Soft and chewy and bursting with spice, these gluten-free molasses cookies boast a pillowy, tender texture and sparkly, crinkled tops. Many readers have had success making these community-favorite cookies egg-free, dairy-free, and paleo.
Let's just get one thing straight: these are not gingersnaps. Not that there's anything wrong with gingersnaps. They're light, crispy, crunchy; just the thing for dunking in a mug of tea, or grinding with butter to make into a crust for cheesecake, say. In fact, I have a recipe for GF gingersnaps in my book Alternative Baker that are perfectly dreamy.
These soft gluten-free molasses cookies just aren't them.
The softest, chewiest cookies
I first shared this recipe back in 2012 and they've been a reader favorite as well as a personal favorite ever since. I make these every fall when the air turns cool and I crave warm, spicy comfort in the form of pillowy ginger cookies.
I adapted this recipe from three different sources: Alice Medrich's wheat-free Ginger Cookies from Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies, my own tests with gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, and my favorite gluteny version from Cook's Illustrated.
These gluten-free ginger molasses cookies are incredibly moist, chewy, and tender in a way that glutenous cookies can only wish for. A generous pour of dark molasses keeps them soft for days, while adding deep, rich coffee notes that play off cinnamon, ginger and black pepper. They are little pillows of spicy love.
I love these cookies so much that I also developed these double chocolate ginger molasses cookies loaded with cocoa powder and chocolate chunks - for those of us for can't go without chocolate in our cookies.
Ingredients & Substitution Suggestions
These cookies are easy to make with a handful of pantry-friendly ingredients and gluten-free flours.
- Butter makes these cookies moist and soft. I make these with melted (rather than softened) butter, meaning you just whisk everything together. For a dairy-free variation, use a plant-based butter instead. Miyoko's vegan butter is my favorite!
- An egg adds moisture and structure. You can try using a flax egg or a commercial egg substitute. A reader made these using 1/4 cup Just Egg and they worked well!
- Granulated and brown sugars (light or dark) make these cookies just sweet enough. I prefer organic sugar which has larger crystals and extra molasses flavor. You can use coconut sugar in place of both sugars by weight, but the cookies won't crinkle on top.
- Molasses gives these cookies their signature rich taste and chewy texture. I use blackstrap molasses, which is the thickest type of molasses. Lighter molasses will make the cookies sweeter and lighter in color, and it may cause them to spread more. Try using less molasses if a thinner variety is what you've got.
- Vanilla adds flavor along with the classic spices: ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and a little black pepper. A hit of salt sharpens the flavors.
- A trio of gluten-free flours stands in for all-purpose. Sweet rice flour helps the dough hold together, oat flour adds whole-grain goodness and a fluffy crumb, and tapioca flour makes them extra chewy. You can use a GF AP blend in place of any or all of the flours by weight. Oat flour can be swapped for buckwheat flour or teff flour for a richer flavor. Tapioca flour can be swapped for arrowroot flour.
- Baking soda helps the cookies lift and spread, forming pretty cracks on top.
Method
The dough for these gluten-free ginger cookies comes together with just 10 minutes of active time. The dough needs to chill for at least 1-2 hours, until firm enough to roll into balls, but the cookies are best when the dough is allowed to chill for 1-2 days. The recipe makes about 2 dozen cookies. Double the recipe if you need moar cookies. See below for more cookie baking tips!
Tips for baking the best gluten-free ginger molasses cookies
- Cookies are particularly sensitive to small variations in ingredient amounts, as well as dough and oven temperature. When this dough is first mixed, it is gooey and soft, more like a quick bread batter. If you can wrestle it into a ball, roll it in sugar, and get it onto a baking sheet, it will spread generously in the heat of the oven; not quite flat as a pancake, but close. The texture will also have a vaguely gluten-free quality.
- If you can bear it, cover the dough and chill it for at least an hour or two, or, even better, for one to two days. The starches in the flours will absorb moisture from the dough and swell, making for a smoother, sturdier dough. Now when you form the firm dough into balls, they will spread and puff into thick and chewy, crinkled pillows. Their mouthfeel will be smooth, almost creamy on the inside.
