Old-Fashioned Iced Molasses Cookies
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Thick chewy Iced Molasses Cookies are going to be your new favorite cookies! Just like grandma used to make, these cookies are PURE comfort food. And these chewy molasses cookies are perfect for the holiday season!
Chewy old-fashioned cookies are baked up full of warm spices and mellow molasses for a perfectly soft cookie. Then they’re topped with an easy sweet
This simple recipe makes the perfect holiday cookie to make with kids. Little hands can roll dough balls into small balls for baking. You can put the trays in and out of the oven. And again little hands can help ice the cookies as well. They could even add sprinkles if need be!
Our Favorite Christmas Cookies!
We’ve got a lot of favorite Christmas cookies around here. Our family’s traditional Russian Tea Cakes can’t be beaten for flavor, and last well in a cookie tin! We also love the Air Fryer Gingerbread Cookies. And if you love Candy Canes try these Frosted Candy Cane Cookies for the pepperminty awesomeness! And if you know anyone with gluten allergies try my White Chocolate No Bake Cookies OR my Chocolate No Bake Cookies, both delicious and allergy friendly.
What do I need to make Molasses Cookies with icing?
- all-purpose flour
- baking soda
- ground ginger
- ground cinnamon
- salt
- nutmeg
- cloves
- soft butter
- brown sugar
- light molasses
- egg
- powdered sugar
- vanilla extract
- cream
- parchment paper
- wire racks
- baking sheets
- hand mixer or stand mixer
- mixing bowls
The types of molasses?
What kind of molasses should I use? This recipe was developed with light, unsulphered molasses. Most of the molasses found in the stores is unsulphered.
Typically they sell light or unsulphered molasses in the grocery store. Light molasses comes from the first boiling of sugar beets or cane, dark molasses is from the second boiling and blackstrap molasses is the third boiling of the sugar can or beets. The flavors also follow that lineup, light has a lightly sweet flavor and taste, dark is heavier, and blackstrap is the sharpest and sometimes has a little bitterness to it.
Next time you’re buying molasses look at the shelves and see what’s available. Sometimes I can find all three, and sometimes there is no variety and we get light. Maybe it depends on the time of the year.
How to make Iced Molasses Frosting
These cookies are actually iced with icing, not frosting. Icing is typically made of powdered sugar,
Now frosting is typically butter-based and thicker. You can add color to it, stack cakes with it, and stick things together with it. Frosting is usually found on cakes, think buttercream, cream cheese, and even swiss meringue buttercream.
WHY DO MOLASSES COOKIES GET HARD AND DRY?
If cookies are hard or dry then you’ve got a couple of problems happening. You’ve either added too much flour to your recipe, which is why you should loosen your flour with a spoon before scooping. Measuring carefully OR switching to a digital scale can help you.
Overbaking cookies can also dry them out. Only bake cookies just until they’re done. They may still be soft when they’re baked through. They only need time to set up on the baking sheet at that point. Leave the warm cookies on the pan to set up before transferring them to a cooling rack.
And if you’ve baked soft chewy cookies and they get hard then you’re probably not storing them in an airtight container. Try a large flat container and separate layers as needed with parchment paper or waxed paper. Or use Ziploc bags to seal your cookies up very well.
Make ahead of time
To make in advance for the busiest time of the year, make them up to the point of cooling them on the cooling rack. Place un-iced cookies in a freezer bag and freeze for up to 3 months. If you don’t have a freezer bag you can use plastic wrap to wrap the cookies up tightly. Then use a storage container OR a regular storage zipper bag.
OR roll the dough in balls and freeze in the same way. Thaw and bake as usual.
OUR OTHER FAVORITE COOKIE RECIPES
We love a good cookie around here. These are three of our favorite recipes that are NOT holiday cookies!
- The Brownie Cookie, the Brookie!
- Florentines
- Kitchen Sink Cookies
Iced Molasses Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp ground cloves
- 3/4 cup softened butter
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/3 cup un-sulphured molasses
- 1 egg
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 3 TBSP cream
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°
- line baking sheet with parchment and set aside
- in a medium bowl mix the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, salt, nutmeg, and cloves with a whisk, and then set aside
- in a larger mixing bowl beat the butter and sugar together until soft and fluffy, 2-3 minutes
- beat in the eggs and vanilla
- add the molasses and beat well
- fold into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined
- then roll into tablespoon-sized balls
- place cookies 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets
- flatten balls slightly
- bake 12-14 minutes until just baked, cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes
- transfer the cookies to cooling racks and cool completely
- make the icing by stirring the powdered sugar and vanilla together
- drizzle in just enough of the cream to make a thick icing
- spoon onto the cooled cookies, spread with the back of the spoon
- let the iced molasses cookies sit until the icing is set up
These cookies are so good! They’re so moist and chewy and I love the molasses flavor!
Do you use heavy whipping cream. Where it calls for cream? .just would like clarification. Thank you. These look amazing.
You can do either heavy or regular cream, and half n half or milk will work too! Cream is nice and thick and feels special but any of them will work. The trick is to not add too much of whatever you’re using!
I followed the recipe to a T, but they were kinda thin but chewy and very good.. but I dont understand why they weren’t thicker…I rolled them into nice size balls…
Help I wanna make them again
It’s possibly one of two problems, and neither of them is you, or the recipe. I think butter is now much more watery as farmers work to feed their cows with rising prices and a lack of feed. I’ve read that they’re changing their diets based on what they can get and it’s bound to affect the milk and therefore the butter. The other issue I’ve seen is companies selling “natural sugar” IE unrefined sugar as “brown sugar” and it just doesn’t work in a lot of recipes. Cookies don’t stay puffy but rather just widen out get crispy like cookies made with all-white sugar.
Has anyone ever mixed maple flavor with the powdered sugar instead of vanilla? I think that would be a nice flavor combo.
I’m hearing about watered down butter a lot lately. Which brands do you think are still true butter?