Easy Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies - Top Recipes (2024)

Jump to Recipe

If you’re looking for a quick, tasty holiday treat that won’t take much time to prepare, then easy crinkle cookies are the perfect sweet treat for you! These delicious gingerbread-flavored cookies have a light and fluffy interior with just the right amount of crunchy exterior.

Easy Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies - Top Recipes (1)

Not only do they require fewer ingredients than typical cookie recipes, but these crinkle cookies also look festive and cute, making them the ideal addition to any Christmas get-together or dessert table. Baking these gingerbread crinkle cookies will make your home smell divine while creating a delicious treat that everyone is sure to love!

Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies Ingredients

Making gingerbread crinkle cookies is an enjoyable activity to do with the kids or by yourself. It is fun to mix the ingredients together and see the batter transform into yummy gingerbread-flavored treats.

To get started, you’ll need some basic pantry staples: all-purpose flour, baking soda, ground nutmeg, ground ginger, and cinnamon.

All of these flavorful ingredients come together for a gingerbread cookie with a delightfully spicy flavor.

You will also need some soft butter, molasses, brown sugar, and an egg for binding it all together when mixed with the dry ingredients. And after rolling the dough into balls and coating them in powdered sugar, your gingerbread crinkle cookies are ready to be baked!

Easy Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies - Top Recipes (2)

How To Make Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies?

To make gingerbread crinkle cookies, start by creaming together butter and sugar in a large bowl.

Next add molasses and one egg to the mixture before sifting together all of your dry ingredients -flour, baking soda, and allspice – directly into the wet ingredients. Give it all a good stir or beat with an electric mixer until everything is well combined.

Lastly, roll spoonfuls of the dough mixture into balls and roll them in some additional icing sugar before putting them on a parchment-lined baking sheet and baking in the oven for about ten minutes until their edges are crispy but still soft in the center.

What Makes Gingerbread Cookies Crack?

When it comes to crinkle gingerbread cookies, have you ever paused to consider why they get those crinkled cracks on the surface? It’s all thanks to the butter in the dough melting as it bakes.

When the heat of the oven melts that butter, it creates steam which causes the crackle-crinkle effect you find on top of the gingerbread cookies once they’re done baking.

Easy Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies - Top Recipes (3)

Baking tips for the Best Crinkle Cookies:

If you are looking for the most scrumptious gingerbread crinkle cookies, here are some tips for you.

  • The key to getting the perfect crinkle cookie is all in the dough. Be sure not to overwork the dough and keep your cookie shapes as even as possible by making them all the same size. Before rolling out your gingerbread mix, make sure it is chilled for about 30 minutes. This will make it much easier to work with—so no more sticky messes!
  • Once you have rolled the dough into balls, be sure to coat them generously with powdered sugar. The sugar will help to create the crinkled effect once the cookies are baked.
  • When baking the cookies, place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet. This will prevent them from sticking to the baking sheet and will also make cleanup a breeze.
  • Finally, be sure to let the cookies cool completely before serving. This will ensure that they are nice and crisp.

Leftover cookie storage:

For gingerbread crinkle cookie lovers, leftover cookies don’t have to go to waste. With a few simple steps and the right storage methods, your gingerbread crinkle cookies will stay soft and delicious long after you’ve made them.

To do this, make sure you store your cookies in airtight containers or resealable bags; the less exposure to air they have, the better.

They last about 5 days at room temperature if stored properly. You can also refrigerate them for up to two weeks, or freeze them for up to two months.

Easy Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies - Top Recipes (4)

Easy Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies

Yield: 20

Prep Time: 2 hours

Baking time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours 10 minutes

Ingredients

  • ¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • ¼ cup molasses
  • 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • Powdered sugar for rolling

Instructions

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar using a hand mixer until they have a smooth airy texture - it should take around 3 minutes of beating at medium speed.

    Easy Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies - Top Recipes (5)

  2. Add the molasses and the egg to the mixture and combine until fully incorporated.

    Easy Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies - Top Recipes (6)

  3. Mix in the all-purpose flour, baking soda, and spices, until there is no flour visible in the dough.

    Easy Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies - Top Recipes (7)

  4. Let the dough chill out in the fridge for two hours, covered tightly with plastic wrap.
  5. Preheat the oven to 375 F and divide the dough into 18-20 spoonfuls. Shape them into perfect balls.

    Easy Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies - Top Recipes (8)

  6. Roll each cookie in powdered sugar until they're fully covered. Place the sweet spheres 3 inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet and you'll be ready to bake!
  7. Bake the cookies for 10 minutes to create a golden outer shell with an ever-so-slightly gooey center.
  8. Allow your cookies to rest and settle on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then move them to a rack so they can cool down completely.

    Easy Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies - Top Recipes (9)

Nutrition Information:

Amount Per Serving:Calories: 101Total Fat: 4gCholesterol: 15mgSodium: 140mgCarbohydrates: 26gProtein: 2g

Did you make this recipe?