- I love that this recipe uses melted butter that gets simply stirred together with the other ingredients rather than creamed in a stand mixer. It takes about 5 minutes to mix up. You can weigh your ingredients right into one bowl and have minimal washing up to do afterwards.
- The key to the pretty cracked tops is to bake the cookies one sheet at a time on the top rack. Bake them until the edges start to set but the centers are soft, puffed, and cracked.
- These gluten-free ginger molasses cookies keep beautifully when properly under-baked; I like them even better on days 2 and 3 when the flavors have melded even more.
Bojon appétit! For more Bojon Gourmet in your life, follow along on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or Pinterest, purchase my award-winning gluten-free baking cookbook Alternative Baker, or subscribe to receive new posts via email. And if you make this gluten-free ginger molasses cookie recipe, I’d love to know. Leave a comment and rating below, and tag your Instagram snaps @The_Bojon_Gourmet and #bojongourmet.
Crinkle-Top Gluten-Free Ginger Molasses Cookies
Print Recipe Pin RecipeIngredients
Dry Ingredients
- 1¼ cups gluten-free oat flour (such as Bob's Red Mill) (4 ½ ounces / 125 g)
- ¾ cup sweet rice flour (such as Koda Farms Mochiko) (4 ounces / 115 g)
- ¼ cup tapioca flour (such as Bob's Red Mill) (1 ounce / 28 g)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
Wet Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and kept warm (4 ounces / 113 g)
- ⅓ cup molasses (I use blackstrap) (3 ½ ounces / 100 g)
- ⅓ cup light or dark brown sugar (2 ¼ ounces / 67 g)
- ⅓ cup organic granulated sugar (2 ¼ ounces / 67 g)
- 1 large egg (2 ounces out of shell)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
To finish
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar (2 ¼ ounces / 67 g)
Instructions
Make the cookie dough
- In a medium bowl, sift together the oat, sweet rice, and tapioca flours with the baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, pepper, and salt.
- In a large bowl, stir together the butter, molasses, brown sugar, and 1/3 cup of the granulated sugar. Whisk in the egg and vanilla extract. Stir in the flour mixture with a sturdy wooden spoon. Once the flour is incorporated, stir vigorously for 40 strokes - this activates the stickiness of the flours and makes for chewy cookies.
- Cover the dough and chill until firm, 1-2 hours or preferably 1-2 days.
Bake the cookies
- When you're ready to bake, position a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat to 350ºF. Line 2 rimless cookie sheets with parchment paper. Place the remaining 1/3 cup of granulated sugar in a shallow bowl.
- Scoop the cookies into 1" balls (a spring-loaded #40 ice cream scoop works wonders) and roll each ball in the sugar. Place the balls at least 2" apart on the cookie sheet.
- Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, until they are puffed and cracked, and the dough between the cracks looks underbaked, 7-10 minutes, rotating the pan after 5 minutes to ensure even baking. Repeat with the second sheet.
- Let the cookies cool slightly on the sheet (or if they've been overcooked, whisk the parchment and cookies straight off the sheet and onto a cooling rack), then use a thin, metal spatula to remove the cookies to a cooling rack. Cool completely (the cookies will still be baking from residual heat), then store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Notes
- My original recipe called for 1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum, but I've tested them without and didn't detect a difference, so I've removed it from the ingredients.
- If you can, start these cookies a day (or even two) ahead; the dough benefits from a day of chilling, resulting in thicker, chewier, smoother cookies. If you must have cookies straight away, go ahead and bake some off; they will spread more, and will have a thinner and more brittle texture, but they will still be good.
- Err on the side of underbaking, removing the cookies when they are puffed and cracked, with the dough between the cracks looks underbaked. For the craggiest cookies, bake the trays one at a time in the upper third of the oven.
- I recommend weighing the ingredients for these (and all) cookies as slight variations in amounts can cause the cookies to spread too much or not enough. (Besides, measuring molasses into a cup and then trying to get it back out again is no fun).
- I use blackstrap molasses here. If you use a lighter version, try using only 1/4 cup since lighter molasses is more runny and will make the cookies spread more.
- Sweet rice flour is stickier than regular white rice flour and can be found with other gluten-free flours at health food stores, or at Asian grocers.
