Rich, spicy, heart-warming vegan molasses cookies. Mmm… These gems are brimming with ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, and the robust flavour of molasses. They’re soft, chewy, and oh-so comforting.
I used dark brown sugar and blackstrap molasses for the deepest molasses flavour. If you prefer something milder I’d suggest subbing in use fancy molasses and light brown sugar.
You can roll your cookies in raw sugar, sanding sugar, or even just regular granulated sugar for a touch of holiday sparkle. Next time, if I used raw sugar again, I’d just press the tops in the sugar instead of rolling them – the large sugar granules are pretty crunchy.
Red Path is my go-to brand for most sugars. They’ve got plain ol’ white sugar, plus golden yellow, dark brown, and demerara style sugar. For rolling I used Sugar in the Raw (not Red Path.)
Looking for more vegan cookie recipes? We’ve got iced gingerbread cookies (a reader favourite!), coconut macaroon thumbrints, banana chocolate chip superfood cookies, and peanut butter oatmeal cookies.
VEGAN MOFO 2016 UPDATE:
It’s day 10 of VeganMofo! The challenge is to talk about vegan food, as much as possible, for the entire month of November. I’m shooting for 5 days a week. For the rest of the month, the posting schedule will (hopefully!) be Sunday-Thursday. JSYK: I’m not really following the 2016 Vegan Mofo Themes and Prompts, but I am using them as inspiration when needed!
Here are the posts so far:
Day 1: Easy Vegan Tofu & Black Bean Enchiladas
Day 2: How to Make the Best Vegan Grilled Cheese
Day 3: Review: Vegan Pantry Haul from iHerb
Day 4: Vegetable Pot Pie with Vegan Biscuits
Day 6: Vegan Caffé Mocha
Day 7: Tempeh Bacon, Lettuce & Tomato Sandwich
Day 8: Chickpea & Lentil Coconut Curry
Day 9: Vegan Jackfruit + Mushroom Gyros with Tzatziki
Day 10: Vegan Molasses Cookies
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Rich and spicy vegan cookies brimming with deep molasses flavour.
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/2 cup vegan butter, melted
- 2/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed
- 1/2 cup blackstrap or fancy molasses
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- raw sugar (for rolling)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom. Mix well.
- In a larger bowl, whisk together melted butter, brown sugar, molasses and vanilla.
- Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Pour raw sugar into a bowl for rolling.
- Scoop cookie dough by the heaping tablespoon and roll into balls. Roll or press dough in raw sugar. Gently press each dough ball to flatten slightly. Place cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, leaving at least 1 1/2″ between cookies.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the cookies are cracked, puffy, and the edges appear cooked. Cool on a cooling rack.
- Once cool store in a sealed container.
Notes
For best results, make sure to measure your flour accurately! How to Measure Flour.
Oh man!!! These are sooooo good. I made these tonight for dessert and my in laws LOVED them…so did I 🙂 I am in Darwin, Australia and put the dough in the fridge first to chill, then I noticed it was getting sticky while making the balls, so stuck it in the freezer while some cooked and just worked quickly. (The room temperature was about 33 degrees). I can’t wait to make more and serve them at Christmas! Perfect amount of spice and flavour and deliciousness.
★★★★★
Thanks you SO much Courtney! I’m so glad you enjoyed the recipe 🙂 If the dough gets warm the fat will liquefy and make the dough sticky so freezing it for a little while is exactly the right thing to do. Thanks for commenting!
My teenage daughters are both vegan and looooove these cookies
They’ve become a staple request
Should the texture be crunchy or a bit chewy in the center?
I only cook them long enough for them to be chewy but you can cook them longer for crunchy cookies!
Hi! These look absolutely delicious!! Is it possible to replace the vegan butter with apple sauce for an oil free version?
Hi Kat! I haven’t tried that substitution so I’m really not sure. Please let me know if you give it a try and how it works out!
Did you try the applesauce instead of oil, Kat? I’m a no oil vegan too and was wondering if it would work. Thanks!
I made these with applesauce and they came out perfectly! I also subbed coconut sugar for the brown sugar as I follow a non-refined sugar diet as well! No problems with the substitutions at all! They came out lightly sweetened with the coconut sugar and were full of flavor!
★★★★
Thanks for you help Sommer!
These were awesome! My mother in law actually burst into tears because her mother used to make her molasses cookies and “nobody else likes molasses cookies!” so she hadn’t had them in years. Easy recipe, turned out great!
