Soft Chewy Ginger Cookies are made with all the warm, aromatic spices that I love and associate with Fall. Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice and cloves are flavors and smells that make me swoon. lol
I even buy candles in those fragrances and burn them year-round. There’s something so homey and warm and welcoming about their scents. Well, no need for candles, today.
My Soft Chewy Ginger Cookies have filled the house with the wonderful aromas of lovely, toasty, warm spices. They make me want to curl up by a warm fire with some cocoa, a good book and a plateful of these delicious cookies! Enjoy!
The Ingredients
- Butter: It needs to be room temperature.
- Sugars: This recipe uses both granulated and dark brown sugar.
- Honey: I buy local, raw and unfiltered honey. It should be at room temperature.
- Eggs: I use large eggs in all my recipes. They need to be room temperature for best results.
- Vanilla: I use my easy homemade vanilla.
- Unbleached all-purpose flour
- baking soda
- Spices: ground ginger, cinnamon (I love the deep flavor of *Saigon cinnamon, [affiliate link] but use your favorite.) and cloves
- salt
- optional, crystal sugar to sprinkle on stamped cookies before baking
Why are Room Temperature Ingredients Important?
At room temperature butter, eggs and dairy products like milk, cream cheese or buttermilk form an emulsion when blended. That emulsion of fats traps air, which in turn, creates light and airy cakes, cookies and baked goods.
If a recipe calls for room temperature ingredients, it will definitely be important to the texture, structure, stability and flavor of your finished product to use them.
Room temperature doesn’t mean melted though or even warm to the touch. Melting butter or cream cheese will change the texture of your finished baked goods, too. About 65° F is perfect for room temperature baking ingredients.
Don’t panic if you forgot to take something out of the fridge. Those items can be brought to room temperature quickly, in a pinch. Read my post, How to Bring Dairy and Eggs to Room Temperature Fast for complete instructions.
My Favorite Tools for Making Cookies
How to Make Soft Chewy Ginger Cookies
This is another tried and true cookie recipe that follows the traditional cookie formula.
- Cream the butter and sugars/honey.
- Beat in the eggs.
- Add the dry ingredients and mix to combine.
SO simple for something so exquisitely scrumptious! Like Snickerdoodles or Peanut Butter Blossoms, these cookies are rolled into balls which are rolled in sugar and then baked.
You’ve probably already memorized my motto with making cookies. “Resist the urge to overbake these.” Like any cookie that you want to be soft and chewy, removing them from the oven just slightly underbaked is the secret. Put the cookie sheet on a cooling rack for two or three minutes to let the cookies continue to “bake” and set up, even though they’re no longer in the oven.
My trusty cookie dough scoop [affiliate link, silicone mats [affiliate link and baking sheets [affiliate link} helped me make quick work of this process.
After 2 or 3 minutes, transfer the cookies from the baking sheet to the cooling rack. These cookies don’t need any more fussing or decoration. They are fantastic and simple and they taste like “home”.
Enjoy your delicious masterpieces!
The Recipe
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Soft Chewy Ginger Cookies
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 3 dozen 1x
Description
Soft and chewy with a deep caramel-y flavor and a warm, lightly spiced finish from the ginger, cinnamon and cloves. One of my anytime favorite cookies, but they’re especially lovely for the holidays. Perfect for gift boxes, too.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 2/3 cup honey, room temperature
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla
- 4 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- Additional sugar
Instructions
- Cream together the butter, honey and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer (or a large mixing bowl if making by hand).
- Beat in the egg.
- Add flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt to the bowl. Mix to thoroughly combine all ingredients.
- Pour sugar in the bottom of a bowl for rolling cookie dough in.
- Using a cookie scoop, drop 1 1/2 inch diameter balls of dough into the bowl of sugar and roll around until all sides are coated.
- Place cookies on a greased or lined cookie sheet and bake at 350° for 8-11 minutes, depending on your oven and the desired softness or crispness of your cookie. For our family, I remove while the cookies are puffy, but still soft in the center and barely crisp around the edges. Cookies will continue to set up on the cookie sheet. Over-baking will result in a crunchier, rather than chewy cookie.
- Prep Time: 10 min
- Cook Time: 10 min
- Category: Dessert, Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
More Delicious Cookie Recipes
Here are three more DELISH cookie recipes from our 12 Days of Christmas Cookies blogger event.
- Raspberry Linzer Cookies, from Arlene, at Flour on My Face
- Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cookies, from Lois, at Walking on Sunshine Recipes
- White Chocolate Pudding Cookies, from Lenny, at Fat Dad Foodie
Chocolate Crinkles
Frosted Drop Sugar Cookies
Waffle Iron Turtle Cookies
About Glenda
I believe cooking from scratch doesn’t have to be complicated and that YOU can do it. My simple recipes, tutorials, and cooking tips will help you get weeknight dinners on the table with less stress. Forget takeout or the drive-thru. Let me show you how to make homemade easy. Read more...
These look delicious! Your family has to be loving These 12 days of Christmas cookies!!
Thank you, Debi! And yes, they are “eating it up”. Literally. lol Have a wonderfully blessed Christmas!