These soft and chewy gingerbread cookie bars are so easy to makeโno dough chilling, no dough rolling, no cookie cutters required! They’re delicious plain, or topped with spiced cream cheese frosting. Skip the fuss and make gingerbread bars instead!
This recipe is such a fan favorite, that it deserved a spot in print! You’ll also find it in my New York Times best-selling cookbook, Sally’s Baking 101.
One reader, Christi, commented: “These gingerbread cookie bars are so good, I found myself returning to ‘taste test’ them again and againโand that was before adding the spiced cream cheese frosting! The flavor and texture are irresistible! โ โ โ โ โ ”
One reader, Rebecca, commented: “My husband and I made these yesterday, and they are so good! They taste just like a delicious cookie! Soft, slightly chewy, with creamy warm icing… I can see myself making these whenever I need a little Christmas in my day throughout the year. So easy and comforting. โ โ โ โ โ “
When you need a big batch of cookies but are pressed for time, cookie bars are the way to go. This dessert recipe makes a generously sized 9×13-inch pan of soft, chewy gingerbread cookie bars, perfect for sharing, especially at the holidays.
If you love the holiday-favorite flavors of warm spice and molasses, like you enjoy in gingerbread cookies and crisp molasses cookies, you’ll find those same cozy flavors here; but the texture is oh-so soft and chewyโlike a gingerbread version of a brownie!
Why You’ll Love These Gingerbread Cookie Bars
- Cookie bars are super soft and chewy, not cakey
- Packed with that nostalgic molasses and spice flavor associated with the holidays
- Makes a large pan to serve a crowd
- No dough chilling, no dough rollingโno fuss!
- Quicker and easier to make than many cookie recipes
- Can add white chocolate chips or butterscotch morsels for texture variety
- Top with a layer of cinnamon-spiced cream cheese frosting
Unlike these soft molasses cookies, gingerbread latte cookies, or traditional gingerbread cookies, there’s no dough chilling like these gingerbread blossoms, no rolling dough into individual balls or rolling out dough to cut into shapes (and then re-rolling), and no baking in batches. The only waiting you’ll have to suffer through is for the pan to cool for 1 hour before you cut them into bars. (I’m sorry!)
Simple Ingredients
Like with these favorite chewy chocolate chip cookies, using melted butter makes for the softest, chewiest bar cookies. I usually like to use melted butter in bar recipes like homemade brownies and blondies because the bars taste chewy, not cakey. I tested this recipe with creamed softened butter, and the baked result ended up looking more like a puffy sheet cake.
Here’s everything else you need for these gingerbread cookie bars:
- Flour: All-purpose flour is the base of this recipe.
- Baking Soda: Baking soda helps these bars rise as they bake, and we use a good amount of it to stand up to the heavy melted butter and molasses.
- A Generous Amount of Spices: Ginger, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg; plus, a pinch of black pepperโthe same secret ingredient I always add to pumpkin pie!
- Salt: Salt adds flavor and balances the sweetness.
- Sugar: Use a mix of brown sugar and white granulated sugar.
- Molasses: Use unsulphured; blackstrap is too bitter for these.
- Egg: An egg binds everything together.
- Vanilla Extract: For flavor.
White Chocolate Chips (Optional): If you love white chocolate chip molasses cookies, feel free to add some white chocolate chips to these bars, too. Fold them in as the last step in making the dough, just like we do with chocolate chip cookie bars.
Have I Mentioned No Dough Chilling?
Just melt, mix, press, and bake!
The dough will be slick from the melted butter, but should be easy enough to spread/press into the pan. Pat it down as best you can. It may seem like it isn’t enough dough, and the layer will be thin. But the bars rise as they bake.
Success Tip: Line the pan with parchment paper, leaving some overhang. Once the bars are cooled and frosted, simply lift the whole thing out using the parchment overhang. Set it onto a cutting board and slice. Easy!
Bake just until the top is set, and avoid over-baking. Cool the bars for at least 1 hour inside the pan before frosting and/or slicing.
Top With Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting
These gingerbread cookie bars are fabulous on their own, but then again, a little frosting is always a good idea. My favorite cream cheese frosting is far from basic; itโs incredibly creamy, silky smooth, and has that subtle tang to it. We’re scaling it down, and also kicking the flavor up a notch by adding pinches of some of the spices used in the cookie bars. The result is similar to the spiced cream cheese frosting on these pumpkin bars.