★★★★★
Oh my goodness, what a wonderful comment!! Thank you so much for inviting this recipe into your home for the holidays, that’s so wonderful!
I made these cookies today. I had two cookie sheets (same brand) in the oven and one sheet of cookies cracked on top and the other one didn’t. Any idea why this would have happened?
Hmm… Interesting! Was one pan on a higher rack? I’m thinking one sheet didn’t get hot quickly enough for the crust to cook BEFORE they started to rise and break the crust.
These are great!! The spices are perfectly balanced and they whipped up so quickly!
Yay! I’m so glad you enjoyed them 😀
Wow! These are so good and easy to put together! My 3 year old helped mix them up and then she went ahead and ate them all. Thanks for sharing. This one is a keeper!
★★★★★
Wonderful! Making cookies as a kid is so fun, thanks for trying out my recipe 😀
Great recipe! I didn’t have any vegan butter so I used coconut oil which led to a lot of trouble binding (couldn’t even consider it a dough, more like greasy brown flour) But! I ended up adding a chia egg (1 tbsp ground chia seed + 3 tbsp warm water) and that really made a difference!! They did need longer in the oven, but the texture turned out alright and the flavor was AMAZING.
Thanks for commenting Grace! I’m so glad you were able to adapt this recipe to suit your needs. Thank you for including your subs so others can use them too. 🙂
Delicious! Perfect amount of sugar and touch of spice. I haven’t binged on cookies in a while- but couldn’t help myself😊
★★★★★
Haha, thank Vicky! I’m so glad you enjoyed these 😀
These were the first vegan cookies I’ve ever made, super easy to make and love their melt-in-your-mouth texture. I used blackstrap molasses as it was all I had on hand so they ended up tasting very molasses-ey and a bit too strong for some people, still really good though.
Thanks so much Hannah! I think blackstrap is best for people who LOVE molasses but I’m glad you still enjoyed these cookies! 😀
I already love pretty much every cookie but I think this has become my favorite. I had leftover blackstrap molasses from a different recipe so I decided to make these and they were the BEST. Also, I was surprised at how quick they were to make. The first time I made them, I thought it was weird that there was no salt in the recipe, so I added some, and…it was a mistake. Hahahaha so there’s definitely a reason you didn’t put in salt, I think the salt just strengthened the molasses flavor and made them a bit too bitter. I still liked them a lot, but I just made them again with no salt lol and they’re perfect. I can’t believe I never knew how much I loved molasses. Thank you Brittany!
★★★★★
YAY! Thanks so much Heather 🙂 I too thought any cookie recipe would need a little salt and originally tested the recipe with some but I quickly realized that the molasses and leavening agents provide plenty of sodium in this recipe. Thanks for commenting, I’m glad you love molasses!! 😀
Perfect! My batch was a tiny bit dry so I added a flax egg. Will definitely make again. They were a hit at the office cookie party!
Yay! Thank you!
Hello! these look so yummy, is there anything i could use in place of the melted vegan butter? such as coconut oil? thanks!
★★★★★
You can try coconut oil! I’d use about 1/3 cup coconut oil and add 1 tbsp + 1 tsp of water to ensure the cookies aren’t greasy. I hope that helps!
Okay, thank you so much! I will see how it goes! (:
😀 Good luck!
do you think I could I use gluten free all purpose flour instead of regular flour? thx!
I haven’t tried it myself but you could give it a try with 1:1 GF baking flour. I’d just start with a little less flour than I called for in the recipe.
Made these with gluten free flour and applesauce in place of the melted butter, worked perfectly! dough was sticky but made sure to stick it back in the refrigerator each time a batch went into the oven so it helped keep it firm enough to roll. chewy, soft and made the whole house smell good lol! delicious recipe!
★★★★★
YAY! That’s wonderful to hear, I’m so glad they worked out for you with your substitutions. What kind of gluten free flour did you use? Thanks for commenting Aly!
These are fantastic. Followed the recipe exactly and it was delicious. I ate like all of them in one sitting!
★★★★★
Hi! Do you think these could be made with white whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose flour? Thanks so much! They look delicious!
Turned out beautifully
Is there any particular reason why you use vegan butter instead of oil?
Yes! Vegan butter is “solid” at room temperature, making it a better replacement for butter than most oils. Vegan butter is also similar to butter in its flavour and nutritional profiles. Vegetable shortening or coconut oil (for best results you don’t want to substitute coconut oil 1:1 for vegan butter/butter) are also solid at room temperature so they can be used as substitutions with some adjustments.
