Delicious soft gingersnaps with fresh ginger and powdered ginger, for twice the ginger flavour. Rolling in raw sugar before baking gives them sparkle and great crunch.
Gingersnaps are always nice to have around during the holiday season, but these ones are a favourite of mine to enjoy year round. They are a ginger cookie lovers cookie, with both powdered and fresh ginger. I also love how the bit of whole wheat flour in these cookies make them wonderfully chewy. And finally, the coarse turbinado sugar adds great sparkle and crunch to these cookies.
This recipe makes a large batch of cookies, but they keep well for days or you can freeze them, too, either before baking or after. They would also be great gifting cookies, as they would package up and travel well.
Ingredients and Substitutions
Butter – Unsalted butter is specified, but you can use salted butter. Just be sure to reduce the added salt in the recipe accordingly, so your cookies don’t come out too salty.
All-Purpose Flour – Use regular all-purpose (plain) flour. Standard bleached is the best option for cookies, but if you only have unbleached all-purpose flour, you can go ahead and use it. Your cookies might be very slightly less tender and possibly a bit lighter in colour.
Whole Wheat Flour – the addition of whole wheat flour to these cookies give them great texture, so I definitely recommend using it, if you have it. If not, you could simply replace it with more all-purpose flour, but note that the resulting cookies will be lighter and fluffier in texture.
Molasses – You’ll want to use “Fancy” molasses for these cookies. I don’t recommend Cooking or Blackstrap Molasses here, as they are both too harsh in flavour for these cookies, in my opinion.
Fresh Ginger – I prefer to use ginger paste, which is available in the produce section of most grocery stores these days. I just keep it in the fridge to make adding fresh ginger to sweet and savoury recipes super easy. Alternately, simply finely grate fresh ginger. As it is more potently ginger flavoured than the paste version, you may wish to use a bit less. If you have no fresh ginger, you can simply add a bit more powdered ginger (1/4 tsp more).
Turbinado Sugar – or raw sugar crystals. Alternately, you could use any granulated sugar, such as cane sugar or regular white granulated sugar.
Recipe Tips
- Use a good quality butter and make sure it is just brought just to room temperature before mixing. It will take about an hour in most cases, so plan ahead.
- Be sure to chill the dough for the full 30 minutes, so the dough is nice and cold. This prevents the cookies from spreading too much.
- A Cookie Scoop makes sure the cookies are all the same size so they cook uniformly. Alternately, use a measuring tablespoon.
- It’s important to measure your flour correctly. Always use the “spoon and level” method of measuring flour. Stir your flour, spoon into your dry measuring cups to overflowing, then use the back of a knife to scrape off the excess (level with the top of the cup.)
- Cookies are best baked on a heavy, light coloured pan. Dark pans tend to over-cook the bottom of cookies.
- Don’t crowd your pans. While it’s always tempting to crowd the pan to cut down on the number of batches, if the cookies spread into each other and you have to cut them apart, you won’t be happy with that, I’m sure. Have patience and do more batches and you will be rewarded with perfect cookies. (Also keep in mind that you don’t have to bake all the cookies at once. You can shape the balls, roll them in sugar, flatten and freeze them. Then bake another batch later! You can bake right from frozen. Simply add a few minutes more baking time.
- I always bake my cookies one pan at a time on centre rack. While many recipes suggest baking cookies on two racks and switching them halfway through baking, I have found that I often end up with an un-even bake. I’m a one-batch at a time baker and highly recommend it.
Want to Save This Recipe?
Enter your email & I'll send it to your inbox. Plus, get great new recipes from me every week!
By submitting this form, you consent to receive emails from Seasons and Suppers.
Get the Recipe: Double Ginger Soft Gingersnaps
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup whole wheat flour, *see Note 1
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt, reduce 1/8 tsp if using salted butter
- 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup fancy molasses, not cooking or blackstrap molasses
- 1 Tablespoon ginger paste, or 2 1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger *see Note 2
- 3/4 cup turbinado sugar
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the all purpose flour, whole wheat flour, ginger, baking powder, baking soda, cloves, salt (be sure to reduce the amount of added salt here if you will be using salted butter), and pepper. Set aside.
- In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, add the butter and brown sugar. Mix together at medium speed until smooth, about 1 minute. Add the egg, molasses and fresh ginger and mix in well.
- Add the flour mixture, mixing just until the flour is incorporated. Do not over-mix. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate 30 minutes.
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350F (not fan-assisted), with the rack in the centre of the oven. Prepare a large baking sheet by lining with parchment paper.
- Using a cookie scoop (2 3/4") or a measuring tablespoon, take a rounded scoop of dough and form into a ball. Roll in turbinado sugar and place on baking sheet about 3 inches apart. Using the bottom of a glass, flatten the balls slightly, to about 3/4" high.
- Bake in preheated oven for 11-13 minutes, or until just starting to brown around the edges and dry to the touch on top. Remove from oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Store cookies at room temp in airtight container up to 5 days or freeze up to 2 months.
Notes
Hi! I’m Jennifer, a home cook schooled by trial and error and almost 40 years of getting dinner on the table! I love to share my favourite recipes, both old and new, together with lots of tips and tricks to hopefully help make your home cooking enjoyable, stress free, rewarding and of course, delicious!
I forgot to pick up more ground ginger from the store so I only have ginger paste. Have you made them without the powdered before? How much paste would you recommend with omitting the powdered?
Hi Jennifer, it’s generally a 4 to 1 swap, so to replace the 2 teaspoons of powdered ginger, you’d need 8 teaspoons (or about 2 1/2 Tablespoons) of fresh ginger, in addition to the 1 Tablespoon already in the recipe. With that much, you may find you need to add just a touch more flour to the recipe if it seems to moist at the end of mixing.
Hi,I just mixed up the dough, and will bake them tomorrow. The ingredients list includes black pepper.
But I couldnt find the pepper in the mixing instructions.To be on the safe side I left it out. Would you have a look? Thanks.
Sorry Cheryl. I did miss listing it in the instructions (I think I was too busy thinking about adjusting the salt :). I’ve added it now, so thanks for letting me know. That said, your cookies should be nice and spicy enough without it. Enjoy!
These cookies look amazing Jennifer. I’ve never used ginger paste before but I’m intrigued! I bet that fresh ginger flavor really makes these cookies sing. I’ve often used minced candied ginger in recipes but I’m going to give these a try. My husband is going to be so happy!
Thanks Tricia :) I love the ginger paste. So handy for sweet and savoury dishes!
Bring on the holiday gingersnaps Jennifer! I just made some chocolate ones! These looks delicious and just perfect for my holiday cookie tray!
Thanks Mary Ann :) I love these cookies year round, but especially this time of year.