And, of course, some sprinkles are the perfect festive accessory on top. I used gingerbread cookie-shaped sprinkles, something like these, and some Christmas-colored nonpareils. Here’s a 4-pack of Christmas sprinkles, and I really love these snowflake sprinkles, too. Lots of options!
If you’re not planning to frost these gingerbread cookie bars, I recommend sprinkling the top with coarse sugar or festive colored sugar sprinkles before baking. Because a little sparkle is always welcome at the holidays!
You could even top with a sprinkling of chopped crystallized ginger, like we do for these chocolate ginger sparkle cookies.
This recipe is part of my annual cookie countdown called Sally’s Cookie Palooza. It’s the biggest, most delicious event of the year! Browse dozens of cookie recipes over on the Sally’s Cookie Palooza page.
Gingerbread Cookie Bars
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes (includes cooling & chilling)
- Yield: 18-24 bars
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These soft and chewy gingerbread cookie bars are so easy to makeโno dough chilling, no dough rolling, and no cookie cutters required! They’re delicious plain, or topped with spiced cream cheese frosting. Careful not to over-bake these; they’ll still feel and look quite soft on top, but the bars set as they cool. This recipe is also in my New York Times best-selling cookbook, Sally’s Baking 101.
Ingredients
- 2 and 1/4 cups (281g) all-purpose flour
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- small pinch of ground black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup (12 Tbsp; 170g) unsalted butter, melted
- 1/2 cup (100g) packed light or dark brown sugar (I recommend dark)
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1/3 cupย (113g/80ml) unsulphured molasses (do not use blackstrap; I prefer Grandma’s brand)
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting
- 6 ounces (170g) full-fat brick cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 2 Tablespoons (28g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 and 1/2 cups (180g) confectioners’ sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- small pinch each of ground ginger, cinnamon, & allspice
- optional for garnish: sprinkles
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350ยฐF (177ยฐC). Adjust oven rack to the center rack position. Line a 9×13-inch metal or glass baking pan with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on the sides to easily lift the bars out of the pan. Set aside.
- Make the cookie bars: Whisk the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, pepper, and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and molasses together until no lumps remain. Whisk in the egg and vanilla. Pour the butter mixture into the flour mixture and mix with a large spoon or silicone spatula until no traces of flour remain. The dough will be thick and shiny. Transfer the dough to the prepared baking pan and press it into a smooth, even layer. It may not seem like enough dough, and it will be a thin layerโthat’s OK.
- Bake for 23โ26 minutes or until the top is set but still looks quite soft and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean with only a few moist crumbs. Err on the side of under-baking. Bars puff up in the oven, but settle and firm up as they cool. Allow the bars to cool in the pan set on a cooling rack for at least 1 hour.
- Make the frosting: In a large bowl using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese and butter together on medium-high speed until smooth, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the confectioners’ sugar, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and vanilla extract. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds, then increase to high speed and beat for 2 minutes until completely combined and creamy. Taste and beat in a pinch of salt if the frosting is too sweet. Spread the frosting on the cooled bars. Top with sprinkles, if desired. To help set the frosting, refrigerate for 30 minutes before slicing and serving.
- Lift the bars out of the pan by gripping the parchment paper overhang; transfer to a cutting board and cut into squares. Cover leftover bars tightly and store in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. If you skipped the frosting, cover and store plain gingerbread cookie bars at room temperature for up to 3 days, or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: You can make the cookie dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months. Allow to come to room temperature and continue with step 4. Baked and cooled cookie bars, with or without frosting, freeze well for up to 3 months. Thaw bars overnight in the refrigerator and bring to room temperature before serving.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): 9×13-inch Glass Baking Pan or Metal Baking Pan | Parchment Paper | Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Silicone Spatula | Cooling Rack |ย Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Gingerbread Cookie-Shaped Sprinkles | Christmas 4-pack Sprinkles | Snowflake Sprinkles
- Can I Halve the Recipe? Yes, you can halve the recipe for an 8-inch or thinner 9-inch batch of bars. The bake time is about the same, but begin checking for doneness at 22 minutes. It can be difficult to halve an egg accurately, so I do recommend making the original 9×13-inch batch, and you can freeze extras.
- Butter: Avoid letting the melted butter cool for too long, otherwise your dough will be crumbly instead of soft (and your cookie bars can end up cakey). As soon as it’s melted, stir in the sugars and molasses as instructed in step 3.
