Grandma's Molasses Cookies with Maple Glaze are chewy and soft, full of spices that taste just like Christmas and last on the counter for days and days, unless of course, you eat them all up. These are our favorite holiday cookies by a long shot. They are made with molasses and four different spices, which when combined bring on all the nostalgia of Christmas and the Holidays.
These cookies taste so good, but they also look super festive. Yet they are easy and don't take a whole lot of effort. They are great cookies to take to a holiday party, or to keep around the house in the winter. The dough keeps well in the fridge, but also freezes well too. We also love to bring Krumkake Norwegian Waffle Cookies to any special event around the holidays, these Gingerbread Whoopie Pies or these Cinnamon Pinwheel Cookies.
Grandma's Molasses Cookie Ingredients
Below are the ingredients needed to make Grandma's Molasses Cookies.
- Butter: I use softened salted butter.
- Brown Sugar: To add a caramel/molasses like sweetness and color. Choose dark brown sugar over light brown for the color.
- Egg: One large egg helps to bind the ingredients, the yolk adds richness, and helps the cookies rise.
- Molasses: Essential in these molasses cookies, gives the cookies that deep caramel flavor that you associate with gingerbread cookies, as well as moisture and color. I use Grandma’s molasses that you can find at many grocery stores.
- Baking Soda: Helps the cookies rise.
- Salt: To balance sweetness and enhance the other flavors.
- Cinnamon, Ginger, Allspice, Nutmeg: The combination of these spices is central to the flavor of these cookies. They give the cookies that wintry, gingerbread like flavor.
- Flour: All-purpose unbleached flour.
Below are the ingredients needed to make the Maple Glaze and sprinkle decoration.
- Powdered Sugar: The base of the maple glaze. White powdered sugar makes for a white glaze.
- Maple Syrup: Adds a subtle maple flavoring and comes together with the powdered sugar to form a glaze.
- Sprinkles: For decorating the cookies. I found these bright gold sprinkles at a regular grocery store.
To learn more about these cookie ingredients, see my Guide to Cookie Ingredients.
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
How to Make Grandma's Molasses Cookies with Maple Glaze
Below are the step-by-step instructions and photos for how to make Grandma's Molasses Cookies with Maple Glaze.
*Note that the recipe card with instructions and ingredient list is included further below these step-by-step photos.
Step 1. In a large mixing bowl combined softened butter and brown sugar.
Step 2. Add the egg and molasses and combine.
Step 3. Add the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg and combine.
Step 4. Add the flour and mix to combine.
Step 5. Dividing the dough in half place each half on a sheet of plastic wrap and wrap tightly. Chill in the fridge for 1 hour or overnight. This helps to meld the flavors and chill the butter in the dough.
Step 6. Roll about 1 ½ tablespoons worth of dough into balls and place on a baking sheet. Bake at 350°F for 10 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool fully.
Step 7. Make the Maple Glaze. Combine maple syrup and powdered sugar in a small bowl.
Step 8. Dip the cookies in the maple glaze.
Step 9. Place the glazed cookies on a cookie drying rack over a cookie sheet lined with a paper towel. Immediately sprinkle with sprinkles or decorative sugar. Be sure to do so before the glaze hardens. Leave the cookies on the drying rack until the maple glaze has fully hardened.
Spices
- I use 1 teaspoon of each of the four spices (cinnamon, ginger, allspice and nutmeg) to keep things simple. It makes it harder to mix up the quantities, and creates the best combination of spices that taste just like Christmas.
- I like to use high quality organic cinnamon whenever I'm baking with cinnamon. It makes a big difference in terms of taste. In this recipe, however, cinnamon is only one of four spices, so it is not as crucial, but I still err on the side of high-quality organic cinnamon, usually ceylon cinnamon from Whole Foods.
