Soft, pillowy, cookies with lots of pumpkin and warm spices — Jump to Recipe

Soft, pillowy pumpkin cookies with little flecks of spice. feat. This Pumpkin

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These cookies are a great way to kick off baking season. I make them when the weather turns colder and wetter, and warming up the kitchen sounds cozy. They are soft like a Lofthouse cookie, but much more flavorful with pumpkin and spices. I think they are best as a kind of pre-holiday teaser during October or November, when I’m making pumpkin puree to freeze for pies. They taste like sweater weather, and pair best with hot steaming mugs to warming up cold hands.

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Pumpkin Cookies with Pumpkin Glaze

This recipe is made in two parts, the cookies and the glaze. You will want to be sure to mix your glaze before the cookies come out of the oven, because they should still be slightly warm when you frost them.

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Ingredients: Cookies

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  • 300 g (2 1/2c) All purpose flour. I’m using Camas Mill Sifted Edison

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• • 3 teaspoons baking powder

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• • 1/2 teaspoon diamond kosher salt

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• • 1 T whole milk powder

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• • 1 teaspoon cinnamon

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• • 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

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• • 1/2 teaspoon allspice

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• • 1 pinch of nutmeg

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• • 1 pinch of clove

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• • 1/2 cup butter

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• • 1 1/2 cups brown sugar

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• • 2 eggs

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• • 1 cup pumpkin puree

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• • 1 teaspoon vanilla

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Ingredients: Glaze

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  • 195 g (1 1/2 cups) powdered sugar

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• • 28 g (2 Tablespoons) butter

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• • 3 Tablespoons pumpkin puree

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• • 1 teaspoon cinnamon

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• • 1/4 teaspoon allspice

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Tools

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  • measuring cups and spoons

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• • a sifter

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• • at least two bowls- one for cookies and one for glaze

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• • a stand mixer or hand mixer

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• • rubber spatula for scraping the bowl

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• • bonus- a spice grinder, aka one of those coffee grinders with the blades that spin around, or a mortar and pestle, so you can use whole spices

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• • bonus- a microplane or nutmeg grater

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• • bonus- if you grind whole spices, a wire mesh strainer to filter the chunks

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Directions

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First we will prepare the spices for both parts of the recipe, then we will weigh or measure all of the ingredients, and then we will mix, bake, and glaze.

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Assemble your Ingredients:

Weighing flour is so much better than using measuring cups, for resuts and for ease.

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   1. Take your butter out of the fridge first, so it has a chance to soften. 1 stick and 2 Tablespoons.

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1. 1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

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1. 1. Measure all the dry ingredients into a sifter- Flour, Baking Powder, salt, and milk powder.

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1. 1. Grind and measure all of your spices. If this seems like a lot, you can always use a pre-mixed pumpkin pie spice. I enjoy this part, myself. If you grind your own, you can screen them through a wire mesh strainer to pull out the large chunks. Divide the spices into two groups. Cookies: 1/4 t ginger, 1/2 t allspice, 1 t cinnamon, and a pinch of nutmeg and cloves. Glaze: 1t cinnamon, 1/4 t allspice.

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1. 1. Put the cookie spices into the sifter with the flour, and sift the dry ingredients.

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Mix the Wet Ingredients:

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   1. Cut the stick of butter into chunks and put it in the bowl of your mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, or the bowl you’re going to use. Cream the butter, and then add 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar and cream them together. Scrape the bowl.

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1. 1. Add the eggs and beat them together with the butter and sugar, scraping the bowl once or twice.

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1. 1. Add 1 cup of pumpkin puree and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, Beat some more, scraping the bowl to make sure everything is incorporated.

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Add tHe Dry Ingredients:

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   1. Put the sifted dry ingredients into the mixer, and gently fold a couple of times to keep flour from flying everywhere.

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1. 1. Mix on low, just enough to mix everything together, but not enough that the gluten starts to develop. 4 or 5 slow mixes in a mixer with a paddle attachment. Hand mixer folks, you may want to do this part with a spoon or a rubber spatula.

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The finished cookie dough is moist and sticky.

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Mix the GLaze:

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You can do this while the cookies are baking if you are quick about it, but you want to be able to spread it on warm cookies. If you want to take your time, it’s OK to set the dough aside for a few minutes. Alternatively you can make the glaze first, but it might harden up on you if it sits for too long.

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   1. Especially if the kitchen is a little bit cold, I like to work the butter into some of the powdered sugar before adding in the pumpkin.

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1. 1. Mix all of the glaze ingredients together until very smooth, with no chunks of powdered sugar or lumps of butter. 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 28 g (2 T) butter, 3 Tablespoons of pumpkin puree, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon allspice.

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1. 1. Cover it with plastic wrap to keep it soft if you have made it in advance.

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Bake the Cookies:

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This recipe makes about 2 dozen cookies.

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   1. Using a spoon, scoop about 1 1/2-2 Tablespoons of cookie dough and place it on a parchment-lined sheet tray. Make sure to leave at least 3 inches between cookie blobs because they will spread.

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1. 1. Bake for 12-15 minutes, rotating the trays from upper to lower oven racks halfway through. They will be done when you gently poke the center of a cookie and find that it resists your finger rather than making a dent. They don’t need to brown on the edges at all.

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1. 1. When the cookies are done, allow them to cool on the sheets for about 2 minutes, then remove them to a rack. When they have cooled slightly but are still warm, spoon about 1/2 teaspoon of glaze onto the top of each one and spread it around with the back of the spoon. The glaze should melt and spread, but not so much that it dribbles off the side of the cookie.

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Recipe Notes

I have been putting powdered milk in my cookie recipes lately, because I think it keeps them soft and fresh a little bit longer. I might not have decided to do that if I didn’t already have it on hand. I like to drink tea with powdered whole milk and amber tea sugar, which sounds kind of weird but it is a comforting childhood memory for me. I also put it in bread, so it is in my pantry already.

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The spice mix is fairly heavy on the Allspice. I like it because I don’t particularly care for the heavy clove flavor of most pre-made pumpkin pie spice mixes. I also use a different spice balance when I make pies, and I don’t want to over-saturate myself before pie time in a few weeks. You can certainly substitute a spice blend. Or try reducing the allspice and increasing the ginger, nutmeg, and clove.

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Did you try it?

I hope you are enjoying some cookies with a nice cup of tea right now. Let us know what you think! We’d love to see pictures and hear about your results. I’m always available for troubleshooting.

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