This Soft Gingerbread Cookie recipe makes a batch of traditional Christmas cookies that you can cut out and bake for Christmas dessert!

Soft gingerbread cookie recipe with gingerbread men, gingerbread women, Christmas trees, and snowflakes baked and iced with royal icing

Soft Gingerbread Cookie Recipe

Just a few more days until Thanksgiving and I’m already starting to think about Christmas and all of the Christmas cookies I want to bake this year. I usually spend the weekend after Thanksgiving in the kitchen making dough and assembling all sorts of cookies to give to friends and family during the holidays. This year I’m adding a few new recipes to my list starting with this Soft Gingerbread Cookie recipe. I’ve already made a test batch and they were perfectly soft and chewy, just the way I like my gingerbread cookies.

We’re so excited to be partnering with Wilton today to share some amazing Christmas cookies! All Thoughts and opinions are 100% our own. 

Wilton holiday baking kit and embellishments

Christmas cut out cookies are my favorite because I get to pull out a piping bag and get creative with the decorations. I make beautifully decorated cookies for my Christmas parties and as gifts but I always have the most fun closer to Christmas when I get to bake with my niece and nephews. We pull out all of my cookie decorations from Wilton Christmas sprinkles to Wilton Mini Candy Eyeballs and I let the kids go crazy. I’m not sure who loves it more me or them :). This year, to get my Christmas baking started, I picked up a Wilton Holiday Cookie Value Set at Walmart. It is an 11 piece cooking baking set that includes a large cookie sheet, cooling grid, 5 parchment sheets, 3 metal cookie cutters and red, green and white jimmies. It’s perfect for my new Soft Gingerbread Cookie recipe because the cookies cutters are a Christmas tree, a snowflake, and the classic gingerbread man.

Soft gingerbread cookie dough rolled out with a snowflake cut out of it.

My Soft Gingerbread Cookie recipe works great as a Christmas cut out cookie. I chilled my dough and then rolled it out and used the cookie cutters from my Wilton Holiday Cookie Value Set to cut out my cookies. The dough doesn’t spread at all while it bakes so it holds the cookie cutter shape perfectly. As it bakes dough puffs up slightly and makes this beautifully soft, sweet, spicy gingerbread cookie that I absolutely love! I made a huge batch and kept them in an airtight container and 2 days later when I managed to win the fight for the last cookie it was still just as soft as the day it was baked. I think that makes these great for Christmas because you can make them on Christmas Eve and enjoy them just as much on the day after Christmas.

Gingerbread cut-out Christmas cookies shaped like gingerbread men and gingerbread women, snowflakes, and Christmas trees cooling on a cooling rack.

As much as I like baking the decorating is always my favorite part. For my Soft Gingerbread Cookies I made royal icing and piped it on to make perfectly decorated snowflakes, Christmas trees and gingerbread men (and women!). When I let the kids help I usually color the royal icing with Christmas colors and put it in squeeze bottles. Then I let them go to town! Of course their favorite part is the Wilton Christmas Sprinkles and Wilton Mini Candy Eyeballs. I fill up bowls with different colors, shapes, and sizes and the kids have a great time covering their cookies with all sorts of interesting designs.

soft gingerbread cookies cut into gingerbread men and gingerbread women

I am a little more refined than the kids with my gingerbread cookie decorating. This year I’m going with a simple white royal icing because I really like how the white stands out against the warm brown of the gingerbread cookies. I pipe my icing on using a Wilton Disposable Decorating Bag and a small Wilton Round Icing Tip and then I add little pops of red and green with some Christmas sprinkles. I am kind of in love with how they turned out. None of it is too fussy or intricate so they were quick and easy to decorate but still pretty enough to serve at my Christmas party and to package up as gifts for friends.

What You Need to Decorate Christmas Cookies:

SOFT GINGERBREAD COOKIE RECIPE
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Servings: 18
Prep Time: 1 hour 25 minutes
Cook Time: 50 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 15 minutes

Soft Gingerbread Cookies

These soft gingerbread cookies are a traditional Christmas cookie recipe that is perfect for the holidays!
decorated gingerbread cookies for Christmas
Print Recipe
4.52 from 37 votes

Ingredients

Cookies

  • 3/4 c Butter, softened
  • 1 c Light brown sugar, packed
  • 1 Egg
  • 3/4 c Molasses
  • 4 c All-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp Baking soda
  • 3 tsp Ground ginger
  • 2 tsp Ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp Ground cloves
  • ½ tsp Allspice
  • 1/4 tsp Salt

Royal Icing

Instructions

  • In the bowl of your mixer add butter and sugar. Cream together until fluffy.
  • Add molasses and egg to the butter mixture and continue mixing until molasses is fully incorporated.
  • In a small bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and salt.
  • Add the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl 1 cup at a time until the dough comes together and the flour is fully mixed in.
  • Remove dough from the mixer, cut in half, and pat into two disks. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour.
  • Right before dough has finished chilling preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  • After an hour remove dough from the refrigerator and roll out to ¼” thickness.
  • Using your cookies cutters cut out your cookies. Place each cut out on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Press dough scraps back together and roll out again until all of the dough is used.
  • Bake for 8-10 minutes. Or until the edges of your cookies just start to darken.
  • Let cookies cool on a cooling rack.
  • While cookies cool make the royal icing by mixing all of the ingredients in a bowl and whisking until the icing is stiff. You can add water one tablespoon at a time (it won’t take much!) if you would like to thin the icing down for pouring rather than piping.
  • Decorate cookies, let icing firm up and enjoy!

Notes

Note: You can make this dough ahead of time and wrap tightly in plastic wrap and store in a freezer bag or airtight container in the freezer until you are ready to use. When ready to make cookies thaw the dough in the refrigerator overnight and then proceed with the instructions for rolling and baking. 
Nutrition Disclaimer: We are not certified nutritionists. Nutrition facts are an estimate and are provided as a courtesy. They are generated by an online API which recognizes ingredient names and amounts and makes calculations based on the serving size. Results may vary.
Author: Kat Jeter & Melinda Caldwell
Course: Dessert