These are cookies are fantabulous! #greatShare
I made these last night and they’re fantastic! They have a rich, bold flavor and were so easy to throw together. I used a little cookie scoop and ended up with 36 2-inch diameter cookies – wonderfully chewy – plus one double sized fatty which was *extra* soft. Since making these was an example of what I call “stress baking,” –that is, I didn’t need 37 cookies lying around the house; I just needed to bake something… for wellness 🙂 –I brought them with me to the cafe where I study (medical student) and offered them to all the regulars I see there. They were a huge hit! I even gave a stack of them to a homeless man who asked for donations. He took the cookies in his hands and said with wonder, “Oh, they’re all… *bends them to display softness and chewiness.”” He said they were really good! Doubt he’s vegan, haha. I’m really impressed with the warm, homey, autumnal flavor of these cookies, and it was really delightful the way they brought my eccentric little cafe community together. I’ll definitely be making these again.
★★★★★
Thank you for taking the time to post a comment Tina! I really really appreciate it. And your stories about these cookies absolutely made my morning!! Thank you for trying the recipe and sharing them with your community. You’re the best!! ♥
These are fantastic! Chewy, soft, and not too sweet. Thank you 🙂
★★★★★
Thank you so much Kelly, I really appreciate your feedback! 🙂
Hello!
Is this best with dried or fresh ginger?
Thanks!
Dried!
I am new to being Vegan. So I was wondering could you use olive oil instead of the vegan butter?
I wouldn’t! You’re best bet is to use another oil that’s semi-solid/soft at room temperature, not liquid. If you need to use something other than vegan butter I’d go with coconut oil or vegetable shortening instead. If using coconut oil I’d use a little bit less than 1/2 cup and add a tiny bit of non-dairy milk to make up for the difference.
It looks like it’s possible in some cases to sub oil for butter when baking. Specifically, this articles says that if the recipe calls for melted butter — as this recipe does– it should work. https://www.southernliving.com/fats/butter/substitute-butter-for-oil. Here’s another article that says how to do the conversion: https://www.livestrong.com/article/442739-how-to-replace-butter-for-olive-oil/ It seems from the comments that this is a pretty forgiving recipe, so I’m going to give it a go and will consider adding a flax egg if necessary (as per other comments)
Oh, also I went ahead and used olive oil because I saw somewhere that it is a good 1:1 substitution in recipes that call for melted butter. In other recipes that call for creaming together butter and other ingredients, it should not be used.
★★★★★
These are literally my favorite cookies ever. AMAZING. My oven usually cooks them longer at 12-14 min, but they always come out perfectly.
★★★★★
Yay! Thanks so much Zelda! I’m so glad you like it!
I made these cookies for my work Christmas party and they turned out great!! Very excited to share this recipe for my vegan and dairy-free coworkers and friends!! Thanks for sharing!!
★★★★
Yay! I’m so glad to hear that Kayla! Thanks for trying the recipe and taking the time to comment! ♥
I don’t have vegan butter, can I sue olive oil instead?
I wouldn’t… I’d use coconut oil or vegetable shortening instead! If you do try it with olive oil I’d love to know how it turns out!
I used olive oil, which I think would have been fine, but I added in 1 tbsp water because it looked a little dry. These cookies taste great for me came out pretty flat because of it.
So disappointed. I wasted a lot of time and about 10 bucks making these and to quote my husband, “These are the worst cookies you’ve ever made.”
They are SO salty, like so salty that I have to throw them away. I’ve never seen a recipe call for so much baking soda before, I guess that’s the cause. Not sure why I’m the only one experiencing this problem.
Jen, perhaps you made a mistake when measuring the baking soda? I’ve made these a dozen times and no one has ever made a comment about tasting salt. So sorry!
I made these to make my house smell yummy during the blizzard. This is my go-to recipe for comfort cookies. Perfect in every way. Thank you!
★★★★★
These were delicious! Highly recommend.
Just made these, and they were delicious! I substituted Zulka Morena Pure cane sugar for the brown sugar, and used it for the rolling, as well. After pressing the cookies onto the baking sheet, I decided to spoon a tsp or so of jam into the center. I baked them about 12-14 minutes and they came out great, especially after refrigerated for a firmer fruit center! Thanks for the recipe, it’s been added to my ‘tried & true’ board!!
★★★★★
hi can i use normal butter instead of vegan