Easy Gingerbread Cookies

These easy gingerbread cookies make the best holiday cut-out cookies for decorating. They’re strongly spiced for extra kick and go so well with the sweetness of the simple 2-ingredient icing that hardens like royal icing.

Jump to:

• Why you’ll love this recipe
• Ingredients
• How to make easy gingerbread cookies
• Royal icing without eggs or meringue powder
• Frequently asked questions
• More holiday cookie recipes to try
• Recipe

These cookies are my easiest holiday cookie recipe to make. I love that they’re so versatile and you can cut and decorate them in just about any way you want. This recipe makes a ton of cookies depending on the size of your cookie cutters. I love using my classic gingerbread man cookie cutters, snowflakes, trees, and stars for these. I’ve also cut regular circles or fluted circles with them and they work just as well for a simple cookie.

Why you’ll love this recipe

• These gingerbread cookies are easy to make and mixed by hand (thanks to the melted butter) so you don’t need an electric mixer.
• The dough is easy to roll out and the cookies keep their shape perfectly when baked.
• These cookies are deeply spiced and delicious!
• You can bake them as soft or hard as you prefer.
• They’re decorated with icing that doesn’t contain eggs or meringue powder so it’s quick to mix and perfect for decorating with friends, family, and kids.

Ingredients

• All-purpose flour
• Baking soda
• Salt
• Gingerbread spices - This is where most of the flavour comes from. I’ve used a mix of ground cinnamon, ground cloves, ground allspice, and ground cloves. You can also use pre-mixed gingerbread spice if you have it.
• Unsalted butter - We’re using melted butter instead of softened butter in this recipe which makes them easy to mix by hand and you don’t need to cream the butter with an electric mixer.
• Brown sugar - Feel free to substitute with granulated sugar if the deep, roasted taste of molasses is already enough for your tastes.
• Cooking molasses - There may be a few different types of molasses at your grocery store like blackstrap and fancy molasses. Cooking molasses is a mix of blackstrap and fancy molasses. It has a stronger taste than fancy molasses but it’s not as bitter as blackstrap molasses.
• Egg
• Vanilla extract
• Powdered sugar - This is for the simple icing.
• Milk - You can use dairy milk or any non-dairy milk. You only need a small amount for the icing so it really doesn’t matter what kind.

How to make easy gingerbread cookies

Tip: Make the gingerbread cookie dough the night before you plan to bake and decorate them as it needs time to chill in the fridge.

Mix dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and cloves. Set aside.

Mix wet ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together melted butter and brown sugar until combined. Add in the molasses, egg, and vanilla extract and whisk until smooth.

Combine wet and dry ingredients. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and fold together with a spatula until it forms a soft and crumbly dough.

Form the cookie dough. Turn out the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap and use your hands to press it together to form a flattened disc. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Preheat and prep. When you’re ready to roll the dough out, leave the dough at room temperature for 15-20 minutes to soften before rolling. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

On a floured surface, roll the dough out to about ⅛” thick. Use cookie cutters of your choice to cut out your cookies and transfer them to a baking sheet. They won’t spread much at all so you can place them about ½” apart. Re-roll the scraps and repeat until you use up your dough.

Bake cookies for about 9-10 minutes. Let cookies cool on the baking tray for 5-10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely before icing.

Royal icing without eggs or meringue powder

I love this simple 2-ingredient icing. This icing is made without eggs, meringue powder, or corn syrup. It is basically a powdered sugar and milk glaze but it’s thick enough to pipe onto cookies and it hardens completely so that you can stack your cookies without disturbing the icing.

You can use this icing to pipe thin lines or cover the whole cookie with the “flooding” technique just like royal icing. It’s a little bit more delicate and not as precise as royal icing for fine details but it’s a worthwhile trade-off for being so easy. This is a great icing to make for kids (or if you’re simply lazy like me!) since it’s so easy and you can easily mix in gel food colouring to create your custom colours.

To make the icing: In a small bowl, stir together powdered sugar and milk until thick and smooth. If it’s too runny, add more powdered sugar. If it’s too stiff, add more milk. The consistency should be just runny enough to pipe fine lines that hold their shape. The different “lines” of icing should merge together seamlessly after a few seconds.

Decorate the cookies. Transfer the icing to a small piping bag and snip the tip of the bag off. Pipe icing onto cookies and let dry completely, about 15 minutes, before storing.

Frequently asked questions

More holiday cookie recipes to try

• Gingerbread Sandwich Cookies with Ginger Cream Filling
• Hazelnut Linzer Cookies
• Salted Chocolate Sablé Cookies
• Ruby Chocolate Shortbread Cookies
• Butter Cookie Box (10 cookies from 1 dough)

Recipe