Maple Glaze
Expert Tip: Use a short juice glass or a small bowl to mix the maple glaze and dip the cookies. That way the glaze comes up fairly high in the juice glass making it easy to dunk the cookie in half way. If you use a wider bowl the glaze will be shallower and it will be harder to get an evenly dipped half cookie.
- Scrape the excess glaze off the bottom of the cookie onto the rim of the juice glass. That way you don't have THAT much extra sugar on each cookie. It’s the top that you want to look pretty.
Sprinkles
- I bought gold sparkling sprinkles at a regular grocery store and they make the cookies look extra festive without much extra effort.
- However, I will often dye regular granulated sugar different colors using regular food dye. If you already have sugar and food dye on hand it’s a lot less expensive than buying sprinkles and takes only 2 minutes to make.
Variations: Maple Syrup vs Granulated Sugar
In this recipe, I add a maple glaze for an extra festive holiday touch. Adding the gold sprinkles makes them shimmer and look extra special for an occasion without too much extra effort. We usually have maple syrup in the house for making Maple Pecan Granola, so making a maple glaze tends not to be an added expense since we don't have to go out and buy it.
However, if you won’t use maple syrup for anything other than this recipe, it can be pretty expensive, and you can always skip the glaze and roll the cookies in granulated sugar before baking.
How to Store the Cookies
Once fully cooled, these cookies can be placed in an airtight container and stored on the counter. They can also be sealed in a gallon-sized plastic bag.
How Long Do These Cookies Last
These cookies stay soft and fresh for at least a week, if not quite a bit longer. They are the perfect cookie to mail to friends around the holidays.
Advent Cookie Tradition
During Advent, we have a Norwegian tradition in our house. Each week we light the corresponding advent candle and my husband recites a Norwegian poem by Inger Hagerup. This is followed by enjoying a cookie and a coffee or tea for the adults. It is one of my favorite things during the holiday season. It is something that we each look forward to and we do our best to make time for it (though inevitably we miss some). We have these Maple Glazed Molasses Cookies for most of our Sunday advent/cookie time.
One way that we make this happen is by having this cookie dough in the fridge during most of December. I will make a big batch, or double batch, and keep any leftover dough in the fridge or freezer. I can then pull it out at any time and make a quick batch of cookies for our Norwegian Advent poem.
Grandma's Molasses Cookies with Maple Glaze FAQs
The cookies are done when they are slightly poofy in the middle and have a rounded edge that looks firm and set and the middle is slightly soft.
Yes, molasses cookie dough can be frozen. It will last for months in the freezer. I have done this many, many times over the holiday season for many years.
Molasses is primarily added in order to add flavor to the cookies. Molasses has a very specific deep almost caramel-like flavor that is impossible to replicate. It also adds moisture and sweetness to the cookies.
If you're looking for other cookie recipes, you may love these:
If you tried these Grandma's Molasses Cookies with Maple Glaze or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!
Grandma's Molasses Cookies with Maple Glaze
Ingredients
Molasses Cookies
- ¾ cup butter, softened
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- ½ cup molasses
- 2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ginger
- 1 teaspoon allspice
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
Maple Glaze & Sprinkles
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- ¾ cup powdered sugar
- festive sprinkles
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar together with a beater. Add the egg and molasses and beat to combine. Add the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and nutmeg, mixing until combined. Add the flour and mix until combined.
- Roll the dough into a log, wrap with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for an hour or overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Roll about 1 ½ tablespoons of dough into a ball and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 9-10 minutes and no more. Allow to cool slightly, then transfer the cookies to a drying rack.
- To make the glaze, in a small bowl or even a short juice glass, combine the maple syrup and powdered sugar with a spoon. Once the cookies have cooled completely, dip the cookies in the maple glaze and scrape off any excess glaze from the bottom of the cookie on the rim of the bowl/glass. Immediately sprinkle with sprinkles. Leave the cookies on the drying rack with a paper towel underneath to catch any drips of glaze until the glaze has hardened.
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