- Molasses: I use and recommend unsulphured or dark molasses. (I like Grandmaโs brand. The kind I use is labeled โoriginalโ molasses.) Blackstrap molasses is extremely bitter and not ideal in this recipe.
- Cream Cheese in Frosting: Use brick cream cheese, not the spreadable kind that comes in a tub.
Reader Comments and Reviews
So easy. So delicious. And they freeze beautifully!
A perfect addition to my Christmas cookie plate.
I have made this for the holidays two years in a row now, and everyone always fights for the last piece. The cream cheese frosting is a perfect balance for the spicy gingerbread.
This was so easy to make and absolutely delicious. Chewy, nicely flavored, and melt in your mouth frosting. My family couldnโt stop eating them. Will keep in my holiday rotation. Thanks Sally & crew for another wonderful recipe!
Oh my word, these gingerbread bars are incredible!!
I love the flavour of gingerbread but find the dough sticky & time consuming to work with. This recipe has that OMG flavour, & divine aroma when baking, & is much simpler to make. Fabulous! They all disappeared double fast, so I guess I’ll have to make some more :).
I love the flavour of gingerbread but find the dough sticky & time consuming to work with. This recipe has that OMG flavour, & divine aroma when baking, & is much simpler to make. Fabulous! They all disappeared double fast, so I guess I’ll have to make some more :).
These are my new go-to dessert for Christmas. I made them once with regular flour and another time with GF flour for the first time and both of them turned out beautifully. So easy and delicious!!! ๐ Thank you for this recipe!!
I made these Gingerbread Cookie Bars to take to my fellow volunteers at the food bank last week; sometimes (but not often) there may be a few pieces, or cookies, or muffins etc. left at the end of the shift that I’m able to take home (I bake for the volunteers every Tuesday); NOT THIS TIME! The yummy noises that were coming out of the kitchen/staff room made me smile and everyone had high praise for a tasty baked treat! I love the flavour, and the warm spices that are added to the cream cheese frosting make the cookie bars that much more flavourful! A definite repeat on this one!
I made the ginger spiced bars and enjoyed doing it but it was very very sweet. I didnโt add the frosting for that reason. It was a bit crumbly. Did I leave it too long in the oven? Also used pomegranate molasses which isnโt as deeply sweet. Others donโt seem to find the bars too sweet. By the way, what is fancy molasses?
Pomegranate molasses is not made from sugar cane. It’s made with pomegranate juice…it is a very different flavor profile! “Fancy” just means higher grade. All molasses works (except blackstrap-bitter).
We can’t just sub any ingredient (changing the recipe) and then be disappointed in a recipe.
I made the gingerbread cookie dough recipe but never got around to rolling out and cutting them. Do you think I could make bars with it?
Youโre not supposed to roll these out. These are gingerbread cookie bars, it says in the title of this recipe!
Right but I didnโt say I made this recipe, I made her gingerbread cookie dough to roll out for gingerbread menโฆ
I donโt usually leave comments on recipes but I made these for Christmas and they were perfect. I got so many compliments on them, and they were gone by the end of the night. Im planning to make another batch soon but I wanted to say, I live in a first floor apartment with an electric stove. I cooked these at the specified temperature but only let them cook for 20min and they were already done. Idk if itโs an electric oven thing but I just wanted to put that out there for anyone else who might make these with an electric oven. However, I followed the recipe besides that too a T, and didnโt have any problems and the icing came out perfect! Thank you so much for this recipe.
These bars were incredibly easy to make and were also insanely delicious. They really reminded me of a brownie that was gingerbread flavored instead of chocolate. I was planning on making the frosting too but sampled the plain bars first and they were too perfect to change!
We’re so happy to read this, Stephanie! Thanks for giving this recipe a try.
These were a hit for Christmas! I love that the frosting on top isnโt thick. I canโt wait to make them again
Great cookie bars! These remind me of brownies but with perfect gingerbread flavor. Everyone really loved them!
Just for fun, I made a second batch but added a couple tablespoons of cocoa. They were also insanely delicious, so this recipe is definitely a keeper.
Thanks again for another excellent recipe Sally!
Went back to the instructions I used a cookie sheet instead of a 9×13 pan. Made a second batch and out of the oven is as pretty as a picture. Soft to the
touch. Looking forward to tasting this batch.
