![Sparkling Shortbread Cookies](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/12/07/multimedia/YK-Sparkling-Shortbread-1-a959/YK-Sparkling-Shortbread-1-a959-mediumThreeByTwo440.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
Gingerbread Latte Cookies
![Gingerbread Latte Cookies](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/11/30/dining/VV-gingerbread-latte-cookies-COOKIEWEEK-copy/VV-gingerbread-latte-cookies-COOKIEWEEK-articleLarge.jpg?width=1280&quality=75&auto=webp)
- Total Time
- 35 minutes, plus 2 hours’ chilling
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 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
Preparation
- 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).
- Portioned dough can be frozen in balls, then coated and baked for about 13 minutes.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
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.
King Arthur flour offers a special espresso powder just for this kind of thing. It isn’t instant coffee.
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!
Hi Amy! I would do about 80 grams molasses. Apologies! We're working on resolving that now :)
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.
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!
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.
I’ve been buying Medaglia D’Oro espresso powder in my grocery store for years. Delicious in all baked items.
As a shortcut to grating fresh ginger, I used the little frozen ginger cubes from Dorot Gardens, available at Trader Joe'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!
Looks like they fixed the molasses weight
Excited to make these! With these, the eggnog snickerdoodles and the peppermint brownie cookies, you can make a whole Vaughn Vreeland cookie tin!
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.
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.
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.
25 cookies at 250 mg/ tbsp = 5 mg / serving
5 stars. At first glance the ingredient list does seem like a lot for cookies, but if you have all the spices on hand it's not bad at all. Other than hand whisking the butter step, I used my stand mixer to mix everything else. I prefer to weigh my ingredients so for everything that had a weight listed, I used that. The cookies taste like molasses cookies, which I honestly never choose to make or eat, on steroids. They are picture perfect and made the house smell like fall. Will make again.
These sound so good...not sure what store sells expresso powder and I love ginger but haven't cooked with fresh ginger. Hand injury right now, so may not be able to grate it. Glad they corrected the molasses amt... So it truly is 1/4 cup?
Can you cut down on the ginger? I’m not a fan of it. Can I use coconut sugar in place of brown sugar?
These were good, although mine came out tasting just like chewy ginger cookies - I really couldn't taste the coffee flavor from the espresso at all!
Is there any way of making these cookies without the espresso powder. I'm allergic to coffee (not caffeine), but love chewy gingerbread cookies? Thank you for any advice.
I loved these cookies and found the preparation to be quite straightforward. I just didn't find mine flattened as described. I followed the recipe exactly. Thoughts?
Very tasty. Just leave lots of room, these guys SPREAD out.
Used 1/2 c sugar only (too much sugar!), spelt flour, chilled dough overnight, rolled in sugar only, and flattened with glass bottom before putting in oven. Came out perfectly.
For the commenters with cookies that spread - I used to have this problem until I stopped overmixing eggs. This recipe calls for the egg, etc. to be mixed for 2 minutes. I left the egg out and mixed for 90 seconds, then added the egg. Also, since this recipe called for extended refrigeration, I used baking powder instead of soda. My cookies rose and did not spread. Thanks to the reviewers who mentioned a caffeine buzz - I halved the expresso powder, 1/8 C, which came to 8 grams for my brand.
To make them look like the photo, I add extra topping when they come out of the oven. These are delicious cookies.
If you only coat the top part of the cookie dough the bottoms will not burn as quickly
And when do you add the butter/spice mixture? Recipe does not say. I alternated it with the flour. The batter is in the refrigerator now, sure hope it comes out ok.
Has anyone made these with gluten free flour? If so (and if you had a good result), which flour did you use?
I added some candied ginger to the sugar mix for rolling the cookies. They were a hit with my friends.
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