By Vaughn Vreeland
- Total Time
- 35 minutes, plus 2 hours’ chilling
- Rating
- 4(3,067)
- Notes
- Read community notes
Biting into one of these cookies is like taking the first sip of a festive beverage, and their spiced coffee fragrance gives your kitchen cozy holiday vibes. A combination of fresh and ground ginger adds an extra note of warmth that accentuates the coffee flavor and other spices, while the espresso-sugar coating creates crisp edges that yield to pillowy-soft interiors. Pair it with your milk of choice and you have a gingerbread latte in a single bite.
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Ingredients
Yield:About 18 cookies
- ¾cup/168 grams unsalted butter
- ¼cup/22 grams espresso powder
- 1tablespoon/17 grams finely grated fresh ginger
- 2teaspoons ground ginger
- 1teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼teaspoon ground clove
- ½cup/100 grams granulated sugar
- ½cup/107 grams dark brown sugar, packed
- ¼cup/80 grams unsulphured molasses
- 1teaspoon kosher salt
- 1large egg
- 2teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1teaspoon baking soda
- 2cups/252 grams all-purpose flour
- ¼cup/50 grams granulated sugar
- 2teaspoons espresso powder
- ½teaspoon ground ginger
For the Cookies
For the Coating
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (18 servings)
193 calories; 8 grams fat; 5 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 grams polyunsaturated fat; 29 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram dietary fiber; 18 grams sugars; 2 grams protein; 113 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
Powered byPreparation
Step
1
Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium. When it begins to bubble and get foamy, remove from the heat and whisk in the espresso powder, fresh ginger, ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove. Scrape the butter mixture into a medium mixing bowl and set aside to cool for about 5 minutes.
Step
2
Add the sugars, molasses and salt to the bowl and whisk vigorously to combine. Add the egg, vanilla and baking soda and continue whisking until the mixture appears smooth and it’s the consistency of thin pancake batter, about 2 minutes. Add the flour and mix until evenly incorporated. Cover and chill the dough for at least 2 hours and up to 2 days before baking.
Step
3
Heat oven to 375 degrees, with racks on the lower and upper thirds. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Prepare the coating by combining the granulated sugar, espresso powder and ground ginger in a small bowl.
Step
4
Using a 2-tablespoon (1 ounce) scoop, scoop the dough and, using your hands, roll into walnut-size balls. (Alternatively, for each cookie, use a tablespoon measure to scoop 2 tablespoons dough and roll them into a ball.) Toss in the sugar mixture to coat.
Step
5
Place the portioned dough 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets and bake, rotating the sheets on the racks halfway through, until the cookies have spread slightly and appear craggy on the surface, about 10 minutes. Allow to cool on the baking sheets for 3 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. (The cookies will flatten once cooled.) These cookies keep in an airtight container at room temperature for 4 to 5 days (if they last that long).
Tip
- Portioned dough can be frozen in balls, then coated and baked for about 13 minutes.
Ratings
4
out of 5
3,067
user ratings
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Cooking Notes
M
Warning to other readers: The weight measurement for molasses in this recipe is WAY off. 158g of unsulphured molasses comes out to about ½ a cup on my home scale, not ¼. King Arthur states that ¼ cup of molasses wights about 85g—I think that would be the right measurement for this recipe.I'm disappointed, NYT, because I was making this recipe by weight, so I added twice the correct amount of molasses to the dough! What a waste of all these ingredients.
Name vitra2
King Arthur flour offers a special espresso powder just for this kind of thing. It isn’t instant coffee.
julie peach
Oh my. Made these for a Christmas Cookie Exchange and I cannot wait to be the overall best in show winner! (... there are winners, right?)It tastes like a "quad shot, half syrup gingerbread latte" because the espresso & dark sugar is dominant, and it's not too sweet. Like, this is a chewable latte. How? HOW! I somehow ended up with 23 generously sized cookies. I ain't mad. Thank you!
Vaughn V
Hi Amy! I would do about 80 grams molasses. Apologies! We're working on resolving that now :)
Caroline E
These are delicious but fair warning: They are VERY caffeinated. I ate 3 before bed one night and tossed and turned all night. Still, I regret nothing.
Vaughn V.
Hi all! I hope you love these cookies as much as I do. I'm a big coffee fan, and these don't shy away from the coffee flavor. I used both King Arthur espresso powder and Illy ground espresso when testing this recipe, and both yielded good results for me! Espresso powder is technically different from ground espresso, but it shouldn't change the chemistry of the overall bake if you have trouble finding one over the other. Happy baking!
Kate
Made these about half the size recommended (~1 tbs balls) and cooked for about 9 minutes total- made about 45, and more of a snack size cookie. I think I would top these with some Demerara sugar next time- add a bit of a sugar-y crunch on top. They’re very gingery at first, followed by a nice coffee flavor, and you get a nice bit of heat from the fresh ginger that lingers at the end.
