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These soft ginger cookies with honey cream cheese filling make me happy. I like ginger cookies in all forms: crisp and dunkable, chewy and frosted–but it’s hard to beat these soft puffy ginger cookies with honey cream cheese filling. If you’ve never experienced honey cream cheese filling between two tender fluffy spiced ginger cookies–what are you waiting for?

soft puffy spiced ginger cookies with honey cream cheese filling on a plate

Why try Ginger Cookies with Honey Cream Cheese Filling?

These cookies are nostalgic and unique at the same time. Think Grandma’s favorite holiday treats fresh from the oven, filled with a citrus-vanilla-honey twist that is a perfect combination with these spicy fragrant cookies. I love these ginger cookies with honey cream cheese filling with good black looseleaf English Breakfast tea from Polcari’s in Boston , or a tall glass of milk, while listening to records and reading a good old book.

What ingredients do you need?

Butter
Brown Sugar (dark!)
Egg
Milk
Orange/lemon juice (optional)
Flour
Baking Soda
Salt
Cinnamon
Ginger
Cloves
Granulated sugar (for rolling)
Cream cheese
Honey
Vanilla
Lemon Extract
Powdered sugar

How to Make the Ginger Cookies

For spice lovers, these are just the thing you need. They are very flavorful and fragrant!! Also, they have a lot of molasses, which makes all the flavors richer. I like blackstrap molasses, but feel free to use whatever type you prefer!

First, cream the butter and sugar together. This is all a lot easier in a stand mixer, but a hand mixer works fine too. This is not a huge batch, especially for sandwich cookies, so you might consider doubling if you’re trying to feed a crowd.

Next, add in your egg and molasses. It should be a caramel rich brown. Then add your dry ingredients and milk, alternating wet and dry. This dough will get pretty sticky, so you can always refrigerate it for easier handling. I never seem to wait that long, so it sticks to everything. A cookie scoop definitely helps, but you may want to grease it first!!

Drop the cookie dough balls into a bowl of granulated sugar. This will solve the sticky dough and make them much easier to handle. Place on your cookie sheet and pat them down a bit flat. Despite everything you try to do, these are VERY fluffy cookies and are guaranteed to rise. Despite this, or maybe because of this, they make fantastic sandwich cookies when you add in the magic formula….

How to Make the Honey Cream Cheese Filling

This is what makes these cookies soooooo special. My mom used to make a honey cream cheese frosting for sugar cookies when I was a kid, but I couldn’t quite remember how she made it….and the following little experiment wasn’t anything like hers, but WOW!!

The ingredients are somewhat flexible, so you can add more or less honey and sugar to taste and texture preferences. I used raw local honey, which has totally amazing flavor and the fringe benefit of helping with any local plant allergies. The vanilla/lemon combination is the perfect fresh and bright complement to the rich spicy cookies. Add in the powdered sugar at the end to desired thickness/sweetness.

Basically, mix honey and cream cheese until smooth, then add vanilla and lemon extract (also to taste). Add in the powdered sugar until you like the taste and spreadability. It won’t act like normal frosting, much stickier and more liquid, but the honey adds a fantastic and unique flavor.

Filling the Ginger Cookie Sandwiches

Once the cookies are completely cool, spread the honey cream cheese filling onto the flat bottom side of one cookie and top with another cookie. Spread it pretty thickly to balance out the strongly spiced cookie flavor, and you’ll love the combination.

This filling is also great between chocolate or oatmeal cookies!! And the cookies are wonderful just on their own as well, so feel free to get creative with this recipe! We also tried topping with white chocolate chips and using the filling as frosting. All amazing!!

For more nostalgic cookie recipes, try Grandma’s No. 1 Best Salted Caramel Oatmeal Cookie Recipe!

Soft Ginger Cookies with Honey Cream Cheese Filling

Absolutely magic spicy soft fluffy ginger cookies with unforgettable cream cheese filling

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Prep Time 25

Cook Time 7

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Equipment

1 mixer
1 large mixing bowl
1 small mixing bowl
1 cookie scoop optional
measuring cups and spoons

Ingredients

1/2 C butter
1/2 C brown sugar
1 large egg
1/3 C milk
1 tsp orange or lemon juice optional
2 1/2 C Flour white or half and half with whole wheat
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 C granulated sugar for rolling the dough in

Honey Cream Cheese Filling

8 oz cream cheese
2 TBSP honey
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp lemon extract
1 1/2 C powdered sugar more or less for desired thickness

Instructions

Soft Ginger Cookies

In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar
Beat in egg and molasses
Add dry ingredients, alternating with milk (dough is sticky)
Using a cookie scoop or spoon, drop balls of dough into the granulated sugar and roll until covered
Place on cookie sheet and bake 7-9 min at 350F. Cool before filling.