These Healthy Gingerbread Cookies are made with molasses, whole wheat flour and less sugar. They are soft, taste exactly like classic gingerbread cookies and are easy to make.
We also love these healthy gingersnap cookies and healthy gingerbread loaf.
Reader’s Review
Made these today! We love them! Very nice spice, soft and perfect texture. Thanks!
Chloe
Why You Will Love This Recipe
- Taste: These healthy gingerbread cookies taste like everyone’s favorite cut-out gingerbread cookies infused with the signature flavor of molasses and ginger.
- Healthier: Using wholesome ingredients means you can eat more of them.
- Simple ingredients: Although the list might seem long, you need simple ingredients to make these cookies.
- Quicker: You only need to chill the dough for 30 minutes.
- Variety of toppings: Keep it healthy with chopped nuts and seeds or go the traditional route with delicious icing.
Ingredients for Healthy Gingerbread Cookies
- Flour: You can use whole wheat flour or spelt flour which is less refined than regular flour. You will however need a bit of all-purpose flour which will help give the cookies structure.
- Butter: A much needed fat for chewy cookies.
- Sweetener: Depending on how healthy you want your gingerbread men cookies, you can opt for regular granulated sugar or go the less refined route of using coconut sugar.
- Egg: Needed for binding, otherwise cookies would all fall apart!
- Molasses: If you can find molasses without sulfur, use that! This will give your cookies that deep flavor as well as the dark color.
- Spices: Ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves for signature spice flavor.
- Baking soda: This will help cookies to rise and give them that soft moist consistency.
- Salt: Needed to bring out the flavors of all ingredients.
Variations
- Flour substitutions: You can use 3 cups of whole wheat pastry flour but I don’t recommend using all whole wheat flour. Your dough will end up hard and crumbly, which is why I use a combination. I also don’t recommend using gluten-free flour.
- Sugar-free: You can replace the sugar with erythritol or monk fruit extract in both the cookies and the icing but it has to be dry, not liquid. I have tried both and the cookies were amazing. To get the essence of a classic gingerbread cookie you will need to use molasses which is a sugar byproduct. So, sugar-free is a stretch.
- Coconut oil: You can use coconut oil if preferred, but keep in mind your cookies may end up crispier rather than soft. It becomes harder than butter when cooled.
- No liquid sweetener: Unfortunately maple syrup or honey won’t work for this recipe, no matter how delicious those flavors would be!
How to Make Healthy Gingerbread Cookies
- Combine dry ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together flour, spices, baking soda, and salt until there are no more lumps. Set the bowl aside.
- Cream butter and sugar: In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugar until creamy. Then beat in the egg and molasses until just combined. Do not overmix! Once the egg and molasses have been incorporated, stop beating. Overmixing can cause the butter to separate and no longer be creamy.
- Add dry to wet ingredients: Pour in the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and using a spatula, combine into a ball of dough. You may find using your hands after a while easier.
- Divide and chill the dough: Once you have formed a ball of dough and everything is well blended, divide the cookie dough in 2 and form into disks. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes. This will help prevent cookies from spreading.
- Cut out the cookies: Allow cookie dough to sit at room temperature for 5 minutes. It will become much easier to work with. Place it on a floured surface, roll out to a 1/4-inch thick and using your favorite cookie cutters start cutting out your shapes and transferring cookies to the prepared baking sheet. Leave 1/2″ in between each one. They won’t spread much. Roll up the remaining dough into a ball, and roll it out again for more cutouts.
- Bake cookies: Depending on whether you like your gingerbread cookies soft or crunchy, that will determine how long you bake them. 8 minutes for soft, 12 minutes for crunchy. Then let cool completely.
- Make the icing: In a small bowl, mix powdered sugar and water until smooth.
- Decorate: Add icing to a Ziploc bag, push it to one corner, cut the tip slightly and decorate the cookies. They will harden and set within a couple of hours. Do not stack your healthy gingerbread cookies until they are all completely dry.
Tips for Best Results
- Use softened butter, not melted butter: Soft butter is room temperature butter that is easily spreadable and will mix, cream, and blend easily. Melted butter will not work.
- To soften butter quickly: Grab a tall glass (one that will fit an entire stick of butter), fill it with water and microwave for 2 minutes. Place the stick of butter standing upright on a small plate, dump the water and put the glass right overtop the butter. Transfer the plate into the microwave (do not turn it on) and leave in there for 10 minutes. Your butter will be soft at this point.
- Chilling the dough is a must: If you don’t, gingerbread cookies will spread too much.
- Don’t overbake: Overbaking cookies will result in burnt cookies. Remove from the oven before visible browning.
- Cutting the tip of icing bag: It’s impossible to make the corner cut smaller, so it’s always a good idea to start small and make it bigger. If the hole is too big, the icing will pour out.
How to Store
Make ahead the dough: You can make the dough in advance and freeze rather than chill it. Form it into disks, wrap tightly in plastic wrap followed by foil and freeze in a freezer-friendly bag for up to 1 month.
Store: Once cookies are completely cooled, transfer them to an airtight container and keep at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Freeze: Once cooled, and the icing has solidified, transfer cookies to a freezer-friendly Ziploc or container, separate with parchment paper and freeze for up to 3 months.
