I love soft ginger cookies. And how about that crumb topping on cinnamon coffeecake! So why not combine the two?

This recipe is my first attempt at a cookie with a crumble topping. The goal is to get a burst of sweet spicy crunch on a stackable cookie. I wanted another way to add sweetness without a drizzle of royal icing to get cookies that taste amazing. Another goal was to have the crumb topping stay on when stacking the cookies in the cookie jar — and these stack with success! This recipe is based on these two other recipes, for which I thank their authors for sharing:
- The topping is adapted from Gingerbread Muffins with Spiced Crumble Topping from Kathleen on spendwithpennies.com
- The cookie recipe a soft cookie based on Marie Ayers’s Grandma’s Gingersnap Cookies from allrecipes.com
A challenge was finding a way to stick the crumbs to the cookie dough so they baked on a freestanding cookie. With any hand-formed cookie, there are no sides of a pan to keep the crumbs contained, as when you bake coffee cake To assemble this crunch-topped cookie, a tin measuring cup serves as a mold to hold the crumble, so you can press it a blob of dough into it. The result is rather large — about 4″ in diameter. If we’re trying to be “good” we just eat them a half at a time.
If you bake this (or if you’re just having a look) let me know what you think.
I have two reviews so far:
- Daughter #1 – “They look awfully orange. I don’t want to eat them.”
- Daughter #2 – “They’re delicious!”

Prep Time | 30 minutes |
Cook Time | 12 minutes |
Servings |
cookies
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- 1 c all purpose flour
- 1/2 c brown sugar packed
- 1 tsp dried ginger
- 1 Tbsp fresh ginger peeled and minced
- 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 c melted butter
Ingredients
For the Topping
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- Melt the butter in a mixing bowl.
- In another bowl, add the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and salt, and mix well
- Add the melted butter to the flour mixture and mix well. Set aside.
- Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 decrees C).
- Spoon a generous 2-3 tablespoons of crumb topping into a 1/2 cup dry measuring cup. A metal cup with a slightly rounded bottom edge works well. Spread the crumbs into an even layer.
- Pinch off a piece of dough and roll to make a 1" ball, then flatten into a disk.
- Press the cookie dough onto the layer of crumbs in the measuring cup. Press firmly to bring the dough up to the sides of the measuring cup, and so the crumbs hold together.
- Invert the pressed cookie onto the parchment -- you may need to knock it firmly to release it.
- Place cookies about 2" apart on the cookie sheet. About 6 cookies fit at a time. Sprinkle about 1 additional tsp of crumb topping on each cookie.
- Bake for about 12 minutes, rotating cookie sheet front to back and top to bottom halfway through baking time. Cookies are done when edges just barely begin to brown. Remove and let cookies cool for about 5 minutes before removing them to a cooling rack or sheet.
- For maximum crunch, store cookies in an airtight cooke jar. Put out a day or two's worth of cookies, and put the rest in the freezer to replenish your cookie jar as needed.
Did you bake this? Did you eat this? Let me know what you think!