BEST Gingerbread Cookie Recipe

October 27, 2025
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You are going to love our families gingerbread recipe for kids that actually stay soft, have an amazing flavor, and smell wonderful while they bake. I know you hear these are the best a lot, but I’m telling you – this gingerbread cookie recipe is truly, hands-down the best gingerbread cookies. I get requests for this easy gingerbread cookies year after year because they actually stay soft and are so YUMMY!

You are going to love our families gingerbread recipe for kids that actually stay soft, have an amazing flavor, and smell wonderful while they bake. I know you hear these are the best a lot, but I'm telling you - this gingerbread cookie recipe is truly, hands-down the best gingerbread cookies. I get requests for this easy gingerbread cookies year after year because they actually stay soft and are so YUMMY!

gingerbread recipe for kids

Let me share a family secret…. our BEST Gingerbread Cookies Recipe! These cookies come out soft and oh-so-yummy. They will make your whole house smell like Christmas too! Use this easy gingerbread man recipe for preschoolers to whip up a batch of Gingerbread Men to decorate to go along with reading the classic Gingerbread man story, give to neighbors, or enjoy while sitting around the Christmas tree watching your favorite Christmas movie as a family.
So put on some Christmas music, grab the kids (or grandkids) and let’s start some holiday baking and making memories together as you whip up these easy gingerbread cookie recipe.

We have lots more yummy recipes to choose from including candy cane cookies, adorable Christmas Reindeer Cookies, pretty mint meltaway cookies, melt-in-your-mouth wedding cake snowball cookies, and cute checkerboard cookies Christmas.

mix brown sugar, butter, molasses, and water in a bowl
Let me show you how to make our favorite Christmas cookie:
Start by mixing together brown sugar, softened butter, molasses, and cold water.
Stir in ginger, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, salt, baking soda, and flour

easy gingerbread cookies

Stir in remaining ingredients: ginger, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, salt, baking soda, and flour.
refrigerate the dough 1 hour to make easier to handle. It will be a stiff dough
Refrigerate the dough 1 hour covered. You can skip this part, but it helps make the dough easier to shape.
roll out gingerbread men on a lightly floured surface

gingerbread man recipe for preschoolers

Preheat oven to 350 F while you roll out gingerbread men on a lightly floured surface. The dough will be stiff, that’s normal.
put gingerbread cookie cut outs on greased cookie sheet

easy gingerbread recipe for kids

Put cut outs on lightly greased cookie sheet 2″ apart.
easy gingerbread cookies
Bake 10-12 minutes. DON’T OVERBAKE or they wont be soft. Let them cool 1-2 minutes on cookie sheet and then move them to a cooling rack.
best gingerbread cookies recipe

gingerbread man recipe for kids

Once cookies are cool enough to handle, decorate with frosting. Easy, right? These easy gingerbread cookie recipe for kids are a holiday tradition at our home!
Christmas cookies
These are seriously the best Christmas cookies you’ll eat. They are quick & easy to make, not overly sweet, they are soft, they smell like Christmas, and they taste FANTASTIC! How did you decorate your best gingerbread men recipe.

These are my families favorite Christmas cookie!

BEST Gingerbread Cookies

BEST Gingerbread Cookies

Beth Gorden
These are seriously the best Christmas cookies you’ll eat. They are quick & easy to make, not overly sweet, they are soft, they smell like Christmas, and they taste FANTASTIC!
4.73 from 11 votes
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Course Dessert
Cuisine American, christmas, cookies

Ingredients
  

  • 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
  • 3 tablespoons butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup molasses
  • 1/3 cup cold water
  • 1 teaspoon ginger powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon allspice
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon crushed cloves
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour

