Jump to Recipe Print Recipe
Get in theholiday spirit with some spicy, chewy gingerbread cookies! They keep their shapewhen cut with cookie cutters and they stay soft and delicious! They’re the ultimate Christmas cookies.
This post contains affiliate links.
Christmas is in the air!
Slowly but surely I’m breaking out the Christmas decorations — hopefully I’ll be able to really go at it todaybefore I have another work week of never seeing the sun.
But I did put up a really cute table runner and a little treescape thingy in a dome on our dining room table.
And we finally replaced the $25 4-foot pre-lit tree I got about 5 years agowhose lights had burned out after the first year!
It looked pretty terrible, restrung with a strand of lights that had a white cord. You could see the cord a mile away against that green tree. Silly me. I accidentally strung the green-corded ones up on the white porch trim, and I was NOT restringing both sets of lights!
WELL! This year we got a big tree – 7 feet tall. Pre-lit, and since it’s new the lights actually work! It’s just beautiful. We haven’t decorated it yet but it is gorgeous all on its own, there in the corner of the living room with its white lights glowing in the branches.
There’s only one problem.
I was hoping since the cats are a year and a half old now they would be a little more relaxed than they were last year when they were kittens and kind of… leave the tree alone.
Yeah. Not happening.
Penny is pretty respectful of the tree, but Pepper is a chewer and a climber. He’s also 12 lbs.
And while the tree may have been able to withstand Penny’s tiny 6 lb kitten-like weight, a 12-lb cat leaves the tree with a nice gap of bent-down branches all the way around the tree at exactly the height of the back of the chair, which happens to be his entrance point.
I would love suggestions on keeping a cat out of a fake Christmas tree if you have any. Right now, I’m armed with a spray bottle, which he couldn’t care less about.
He is the cuddliest, most loving, most mischievous and neurotic cat. Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.
So apart from decorations, there are afew other things that really make it feel like Christmas time for me. Watching A Christmas Story, drinking eggnog, making zeppole (fried Italian donuts) on Christmasmorning, and baking someadorably-shaped chewy gingerbread cookies.
I’ve been making this recipe for years, and since it’s from Cook’s Illustrated (one of the magazines from America’s Test Kitchen) it’s pretty much perfect.
If you’re unfamiliar with America’s Test Kitchen, they basically take a given dish and test the heck out of it until they have it absolutely perfect. More butter, more flour, different technique, different temperature — they identify key issues with a recipe (Lasagna takes too long,buffalo chicken is too greasy or not crispy enough, etc.) and solve them.
With this one, they have recipes for both crispy and chewy gingerbread cookies, since a lot of people use the crispy ones for ornaments or gingerbread houses. But I just want to eat them, and the chewy ones are just amazing — perfect texture, and full of all those Christmasy spices.
And there’s no egg in the dough so you can eat as much of it raw as you want. A big bonus!
They don’t spread out a ton either, so you can still use cookie cutters and decorate them with icing, if you wish. I’ve had a Christmas party for several years with eggnog and cookie decorating, and I’d decorate and eat these chewy gingerbread cookies over crunchy sugar cookies any day!
Cute cookie cutters are a must. These “ninjabread men” ones are my faves.
I also love these tiny 2″ cookie cutters. You can probably get away with cooking them for 7 minutes instead of 8-11 if you’re using really small cutters, so they will stay chewy.
I like miniature desserts though – they’re not too much of a commitment if you just want a little something sweet, and you don’t feel too bad having two or three.
The best part, in my opinion, is they’re chewy — and they stay chewy.
Consider giving these chewy gingerbread cookies a try this year – they may just become part of your Christmas tradition too!
4.46 from 33 votes
Chewy Gingerbread cookies
Get in the holiday spirit with some spicy, chewy gingerbread cookies! They keep their shape when cut with cookie cutters and they stay soft and delicious! They're the ultimate Christmas cookies. From Cooks Illustrated.
Print Recipe Save Recipe
Course: Dessert
Yield: 30 cookies
Author: Caroline Lindsey
Prep Time:10 minutes mins
Cook Time:10 minutes mins
Total Time:1 hour hr
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup dark brown sugar packed
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tbsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 12 tbsp unsalted butter softened slightly and cut into 12 pieces
- 3/4 cup unsulphured molasses
- 2 tbsp milk
Instructions
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt, and baking soda. Set mixer to stir until ingredients are well-mixed.
Stop mixer, add butter, and mix on low until mixture resembles damp sand, about a minute and a half. (If you have a plastic bowl guard that will help keep flour from flying out, it would be a good idea to add that before you turn the mixer on)
While mixer is running on low, slowly add the molasses and milk. Spraying your measuring cup with cooking spray before adding the molasses will help it come out smoother and be easier to clean. Turn mixer to medium for about 10 seconds to thoroughly mix dough.
Turn out dough onto a piece of parchment paper and pat into a ball. Cut dough into two pieces and roll each piece out to 1/4" thickness between two pieces of parchment paper. Don't roll it too thin or your cookie won't be as chewy!
Put dough, in its parchment paper, in the freezer for 15-20 minutes. It is MUCH less sticky and easier to cut after hardening for a bit.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and set shelves to upper-middle and lower-middle positions.
Remove one sheet of dough from the freezer. Peel parchment off one side of the dough, replace parchment, flip over, and peel off the other side of the parchment. Cut out shapes with a cookie cutter and place cookies about 3/4 inch apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Dough will soften quickly so when you finish cutting your shapes in the first piece of dough, re-roll it out between parchment paper again and replace into the freezer while you cut shapes out of the second piece of dough. Dough can be recombined and re-rolled as many times as necessary.
You can bake two sheets at a time, if you switch the top and bottom sheets halfway through. Bake for 8-11 minutes or until the centers of the cookies are set and barely retain an imprint when you tough them. Do not overbake.
Tried this recipe?Mention @pinchmeimeating or tag #pinchmeimeating on Instagram!
