Iced Gingerbread Cookies (Easy Christmas Cookie Recipe)

These Iced Gingerbread Cookies are soft in the middle with lightly crisp edges, full of warm gingerbread spices, and finished with sweet vanilla icing. The dough rolls and cuts beautifully into gingerbread men or any shape you love, which makes them the perfect holiday cookie for Christmas trays and cookie exchanges. Easy peasy, and they’ll have your whole house smelling like Christmas!

Iced Gingerbread Cookies

There’s just something about gingerbread that makes a house smell like Christmas. You can have the tree up and the lights on and the music playing, but the minute a pan of these comes out of the oven, it’s officially the holidays around here.

We started baking gingerbread cookies when my kids were younger – specifically to make gingerbread houses. But while that recipe is great for house-building, it wasn’t great for eating. But this recipe is!

And listen, these cookies are not fussy. You do not need a kitchen scale, you do not need a food processor, and you certainly don’t need to be a professional. These cookies are easy and delicious and you and/or your kids will love decorating and eating them.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

They’re genuinely easy. The gingerbread cookie dough is one bowl of dry ingredients, one bowl of wet ingredients, and a 10-minute chill. That’s it. No overnight resting, no waiting around all afternoon. There is a little bit of waiting required for the icing to dry but it’ll totally be worth it!

They hold their shape. This is a nice thick dough, so your gingerbread men come out of the oven still looking like gingerbread men. Nobody wants to cut out a reindeer and pull a blob off the cookie sheets.

The kids can do most of it. Rolling, cutting, and icing are all jobs little hands love. I homeschooled all six of my children, and I can tell you that cookie cutters count as a math lesson when you need them to. (Shapes! Fractions! Sharing!)

Video

Tools Needed

• Stand mixer with the paddle attachment (a hand mixer or any electric mixer works too)
• Large mixing bowl and a medium bowl
• Rolling pin
• Cookie cutters
• Baking sheet, lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat
• Plastic wrap
• Wire rack
• Piping bag or a small bowl and a butter knife, for the icing

Ingredients

Everything here is basic pantry stuff, and you probably already have most of it this time of year.

• Unsalted butter, softened. Salted butter is fine in a pinch, just cut the salt back to a pinch of salt.
• Brown sugar, for that deep, rich flavor. Light or dark, whatever’s in your cabinet.
• Molasses. Regular molasses gives you classic gingerbread flavor. Blackstrap molasses works too and it’s much stronger and more bitter, so use it only if that’s the flavor you’re after.
• Large egg, at room temperature. Set it on the counter while you gather everything else.
• All-purpose flour. I don’t recommend swapping in whole wheat flour here, it makes the cookies dry and heavy.
• Baking soda
• Ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground cloves and ground nutmeg. These four gingerbread spices are the whole personality of the cookie. Use fresh-ish spices when you can… those little jars lose their punch after a couple of years.
• Finely ground sea salt
• Cookie frosting. Store-bought cookie icing is completely fine, and I use it all the time. There’s a simple homemade version down in the Variations section too.

Find the full recipe with ingredient measurements in the recipe card below.

How to Make Iced Gingerbread Cookies

Read through all the steps first, then let’s go!

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar together until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl once or twice so nothing hides down there.
2. Add the molasses and the room temperature egg. Mix until just incorporated.

3. In a separate medium bowl, combine the flour, ground ginger, cloves, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, sea salt and baking soda. Give the flour mixture a quick whisk so the spices are evenly spread out.
4. With your mixer on low speed, slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture. You’ll probably need to bump the speed up as the dough thickens.
5. Once the dough is fully mixed, wrap it in plastic wrap and pop it in the fridge for 10 minutes. (Splitting the dough in half before you wrap it makes rolling so much easier later.)
6. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat and set it aside.
7. After 10 minutes, roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to somewhere between ⅛ and ¼ inch thick. Thinner gives you crisp edges, thicker gives you chewy centers. Both are delicious, so roll to whatever makes you happy.
8. Cut out your shapes with cookie cutters. You’ll need to re-roll the scraps and cut again to use all the dough, and that’s totally normal.
9. Place the cut out shapes on your prepared cookie sheets.
10. Bake on the center rack for 8 minutes, or 8-10 minutes for thicker cookies. The edges should look set and just barely golden brown.