Instructions
 

  • Mix together brown sugar, butter, molasses, and cold water. Add the remaining ingredients.
  • Cover dough and put in refrigerate for about an hour. This is option, but will make it easier to handle. If you refrigerate it too long it gets stiff – don’t throw it out just let it warm up and you roll it is and it will still taste just as delicious!
  • Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface. Cut out with cookie cutters and place on greased cookie sheet at least 2″ apart.
  • Bake cookies for 10 minutes (DON”T overbake!) Allow to cool 1-2 minutes on the cookie sheet, then move to cooling rack.
  • Decorate cooled cookies with your favorite icing to look like gingerbread men.
  • HINT: If you are using traditional red-hots for eyes, make sure you put them in the gingerbread men before baking. Personally, this is one of my favorite flavor combinations!
  • You will be amazed how simple, pretty, and absolutely delicious this Nougat Candy is! This yummy, easy Christmas candy recipes is perfect for taking to Christmas parties, potlucks, cookie swaps, or serving alongside your holiday meals. You will love this homemade nougat.
  • Jello salad recipes were all the rage at one point. While not a suppertime staple anymore, certain recipes have become family favorites in our house. This pistachio fluff salad is pretty, creamy, and easy to whip up! We like to eat this yummy green fluff as Christmas Salad Recipes because of how pretty and festive it plates up in red and green! Whether you've heard this called pineapple pistachio fluff or an easy watergate salad - this is truly a delicious and beautiful salad to serve around the holidays!
  • One of our favorite Christmas cookies recipes is candy cane cookies. These cookies have a delightful buttery taste with a hint of almond extract and crushed candy canes on top, plus they are so cute! These peppermint candy cane cookies look just like candy canes! Here is our simple, family favorite candy cane cookie recipe!
  • Whether you are looking for the best glazed Christmas ham or a baked ham recipe for Easter, you will love this yummy Baked ham recipe! This orange glazed ham is super flavorful, moist, easy-to-make, and picture perfect! This just may be the best Christmas ham ever! 
  • Nothing says Christmas like a glass of best homemade eggnog! This holiday treat is super simple to make with our easy eggnog recipe. And if you think you don't like eggnog, you've never tried home made egg nog before! This eggnog recipe without alcohol is perfect for the whole family to enjoy! So try this DIY, non-alcoholic treat this December!
  • If you are looking for a delicious and fun breakfast idea for December, you will love these easy gingrbread waffles! This gingerbread waffle recipe is one of my kids favorite advent activities. I make these yummy waffles and then they get to decorate them with fruit, whip cream, chocolate chips, and other fun add-ons. Use this gingerbread recipe for a creative Christmas breakfast ideas the whole family will love!
  • If you are looking for pretty Christmas cookies to make with or for your kids, you will love these buttery spritz cookies recipe.
  • Best-Gingerbread-Cookies-Recipe
  • One of my favorite christmas cookie recipes my family made was Mexican wedding cakes These white, powedered sugar covered, balls melt in your mouth! I love that snowball cookies have a rich buttery taste with a hint of peanuts to balance out the sugar. Plus these mexican wedding cake cookies are quick and easy to make! Come see our mexican wedding cake recipes and whip up a batch to enjoy this December or January!
  • This peanut blossom cookie recipe is our family favorite tweaks to a classic recipe that combines a delightful peanut butter cookie with a pretty and delicious hershey kiss. These peanut butter blossoms cookies are a staple on our Christmas cookie platter. They are so easy to make and so yummy, they are always one of the first to get made in our house!
  • With all the red candy cane, green christmas tree, and multi-colored sugar cookies that fill your Christmas Cookie plates, it is nice to have a contrast. These Checkerboard cookies are a twist of ones my mother-in-law made. The black and white checkerboard cookies make such a stunning contrast with the rest of the desserts, but with a soft, delightful Christmas cookies recipe!
  • Best sugar cookie recipe for Christmas cookies in december
  • Get ready to impress your friends with the most adorable Christmas cookies ever! This super cute reindeer cookies recipe not only look fantastic, but they taste amazing too! With their soft, delicious peanut butter base, our Christmas Reindeer Cookies are the perfect treat for kids this December. Spread some holiday cheer with these festive delights!
  • Calling all cookie lovers! Who can resist a delicious cookie? Today, I’m excited to share one of my absolute favorites: Pastel Mint Chocolate Cookies! These beauties are not just tasty but also super fun to make. Picture this: melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cookies topped with colorful green, yellow, and pink mints. They are delightfully soft and bursting with minty goodness! Originally you had to buy the meltaway mints from Fannie Mae but now they sell generic versions on Amazon that taste just as good and are cheaper! This recipe has a special place in my heart because my mother-in-law makes them, and they've become a cherished family tradition. I can’t wait for you to try them out! I hope your family loves them as much as ours does!

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Beth Gorden is the creative multi-tasking creator of 123 Homeschool 4 Me. As a busy homeschooling mother of six, she strives to create hands-on learning activities and worksheets that kids will love to make learning FUN! With over 20 years educating children, she has created over 1 million pages of printables to help teach kids alphabet, math, science, English grammar, history, and so much more! Beth is also the creator of 2 additional sites with even more educational activities and FREE printables - www.kindergartenworksheetsandgames.com and www.preschoolplayandlearn.com. Beth studied at the University of Northwestern where she got a double major to make her effective at teaching children while making education FUN!

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4.73 from 11 votes (9 ratings without comment)

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4 Comments

  2. Do you know how many calories it is?

    Reply