 Stars3 Stars2 Stars1 Star4.9 from 59 reviews
- Author: Erin Clarkson
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 22 cookies 1x
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These easy, homemade gingersnap cookies are thin and crispy, and rolled in sparkly coarse sugar for the perfect crunchy ginger snap cookie recipe. These ginger snaps are a great make ahead cookie - either bake them ahead, or store the frozen cookie dough in the freezer for later!
Ingredients
Scale
- 225g butter, at room temperature
- 100g light or dark brown sugar
- 200g granulated sugar
- 40g unsulphured molasses (blackstrap works too)
- 1 large egg (50g without the shell), at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
- 290g all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp (6g) baking soda
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 4 tsp (8g) ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground cardamom
- Turbinado / demerara / raw sugar for rolling
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°f / 180°c. Line 2-3 baking sheets with parchment paper (you may have to bake these in several batches depending on how many trays your oven can tolerate).
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and molasses together on high speed until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix to combine. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and spices in a small bowl. Add to the mixer and mix on low until just combined.
- Using a 2 tbsp spring loaded cookie scoop, scoop balls of dough (approx 45g each), and place them onto a prepared baking sheet. I like to do 6 on each sheet then increase to 8 when I know how much space they will take up. Roll each ball of dough between your hands to form a ball, then roll in the turbinado sugar before placing on the baking sheet. Leave any mixture that you are not baking off just yet in the bowl and scoop just before baking.
- Bake the cookies for 16-17 minutes or until puffy and set around the edges. Remove from the oven, and if you like, scoot the cookies into a rounder shape using a cookie cutter slightly larger than the cookie. Cool on the pan for 5 minutes - the cookies will deflate slightly as they cool. Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool completely. Repeat the baking process with the remaining cookie dough.
- Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.
Notes
If you want your ginger snap cookies to be more crunchy, increase the bake time by 1-2 minutes.
Key Ingredients
- Cardamom
- Cinnamon
- Ginger
« 30 Minute Shortbread Cookies
20 minute Chocolate Crinkle Cookies »
Reader Interactions
KatieBest ginger cookie I've ever made. So quick and easy, and the texture is amazing. I think better than standard gingerbread as it takes way less time and is pretty foolproof 🙂 Got a lot of compliments on these!
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- Mike
Really great recipe, everyone loved them. Nice spice level and they're lovely and crispy. Second time I made them I added some chopped up bits of crystallised ginger too (because I had some and I love it) and it didn't ruin the recipe (!) and that tasted good too.
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- Erin Clarkson
Yummm I really want to try that too! I love crystallised ginger
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- Mary
These are the best gingersnaps I have made. I highly recommend this recipe!!
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- Krista
This is THE BEST ginger snap recipe. A perfect balance of spices and they are crispy but chewy. I have been looking for a good ginger snap recipe for years. My search is over. This one is a keeper! Thank you!
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- Aimee
Yum my picky 5 year old who won’t even eat chocolate chip cookies LOVES these! Thanks for another great recipe
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- Christina
Now that's a GREAT cookie! My idea of the perfect chewy molasses ginger cookie. Thank you for sharing it!
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- Colleen Delawder
These are our new favorite cookies! Absolutely delicious. I substituted all spice for cardamom just because that’s what I had on hand. I love that you included the weight of each ingredient, no guessing. Thank you for the recipe!
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- Nicole McNab
It’s not often you can follow a recipe and they come out looking like the photo in the recipe, but these do every single time. Thanks for the measurements in grams not only is it accurate but less washing up, win win. Such a nice easy recipe and absolutely delicious final product!!!!
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See AlsoThe Best Gingersnaps Recipe - Jess
I took a chance on this recipe, making it for my Christmas cookie boxes without testing it first, and I’m so glad I did!! They were simple to make. The flavor and snap was perfect! Will definitely be making these again.
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- KAR FEI
HELLO HELLO LADIES AND GENTLEMEN ,CHILDREN OF ALL AGES .
COULD Y’all PLEASEE TAKE A FEW MOMENT OF YOUR LIFETIME TO SEE MY COMMENT PLEASE!