Kathryn
I’ve been buying Medaglia D’Oro espresso powder in my grocery store for years. Delicious in all baked items.
Julia S
Hi Julia, Swedes do this too! We use gingerbread snaps (pepparkakor) for this purpose: they are indeed thin, and intensely spiced with ginger, cloves, allspice, cinnamon and cardamom. Try putting thin slivers of blue cheese on top, and serving with a glass of bubbly or gluhwein (glögg). Delicious as well as Christmassy!
Lynn H
As a shortcut to grating fresh ginger, I used the little frozen ginger cubes from Dorot Gardens, available at Trader Joe's.
Katherine
Looks like they fixed the molasses weight
Nicole Lang
Excited to make these! With these, the eggnog snickerdoodles and the peppermint brownie cookies, you can make a whole Vaughn Vreeland cookie tin!
James A
You can do a flax seed egg if you're looking to go vegan. 1 tbsp flax seed meal, 2.5 or 3 tbsp water. Whisk well and let sit for a couple minutes.Vegan butter also worked well for this recipe. Looked exactly like the picture.
Kelly in Maine
Marie, in the US, there is instant espresso powder, which is not ground beans. “Medaglia d’Ora” is the brand I have; I bought it at grocery stores and Target. Regular instant coffee would be fine.
Lynn H
Molasses weight seems far too high - King Arthur's ingredients weight database shows 1/4 c of molasses at 85 g, so something seems amiss in this recipe - either the Imperial or the metric must be incorrect. I just made the batter with recipe with 158 g of molasses; we'll see if it firms up as it chills.
Pam Weinstein
Here's a thing you can do, after you have mixed up all the batter: get a dinner plate, lay out a big piece of plastic wrap over it, dump the batter into the plastic wrap-lined plate, close up the plastic wrap around it and put into the fridge. Two hours later, it will be ready to be formed into balls. And definitely keep your hands wet with water while rolling the dough into balls.
Deirdre Seim
As a coffee and ginger lover, I had high hope for these, but they were just not good at all. Very bitter. If I were to make them again, I would remove the expresso powder entirely from the sugar coating and reduce it by 1/3 in the dough.
Liz
Delicious! I left the espresso powder out of the rolling sugar as the batter was on the bitter side already. Happy with the decision! I'll be making these again. Do keep in mind that the recipe was SERIOUS when they said to spread them out at least 2 inches apart. They spread a lot and my first batch was more cookie cake than individual cookies.
Laura
I don't care for the texture of even the most finely grated fresh ginger, so I run it through the food processor and use the same amount of just the squeezed juice. I also add finely minced candied ginger and dried cherry cherries. This recipe is almost identical to a King Arthur Flour recipe for Cape Cod Ginger Molasses Cookies. I don't really understand the "latte" part. There's no milk or cream ingrefient--unless you stretch that to include butter.
kd
Made these cookies exactly as directed. Cookies had no structure and melted into each other when baking. Also had a very bitter flavor from the espresso. Flavor was not balanced at all.
Beth Ann
WARNING: This is a cookie so good that you will stoop to hiding some so that other members of your family won’t find them and eat them before you do. I feel terrible. NOT!
Laurie
I have a recipe very similar to this one. I add fresh ginger juice, minced candied ginger, and dried cherries. People are crazy about them.
Lauralee
Another weight issue. My 1/4 cup espresso powder(medaglia d'oro) weighs 14 grams. Your recipe says 22 grams. Which is it???
Wendy Goldner
Just made these and they are delicious! I was half way through when I realized I didn't have any nutmeg so I threw in some pumpkin spice which has some. Next time I'll be sure I have more nutmeg, but I can't imagine these being any better. The only thing is my did not flatten like it said they would. I used a rolling pin to flatten them out, otherwise they were quit thick and high. Not sure why that happened but no bigger. A real winner.
joan
This recipe is mediocre. I was very disappointed in the flavor as they just lacked the sweetness. Texture was very good but cold not make up for the uninspired flavor.
JT from Oregon
Unbelievably good. New favorite!
Marie
I made these for a cookie party to try something different but not complicated or over the top and these are amazing. I ended up powdering espresso beans (I live in a remote country and couldn't find espresso powder) and they came out just fine. Other than that I followed the recipe. Next time I'll find the right ingredient. They were easy and everyone loved them.
PBV
I used instant coffee, and regreted it! Once added to the melted butter, it formed an almost solid mass that needed lots of coaxing (use a pestle) to break back apart. Lessons learned.
PBV
Now they have been baked, I am not sure I have loved a cookie more. Such great flavors!! I used King Arthur gluten-free cup for cup flour; they were so good! MAKE THESE for the entire winter, for all you know!
Ronda
For the 1 tbsp of fresh ginger substitute 1/4 tsp of dried. So use
Mariangela
Flavor was delicious but mine spread too thin and I’m not sure why after watching the video and reading notes. My sister had nice puffy cookies. I will definitely try again!
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