These chocolate gingerbread cookies use a healthy sugar alternative. The cookies are chewy, soft, and healthy! They have chopped chocolate chunks that are sweetened with Stevia. If you are looking for a low sugar holiday dessert, these are for you!
This post is sponsored by Lily’s Sweets and all thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that make Stephanie’s Sweet Treats possible!
Low Sugar Gingerbread Cookies
These chocolate gingerbread cookies are made with low sugar. The cookies themselves are made with coconut sugar. This is a healthy sugar alternative that is like honey or blue agave. Also, it doesn’t affect the taste of the cookies at all! They taste just like cookies made with granulated sugar.
The best part is the chocolate chunks. I used Lily’s Sweets Salted Caramel Milk Chocolate bars. These chocolates are very low sugar. In this case, these are sweetened with Stevia. The chocolate tastes great and it is low sugar. It is a win-win.
The salted caramel milk chocolate bars have sea salt in the bars which helps to balance out the cookie. You can get these bars at Kroger, Whole Foods, Amazon, etc. They are available at a lot of stores!
Even though this cookie is low sugar, it still tastes amazing! No one who tries this cookie will be able to tell.
Tips To Make Gingerbread Cookie Dough
This cookie dough is pretty easy to make, here are some tips to get them just right!
- Use room temperature butter and egg- To get a better rise in the cookies, take those ingredients out 2 hours before baking. Room temperature butter is easy to aerate. It creates a chewier cookie!
- Beat butter and coconut sugar for 2 whole minutes- Use a mixer and set a timer. Beat the butter for 2 whole minutes. This gives enough to time to aerate the butter.
- Don’t use blackstrap molasses- The blackstrap vs regular unsulfured molasses has a different flavor. Blackstrap is too intense and too dark.
- Chop chocolate finely- The chocolate chunks shouldn’t be too large. You will need 2 bars of chocolate for inside the cookies. Then, use another bar to top the cookies
- Chill the dough- The dough has to be chilled for 1 hour.
Prevent The Cookies From Spreading
The reason why a cookie will spread in the oven is the butter is too warm. There could also be too much butter to flour ratio. All of my high altitude bakers, make sure you add an extra 2 TBSP of flour to the dough.
Since you need room temperature butter to aerate the dough, the butter will be too warm. Also, with the added molasses, the dough will be way too soft.
Stick the dough in the fridge for 1 hour. This will help firm up the dough.
Another item that helps is to use silicone baking mats. These mats have little bit of grip. It holds on to cookie dough while baking.
Scooping The Cookie Dough
These cookies need to baked into large cookies. A larger cookie will have a chewier center. It also will still have crisp edges.
To make the cookies large, you need a large ice cream scoop.
Scoop the dough and place 6 cookie dough balls per baking sheet. This will give them plenty of room to expand. Although, when I baked these, they didn’t spread too much.
Before you bake the cookies, make sure you top with the chopped chocolate. Do 3-4 chocolate pieces per cookie dough ball. This will give the lovely chocolate pools appearance on top of the cookie.
Baking The Cookies
The chocolate gingerbread cookies will only need 11-13 minutes to bake in the oven. Since the cookies are dark in color, it isn’t as easy to tell when they are done baking.
The edges should be set, and underneath the cookie should be brown but not too dark.
Next, let the cookies sit on the hot cookie sheet for 4 minutes. This will allow them to slightly cool and cook at the same time.
Then, transfer the cookies to a cooling rack.
Optionally, top the cookies with flaky sea salt. The extra salt really pulls out the salted caramel flavor in the chocolate.
How To Store The Cookies
These gingerbread cookies can be stored in an airtight container. They will be good up to 1 week. I tried these cookies 5 days after they were baked, they were so soft still!
Freezing The Cookies
You can either freeze the cookies when they are already baked or freeze the cookie dough balls.
To freeze the cookie dough balls, scoop them into the balls and top with the chocolate. Store them in a storage bag or an air tight container.
To bake them from frozen, let the cookie dough balls sit on the counter for 20 minutes. Then, bake. They made need an extra 1-3 minutes in the oven.
Freezing the whole cookies, you can wrap them in cling wrap and store in an air tight container. Keep them in the freezer up to 30 days.
To thaw, let them sit on the counter for 1 hour before eating.
Other Cookie Recipes To Try
- Caramel chocolate chip cookies
- Oatmeal peanut butter chocolate chip cookies
- White chip double chocolate cookies
- Butterscotch chocolate chip cookies
Make sure to tag me on Instagram @stephaniesweettreats and leave me a review below if you made these cookies. I hope you loved it! To get more ideas follow me on Pinterest.
Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cup All-purpose flour
- 2 1/2 tsp Ground ginger
- 1 tsp Baking soda
- 2 tsp Ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp Ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 3/4 cup Unsalted butter room temperature
- 3/4 cup Coconut sugar
- 1 TBSP Milk
- 1/4 cup Molasses unsulfured not blackstrap.
- 1 Large egg room temperature
- 5 oz Lilly's Sweets salted caramel chocolate bar chopped (2 bars) plus more for topping the cookies
Instructions
- In a large bowl, sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Set aside.
- Using a mixer, beat the butter and coconut sugar on medium for 2 minutes until it is light and fluffy. Add in milk and molasses. Mix until combined. Add in egg. Scrape the bowl and mix until combined and all butter is mixed in.
- Add in flour a little bit at a time. Mix until combined. Add in chopped chocolate and mix on low.
- Chill in the fridge for 1 hour. Then, preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 cookie sheets with a baking silicone mat or parchment paper.
- Use a large ice cream scoop (to make big cookies) and scoop large cookie dough balls. Place 6 cookies per cookie sheet. Take the extra chopped chocolate and top the cookie dough balls.
- Bake cookies for 11-13 minutes. The cookies are done baking when the edges are slightly golden brown. Let it sit on cookie sheet for 4 minutes. Then, transfer to a cooling rack. *Optional- top warm cookies with flaky sea salt.
Heidi Clark
I made these over the weekend! They were absolutely amazing! They are thick, chewy, and perfectly spiced! Thanks for the great recipe, Stephanie!
Stephanie Rutherford
I am so glad you loved these!!