11. Let them rest on the pan a minute, then move them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Don’t rush that last step! Warm cookies and icing do not get along.

How to Ice Gingerbread Cookies

Once the cookies are completely cool, you can ice them any way you like. Squeeze bottles of store-bought cookie icing are the fastest route by far.

For a homemade cookie icing, see the recipe card below!

Pro Tips

• Split the dough in half before rolling. Half a batch of thick dough is so much easier to handle than the whole thing.
• Flour your rolling pin, not just your counter. Sticky dough is the number one reason cut-outs tear.
• Roll all your cookies to the same thickness so they bake evenly. Otherwise the thin ones burn while the thick ones are still soft.
• Cold dough cuts cleaner. When it starts feeling soft and sticky, slide the whole rolled sheet in the fridge for a few minutes.
• Wait for the icing to firm up completely before you stack them, or you’ll have a smeary mess.

Variations

• Gingerbread men, obviously. But stars, trees, snowflakes and hearts are just as pretty and easier for little ones to decorate.
• Sanding sugar. Sprinkle it over the wet icing for some sparkle.
• Spice it up. Add a little extra ground ginger for more bite, or a pinch of cardamom for something different.
• Skip the icing. Sounds strange for a post about iced gingerbread cookies, but plain ones dunked in milk are one of my favorite ways to eat them.
• Make them soft gingerbread cookies. Roll closer to ¼ inch and pull them out right at 8 minutes.

Serving Suggestions

Pile these on a tray for a cookie exchange, tuck them into treat bags for neighbors and teachers, or set them out on Christmas Eve with a glass of milk (you know who for). They’re wonderful with hot chocolate, coffee, or gingerbread lattes, and they make a beautiful addition to any Christmas cookie plate alongside sugar cookies and chocolate fudge.

They’re also the cookies I used to make the Gingerbread Village Spice Cake…

These also make great gifts. A stack of these in a cellophane bag with a ribbon costs almost nothing and people love them.

Storage Instructions

Keep iced gingerbread cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for 3-4 days. Once the icing has hardened completely, you can stack them, but I still like to store mine in single layers with parchment paper in between just to protect the decorations.

The gingerbread cookie dough freezes beautifully. Wrap it really well in plastic wrap, then put it in a freezer bag or air-tight container. Thaw it overnight in the fridge before rolling.

Baked, un-iced cookies freeze well too. Cool them completely, freeze them flat in single layers, then ice them after they thaw.

FAQ

Can I make the dough ahead of time?

Absolutely! Make it a day or two ahead, keep it wrapped in the fridge, and let it sit on the counter for a few minutes before rolling so it’s not rock hard.

Why did my cookies spread?

Usually the butter got too warm. Chill the dough a little longer next time and make sure your baking sheet is cool before the next batch goes on it.

Do I have to use blackstrap molasses?

Nope. Regular molasses is what I’d reach for. Blackstrap is much darker and more bitter, so it’s a personal preference thing.

Can I use a hand mixer instead of a stand mixer?

Yes! The dough gets thick toward the end, so you may need to finish stirring it by hand with a sturdy spoon. It works just fine.

How thick should I roll the dough?

Anywhere between ⅛ and ¼ inch. Thinner cookies are crisper, thicker cookies are softer and chewier.

Can kids help with this recipe?

This is one of the best cookie recipes for kids. Rolling, cutting and icing are all jobs they can take over completely, and the mess washes off.

Gingerbread is one of those recipes that turns into a tradition without you ever really deciding to make it one. Pull out your cutters, let the kids make a mess, and don’t worry one bit about whether the icing is perfect. These are supposed to be fun.

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More Christmas Cookie Recipes

• Chewy Oatmeal Cookies with Pecans
• Stained Glass Cookies with Jolly Ranchers
• Easy Lace Cookies (Florentine Cookies)
• Mexican Wedding Cookies (aka Snowball Cookies)
• Snowflake Cookies (Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing)
• Toffee Butter Crunch Cookies