This gingersnap or whatever cookie it’s called is THE BEST GINGER COOKIE RECIPE EVeR !!!!!!!!!!!!!
I baked this today and the resulting texture was gorgeous and it tasted absouloutly HEAVEN!!!!
!!!!!IF U ARE FINDING A GINGER COOKIE RECIPE, USE THISSSSSSSZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!Thanks for wasting your lifetime reading this <3
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- Jodie
Yummy!!! Just what I was looking for. A proper gingerSNAP. Thanks for the recipe! It's a keeper 🙂
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- Ann. Wrage
I do ounces, cups, teaspoons etc as measurements.
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- Erin Clarkson
nice! I do grams as measurements.
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- Seasons01
Are you asking her to convert it? It's better to buy a scale and measure in one bowl. No measuring cups are needed, less washing and way more accurate. Way easier.
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- Andrea Phillips
Oh my gosh, these are amazing! I've never been able to eat snaps without milk, but these are fantastic all on their own. I did not include the cardamom since it was way too expensive to buy for just a small amount in one trial recipe. I didn't miss it. They are BIG if you us 45g balls as instructed. (I wouldn't put more than 6 on my baking sheet.) Next time I'll try 25g or 30g balls.
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- Karen
So delicious, everyone loved them! The sugar crunch was the best part. In the future I'd make them about half the recommended size, 40g balls give very big cookies as they spread a lot.
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- Cordelia
So easy to make and turned out great, perfectly crispy and chewy. I froze the dough and added about 2 minutes to bake from frozen, as recommended. This will be a go-to recipe for years to come!
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- Ashke
I love this recipe, it was easy for me to follow and came together beautifully. I made these as a guft for my OH this Holiday and they loved them.
My only question is what is the bottom of these cookies meant to look like? Mine have a weird bottom, they have a light ring with a darker centre. I wonder if it may be because of my parchment paper as each cookie did leave a oil spot on the parchment paper.
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- Erin Clarkson
Hmmm I'm not sure sorry I haven't had that happen before!
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- Seasons01
They spread and are not as pictured. Taste great but that is where it ends.
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- Erin Clarkson
Sorry they didn't work out! Did you make the recipe by weight? If so, your oven temp is likely off
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- Carmen Settineri
Suspect my dough was a bit TOO warm after handling, because a few of the cookies had some rather crazy spreading in the oven. That being said, the cookies that spread out excessively got extra dark and the caramelized flavor was divine! Also lucky for me I had a hunch the dough might be a bit crazy before I put my trays in the oven, and I set aside some dough balls in the fridge as an experiment. Will bake the chilled dough tomorrow to see how things turn out, but even with a few of them not looking as nicely uniform, this recipe was a keeper. I just need to play around with it a bit to get everything down pat.
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- Michele
Mine did not crack at all. Is that because I chose not to roll them in sugar before baking? I didn't have cardomon, so I used allspice. They taste "ok"
Maybe, I'll try recipe as exact next time??Reply
- Erin Clarkson
Yep I would recommend making them as written!
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- erica
I have made these over and over again (more times than I can count) and almost ALWAYS gluten free. I use King Arthur's Measure for Measure GF flour in the same amounts listed in the recipe and nobody knows the difference.
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- PMA
Made these this morning from your quick and easy recipe to follow!
I had ghee to use up so replaced butter. Worked a treat for morning tea.
Thank youReply
- alice
Thank you so much for this recipe! After buying all of the retail ginger snaps and left unsatisfied... I finally made some at home. This recipe at 16 minutes in oven makes the cookie perfectly crunchy (throughout the whole cookie) and not too sweet! It was great as a "breakfast cookie" with our coffee this morning! Bonus love for how easy the cookie was to handle/relocate right out of the oven! Thanks again
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- Panache Kitchen & Bar
Baking soda will only do something when there is an acid in the recipe it can react with, such as buttermilk. Your cookies will spread without the baking soda.
Baking powder is baking soda with acid which is why it makes your cookies "puff".Reply
- Erin Clarkson
both brown sugar and molasses are acidic 🙂
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- Jen
So delicious and super-easy to make. Absolute winner of a recipe!
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