More Holiday Cookies Recipes to Try
- Almond flour shortbread cookies
- Healthy snowball cookies
- Almond flour snickerdoodles
- Healthy oatmeal cranberry cookies
- Almond flour thumbprint cookies
Healthy Gingerbread Cookies
These Healthy Gingerbread Cookies are made with molasses, whole wheat flour and less sugar. They are soft, taste exactly like classic gingerbread cookies and are easy to make.
Video
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups whole wheat or spelt flour
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, more for dusting
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup butter, softened to room temperature
- 1/2 cup cane or coconut sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup unsulphured molasses
Icing
- 1/2 cup icing sugar
- 1 tablespoon cold water
Instructions
- In a large bowl, add whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, baking soda and salt. Whisk until no lumps and set aside.
- In another large bowl, add butter and sugar. Beat with an electric mixer until combined and creamy. Add egg and molasses. Beat until combined well (don't overbeat to prevent butter separation).
- Add flour mixture, first stir with spatula and then mix with your hands until a ball of dough forms.
- Divide it into two balls, place on two separate sheets of plastic wrap, flatten into discs, wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line two large baking sheets with unbleached parchment paper. Set aside.
- Remove chilled dough from the fridge, let warm up on the counter for 5 minutes, and unwrap from plastic. Dust the surface and rolling pin with flour and roll the dough 1/4 inch thick. If dough is hard and crumbly, roll it out as best as you can, let warm up a few minutes and roll more until 1/4 inch thick.
- Using your favorite cookie cutters, cut out cookies and transfer to previously prepared baking sheet (loosening with small spatula if necessary), leaving just 1/2 inch in between. These cookies do not spread much. Combine the dough scraps into a ball, roll it out, cut out cookies and repeat until you run out of dough. Repeat the same step with the second disc of dough.
- Bake for 8 minutes for soft cookies and 12 minutes for crunchy cookies. Do not overbake as cookies will harden during resting. Remove from the oven and let gingerbread cookies first cool off on a baking tray for 15 minutes, then transfer onto a cooling rack to cool off completely.
To decorate cookies:
- In a small bowl, add icing sugar and water; whisk until smooth and no lumps.
- Transfer to a sandwich size resealable bag, push to one corner, twist bag on top and cut a tiny hole at the tip. The smaller the better as you can always make the hole bigger but not smaller.
- Decorate cookies as you wish by pushing icing through the hole. Let icing dry and it will harden and set within a couple of hours. Do not stack them until then.
🎉 Last step! If you made this recipe, please leave a review and let us know what you think!
Notes
- Make ahead: You can make the dough in advance and freeze it rather than chill it. Form them into disks, and wrap tightly in plastic wrap followed by foil. Store in a freezer-friendly bag for up to 1 month and thaw when you’re ready to use the dough.
- Store: Store baked cookies in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
- Freeze: Wrap cookies or store in airtight container for up to 3 months.
Nutrition
Serving: 1cookie, Calories: 87kcal, Carbohydrates: 14g, Protein: 1g, Fat: 3g, Saturated Fat: 2g, Trans Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 12mg, Sodium: 83mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 5g
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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I used maple syrup instead of sugar and it turned out beautiful and delicious.
Glad to hear it worked.
While the finished product is good and flavourful, the recipe does need to be adjusted, as the dough is too dry whenever I roll it. I have made this recipe twice and unfortunately both times when I went to roll it out, the dough crumbled and fell apart. I needed to add some water on my hands and work the dough a bit in order for it to stay together. Once I did that it worked out.
Sorry to hear you had troubles with this recipe. Sounds like too much flour. Make sure to use scoop and level method when measuring flour. Also use individual measuring cups, not glass one with a handle. Measuring cups differ from one manufacturer to another.
Yes I did use dry measuring cups for the dry ingredients and levelled them off. I used the liquid measuring cups for the liquid both times I made the recipe.
Usually the same measuring cups are used to measure all ingredients. Majority of recipes are developed using measuring cups with handles, not the glass ones like small jugs. There is a difference in measurements between both. I would try that next time. Hope this helps.
I’ve made these with my 3 year old now 2 Christmases in a row. And they are easy, fun, and delicious every time! Plus healthier so I can feel better about giving these cookies to my toddler (and eating them myself). Thanks also for leaving egg whites out of the icing – we don’t miss them and especially with being pregnant I don’t need to worry about food safety. Thank you!
I am so happy to hear this recipe works so well for you and your toddler. Happy Holidays, Amanda!
Hi
I would like to know if we can replace egg with any egg substitute in the recipe. Thanks 🙂
I don’t think so, sorry.
Hi, is it okay to substitute 1/4 cup dry monkfruit for the 1 cup cane sugar? Thanks!
This recipe calls for 1/2 cup sugar. I think it may work but I haven’t tried.
I found it difficult to get a nice ball of dough — need stronger arm muscles! — and the dough was crumbly. What do you think I did wrong?
Sounds like a bit too much flour so the dough was dry. Do you measure it by scoop and level method like scooping flour into a cup and skimming the top with a knife?
Yes, I spooned the flour into the measuring cup and levelled it with a knife. Perhaps when I mixed the butter and sugar with the mixer and it was well combined, it just wasn’t creamy enough?
Hmmm…maybe it needed more mixing of cream and butter and then with flour too…I know at first cookie dough looks dry but the more you mix it, butter moistens it.