Gingerbread Latte Cookies Recipe

Have your latte and eat it, too! These gingerbread latte cookies are every bit as chewy, soft, and nostalgic as my classic iced oatmeal cookies, but with a festive flavor twist. Dunk in espresso-speckled white chocolate and top with a sprinkle of spice for a creamy gingerbread latte experience… in a cookie! Pair with peppermint mocha cookies and spiced eggnog oatmeal cream pies for a trio of cookies inspired by holiday-favorite coffeehouse beverages.

If you’ve ever tried my iced gingerbread oatmeal cookies, the flavor and texture of today’s cookie recipe will seem familiar. My gingerbread oatmeal cookie recipe pairs the soft and chewy texture of regular iced oatmeal cookies with the cozy, comforting flavors of gingerbread cookies, and it is a beautiful thing! For today’s gingerbread latte cookies, we are taking this a step further, by introducing espresso flavor and sweet, creamy white chocolate.

Recipe Snapshot

• Texture: Soft and remarkably chewy
• Flavor: Gingerbread, holiday spices, coffee, oatmeal (think: Starbucks gingerbread oatmilk latte)
• Ease: They seem fancy, but this is definitely a beginner recipe
• Time: Around 1 hour, 30 minutes—only 30 minutes of chill time for this dough!

Ingredients You Need & Why

• Oats: Taking an extra few seconds to pulse the oats in a food processor will completely transform the texture of your finished cookies. No matter if you use whole oats or quick oats, pulse them a few times in your food processor to obtain the correct consistency. (See below for a visual.)
• Flour: All-purpose flour gives these cookies structure.
• Espresso Powder: I find espresso powder in the coffee aisle at my regular grocery store, but you can also find it online. If you can’t find it, you can substitute instant coffee in a pinch; do not use regular ground coffee.
• Baking Soda: So the cookies will puff up a bit in the oven, then deflate a bit when cooling; someting we love about regular molasses cookies.
• Spices: It took a few rounds of testing to get the perfect ratio of spices, so they don’t overwhelm the subtle espresso flavor in these cookies. You need ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. These are the same spices you use when making gingerbread whoopie pies and chocolate ginger cookies.
• Salt: Flavor enhancer + sweetness balancer.
• Butter: You’ll need softened room-temperature butter.
• Sugars: Not only does it sweeten the cookies, brown sugar adds extra molasses flavor, softness, and a little moisture too. White granulated sugar is also needed to help the cookies spread.
• Egg: For binding the dough ingredients together.
• Molasses: Molasses adds deep, rich flavor. Use dark molasses that’s labeled unsulphured. Avoid blackstrap molasses in this cookie recipe because it will overpower everything else.

And white chocolate for that delicious dunk at the end!

Let’s Make Gingerbread Latte Cookies

Just like these classic iced oatmeal cookies, today’s gingerbread latte cookies are mega chewy, with buttery soft centers and slightly crisp edges. The key to their texture is pulsing the oats in a food processor or blender to gently break them down. The result is an uneven mixture of broken oats and coarse crumbs, a texture medley that gives us a compact and chewy oatmeal cookie.

Here’s what the oats look like after pulsing:

Now you can mix the oats together with the remaining dry ingredients, and work on the wet ingredients. After combining it all, the dough will be very thick and a bit sticky. It needs to chill in the refrigerator for at least 30–45 minutes before you can scoop the dough and bake it.

Success Tip: Use a Cookie Scoop

This is a textured and sticky dough. A cookie scoop not only keeps your fingers (relatively) clean, it helps ensure all cookies are the same size and shape. I recommend a medium cookie scoop, which holds 1.5 Tablespoons of cookie dough (about 35g). The cookies spread nicely, so keep each baking sheet/batch to about 8 or 9 cookies.

Finish With a Dip in White Chocolate

Chop up a couple of white chocolate bars, and melt them together with a splash of oil and a dash of espresso powder. Oil helps keep the white chocolate on the softer side, so it doesn’t get crumbly and hard.

You can melt the chocolate in the microwave, in a small bowl or a glass liquid measuring cup. Microwave in 20-second intervals, stirring after each, until the white chocolate is completely melted and smooth. Look at all those pretty little speckles of espresso! Is it that sweet? I guess so.

Dunk each cooled cookie about halfway into the espresso-flavored white chocolate, then place on a piece of parchment paper or silicone baking mat, or on a cooling rack set over a baking sheet/piece of parchment to catch the drips. Sprinkle the dipped part of the cookies with a tiny pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg, to give them that coffee shop gingerbread latte finish on top. The white chocolate eventually sets, but I recommend putting the cookies in the refrigerator to speed up the process.

Now, kick off your shoes and curl up someplace cozy, because you can enjoy this gingerbread latte-flavored treat in the comfort of your own home—no trip to the coffee shop required!