Summer says
I subbed the maple sugar for white sugar in the recipe and used coconut sugar in place of the brown sugar. I also rolled them in maple sugar before baking.
For flours I used almond and cassava as you suggested and measured by weight.
Alanna Taylor-Tobin says
Hi Summer,
Thank you so much for the feedback and for experimenting with this recipe! I tested it as well and it worked brilliantly. Planning to make a separate post with this paleo version at some point in the future since it's so good it its own rite. Thanks again for being game to experiment!
-A
Mame says
I found this recipe when I was looking for a way to use up a small amount of fancy molasses and rice flour which was left over from my Christmas baking. I changed the quantities slightly using 1 cup of regular (not sweet) rice flour and 1 1/4 cups Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 gluten-free flour because that’s what I had on hand. It was a tad dry so I popped in two eggs in instead of one. Everything else was the same, and I chilled it for a day and a half before baking for 10 minutes.
Wow - what a fabulous cookie! This is going to replace the usual gingerbread that I make at Christmas. Thank-you!
Alanna Taylor-Tobin says
I'm so glad the cookies worked well with those flours and an extra egg - that's fantastic! Thanks a bunch for the note and for sharing your substitutions - that's so helpful for other readers too.
Diane in Santa Fe says
What an outstanding recipe and how did I not know about these GF Ginger Molasses Cookies until now (another reason I’m on your email list)?
I made no adjustments for high altitude, followed the recipe exactly and my results look just like your photo, Alanna. Thanks for a great GF cookie, especially for this time of year:)
Alanna Taylor-Tobin says
I'm so glad you're enjoying the emails and that these cookies turned out well - especially in high altitude! Thanks so much for the great feedback :)
Alison says
Hi! I’m a big fan of some of your other melted-butter cookie doughs; the cherry chocolate brown butter cookies in Alternative Baker are in heavy rotation in my house! Assuming you chill the dough for a day or more, how do you scoop the dough at baking time? Mine is always too hard for a scoop to handle. Should I let it come back to room temp?
Alanna Taylor-Tobin says
I'm so happy you're liking the cookie recipes!
Great question about scooping chilled dough. What I've found works well is to chill the dough until it's firm enough to scoop, 1-2 hours. Scoop the dough into balls and put the dough balls in a lidded container lined with parchment paper. Chill the dough balls until you're ready to bake.
Let me know if you try that method!
Adrienne says
i was fresh out of ground ginger so I used about 1" of "fresh" ginger I keep in the freezer. I made ginger snow with the microplane and mixed it into the wet ingredients. The flavor is amazing but suspect the added moisture unbalanced the dough. I have only baked them after 1 hour of rest (teach appreciation day snuck up on me!) but have saved some to bake off after a longer rest. My dough is also paler, but I think my costco brown sugar is somewhere between light and dark brown. May try the next time with muscavado sugar. Lastly, whats the difference between black strap and dark unsulphured (I use Grandma's brand)? I find the dark unsulphured thicker than the black strap.
Alanna Taylor-Tobin says
Hi Adrienne,
That's great to know that this recipe works with fresh ginger in a pinch - brilliant! But I can see how the excess moisture might make the dough more spready. You could try adding an additional tablespoon of sweet rice flour to thicken it up next time.
Great question about the molasses! I got feedback from a friend of mine who made these using dark unsulphured molasses while all other ingredients and brands were the same and she measured by weight. She said hers came out more thin and flat. I did some research and read that dark unsulphured molasses is thinner than blackstrap. So that's interesting to hear that you've found the opposite to be true. These are the things that keep me up at night!
Please let me know if you try the cookies again, or if they bake up thicker after a longer chill. In any case, so glad you enjoyed them!
xo,
A
Jane says
This was my second cookie recipe from The Bojon Gourmet. I didn’t think anything could outdo the Magical Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies, but I think these may. So lovely, chewy, gingery. I left the dough for 2 full days in the fridge per the recommendation. I’m glad I did. Thank you for such awesome recipes!
Alanna Taylor-Tobin says
Yay, so glad you loved these molasses cookies! These and the tahini cookies are two of my all-time favorite recipes too :D Thanks so much for the kind note!