I’m not sure what I did wrong. The frosting is delicious, the cookie bars are delicious – and half raw. I followed the recipe, I thought, but when it came time to test them in the oven, the toothpick pulled out clean. And the bars felt really underdone. So I let them stay in the oven another 15 minutes, testing them every 5 minutes. Same result. The outside edge of the bars is done. The inside is cookie dough. The oven was at 350, an oven I’ve been using to make other things. ?
Hi Lauren, we’re happy to help troubleshoot. Cookie bars/blondies and bar desserts of the sort will naturally sink a bit in the middle and seem underbaked but set more as they cool. The edges have something to grab onto, and hold them up to bake more quickly. If you do find the edges getting excessively crispy, you can tent the pan with aluminum foil part way through bake time. This will prevent the edges from burning while allowing the middle to continue baking through. Hope this helps!
Loved these cookie bars, just like everything else from Sally. The taste was there but the frosting didnโt really hold, although I tried refrigerating the bars for longer. Is this normal or did something go wrong when I prepared the frosting ?
Hi Patricia! Did you use full fat block style cream cheese? Anything else will be too thin.
These bars are incredible! A sure hit to bring to any gathering. A nice bar in between gingerbread & a molasses cookie. I used freshly grated ginger instead of powdered ginger. I added it to the wet ingredients before combing with the flour mixture. These bars would also be good unfrosted & served with fresh whipped cream
These bars were delicious! The perfect amount of spice and a great chewy texture. They were a hit at our work potluck and I will be making them again.
Hello, I made these last year for Christmas gifts and they were a hit. I wanted to make them this year but need to make them a few days in advance. I donโt want to freeze them. I was wondering how long frosted bars can be left in the fridge? Does the frosting go watery after a few days? Would you suggest making the frosting the day of consumption?
Hi Amanda, you can cover leftover bars tightly and store in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. If you skipped the frosting, cover and store plain gingerbread cookie bars at room temperature for up to 3 days, or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. If you can wait to top them until serving or gifting, that would be best. So glad they were a hit!
I’ve never commented on anyones recipe. This is outstanding! Thanks for making my Christmas baking easier and Better!
Just made these today for a holiday party. Theyโre fantastic! So chewy and packed with classic gingerbread flavor. And super quick and easy to make. These are dangerously delicious
Delicious. Easy recipe. For my oven, should have taken them out of the oven in 20-21 minutes. But a very forgiving recipe. Instead of spice, I used orange zest in the cream cheese frosting and sprinkled generously with finely chopped dark chocolate shavings.
If I wanted to make these as a gift, whatโs a good way to package them up?
Hi Paige, these should really be stored in the refrigerator, due to the cream cheese frosting, so a container with a tight-fitting lid that you would use in the refrigerator would be best.
Can this be made with gluten-free flour?
Hi Meg, We havenโt tested this recipe using gluten-free flour, so weโre unsure of the results. Let us know if you try it!
These bars are so easy to make! They taste delicious, Iโll be making them from now on!
I made these (without icing) for work today. Comments I got included “these gingerbread bars are insane!!” and “you made my afternoon”. They are delicious!
Can we use fancy molasses
Hi Daytan, we use cooking molasses in our recipes and have not tested this one with fancy molasses. A few readers have reported success using the swap, but we’re unsure of the exact results. Let us know if you do give it a try!
I am a huge fan of these bars – I have made them the past couple of years and they are always a hit!!! Thanks for an awesome recipe!
Quick question – if I want to make the dough ahead of time as mentioned in the recipe notes, should I store it in an airtight bowl or push it down into the prepared pan prior to placing it in the fridge? Thanks so much!!
Hi Christine, either method will work just fine here. We’re so glad they’re a favorite for you!
Never made gingerbread before and I was a little nervous. I shouldn’t have been. These are amazing! I got so many compliments. Making these again this weekend and these will be in my holiday rotation. Thank you for sharing!
Hi Sally, these seem to be just like German Lepkugen. If so, do you think it would be ok to put them in a large tin with 1/4 apple to keep them soft? I remember my Omaโs Lepkugen was always kept in a tin for 2 weeks before Christmas and the flavors were even better than your recipe which I love.
Hi Susan, how interesting! Our storage recommendations are to cover and store plain gingerbread cookie bars at room temperature for up to 3 days, or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Frosted bars can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.