Please leave a comment on the blog or share a photo on Pinterest

Easy Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies - Top Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What makes gingerbread cookies crack on top? ›

You have a few things that can go wrong: The oven isn't hot enough. (it needs to set the top before the middle's fully risen) Not enough leavening (it needs to be strong enough to crack the top once it's set)

Why are my crinkle cookies not crinkling? ›

While we found that multiple factors can affect how quickly the top dries out and thus how many cracks are formed (including the temperature of the dough and how rapidly it spreads in the oven), a simple tweak turned out to be key to producing a maximum number of fissures: rolling the balls of dough in granulated sugar ...

Why didn't my crinkle cookies crack? ›

Why didn't my chocolate crinkle cookies crack? The most common reason for cookies that don't crack is either that the oven was not hot enough or the baking powder was expired.

Should gingerbread cookies be soft or crunchy? ›

Should gingerbread cookies be hard or soft? Soft gingerbread biscuits are ideal. They ought to be flexible. However, they should still be somewhat elastic, and if you hold them too firmly because you're so excited to eat them, you might even be able to leave your fingerprints on the cookie!

How do you get cookies to crack on top? ›

The means that as the cookie expands, it starts to crack the dry surface. For this to happen, you need to dry the surface of the cookie by coating them in sugar, use sufficient leavening for the cookie to rise, and bake in a hot oven.

What happens if you don't chill gingerbread dough? ›

Chilling the dough makes the butter, and the dough firm up. Also, a very cold, even frozen crust will shrink less during baking. If you think about a stick of butter it makes sense: the cold butter keeps it's shape, When it softens, it spreads and no longer keeps it's shape.

How do I make my cookies chewy instead of crunchy? ›

How To Make Cookies Chewy Without Cornstarch
  1. Go heavy on brown sugar. It has more moisture than its granulated counterpart, which means the cookie comes out less crispy. ...
  2. Choose margarine or shortening instead of butter. ...
  3. Use baking powder instead of baking soda. ...
  4. Rest your dough. ...
  5. Shorten baking time.
May 14, 2023

How do you make cookies softer instead of crunchy? ›

Baking cookies quickly in a hot oven – at 375 degrees F as opposed to a lower temperature – will make for soft results. They'll bake fast instead of sitting and drying out in the oven's hot air. Ever so slightly underbaking your cookies will give you softer results than cooking them the full amount the recipe says.

How do you keep powdered sugar from melting on crinkle cookies? ›

How to Prevent the Powdered Sugar from Melting. The trick is to coat the dough with granulated sugar first, and then with powdered sugar. This way, the granulated sugar draws out moisture from the surface to create that crinkled exterior while the powdered sugar remains on top.

Why are my crinkles not spreading? ›

This is down to the ratio of ingredients in the dough, mainly. There is a high proportion of dry ingredients (i.e. flour, cocoa powder, ground almonds) to liquid ingredients (eggs, butter). This results in a drier dough which stops the cookies from spreading when baked.

Why are my homemade cookies crunchy? ›

Butter contributes milk solids and water to a cookie, both of which soften it. Brown sugar contributes molasses – again, a softener. Using lower-moisture sugar (granulated) and fat (vegetable shortening), plus a longer, slower bake than normal, produces light, crunchy cookies.

What are the three types of gingerbread? ›

The three distinct types of gingerbread are brown gingerbread, wafer-based gingerbread and honey gingerbread.
  • BROWN GINGERBREAD.
  • WAFER GINGERBREAD.
  • HONEY GINGERBREAD.

Can I use golden syrup instead of molasses? ›

Golden Syrup

With its golden, amber color, it is lighter than molasses, though the two are similar in their thickness. Golden syrup also a liquid sweetener, so 1 cup of golden syrup can replace 1 cup of molasses. Golden syrup has a unique flavor, so it may alter the flavor of your recipe slightly.

How do you fix cracked gingerbread? ›

Use royal icing to attach the pieces back together. Another trick is to use candy melts as the “glue”. It dries much faster than icing. Whichever option you choose, it is best to let the repair dry overnight.

What to do when cookie dough cracks? ›

There are a few things you can do if your cookie dough is too dry and crumbly. First, try adding more liquid to the dough. This could be milk, water, or even just additional eggs. If that doesn't work, you could also try melting some butter and adding it to the dough.

What causes cracking cookie dough? ›

Dry – “Dry” or “Crumbly” dough is a product of over-mixing or using too much of any ingredient during the mixing process. This can be reversed by adding one to two tablespoons of liquid (water, milk or softened butter) to your mix.

What happens if you add too much butter to gingerbread cookies? ›

An excessive amount of butter makes it where the flour is unable to absorb the combined fat, which causes the cookie to spread too widely and the sugar to carbonize more easily because it's surrounded by too buttery a dough.

References

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Article information

Author: Trent Wehner

Last Updated:

Views: 6240

Rating: 4.6 / 5 (76 voted)

Reviews: 83% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Trent Wehner

Birthday: 1993-03-14

Address: 872 Kevin Squares, New Codyville, AK 01785-0416

Phone: +18698800304764

Job: Senior Farming Developer

Hobby: Paintball, Calligraphy, Hunting, Flying disc, Lapidary, Rafting, Inline skating

Introduction: My name is Trent Wehner, I am a talented, brainy, zealous, light, funny, gleaming, attractive person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.