Pumpkin Cookies Recipe (Soft and Chewy)
- Preparation 20 min
- Cooking 20 min
- Servings 20
- Freezing Absolutely
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🎃 The kind of cookie that disappears before it cools
I ate four standing in the kitchen before I had even moved them to the rack. They are soft to the point of melting, they taste like all of fall at once, cinnamon and ginger and nutmeg and cloves, and the cinnamon sugar top cracks just enough when you bite in. About twenty cookies, forty minutes start to finish, and they freeze. You will make them again before the month is out.
🍪 These land closer to little cakes than to crisp cookies
And I own that completely. There is a lot of pumpkin in here, which gives a tender, moist crumb rather than a cookie that bends or snaps. If you are after chewy, this is not your recipe. If you want a soft cookie that tastes like fall and melts, you are exactly where you should be. And it is by far my favorite thing to eat with a coffee at three in the afternoon.
⏱️ Trust the bake time
This is the one place I almost got it wrong. My first tray came out at fourteen minutes and looked underdone to me. I gave it six more. Perfect. Straight out of the oven these are soft, which worries everybody, but after five to ten minutes resting on the tray they firm up into exactly what you want. Do not pull them early thinking you are being careful.
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⏱️ Do not pull them early
This is the mistake I made the first time. At fourteen minutes they looked done and they were not. Six more minutes and they were perfect. A pumpkin cookie is always soft coming out of the oven, that is the nature of the dough, and it finishes setting during the five to ten minutes it rests on the hot sheet. Go by the timer rather than by what you see.
🍚 On top, not rolled
Rolling sticky dough balls in sugar is a miserable job. The mixture sticks to your fingers, the ball loses its shape, and the sugar ends up everywhere except on the cookie. Drop a small pinch on top of each cookie once it is on the sheet, press with your fingertips, and bake. You get the same crackly crust and you are not wiping down the counter afterward.
🥄 The dough is sticky, and that is fine
With this much puree it is sticky and it will not shape into a neat round ball. Do not fight it. Scoop about two tablespoons and push it off your finger straight onto the parchment. You get a slightly irregular cookie that spreads on its own in the oven, and honestly it looks better than perfect domes.
🎃 Homemade puree needs to be drained
I made mine with my homemade pumpkin puree, with one condition: it had spent the night in a strainer. Undrained homemade puree holds far more water than canned, and that water ends up in your dough without you knowing. Canned carries no such risk, it is consistent. Both work. The draining is what makes the difference.
🥫 What to do with the rest of the can
A small can holds more than the cup called for here, and larger sizes exist too. Do not throw it out: whatever is left goes straight into my pumpkin bars or my pumpkin bread. It is the kind of ingredient that calls for a weekend of baking rather than a single recipe.
🥣 Mix as little as possible
When the dry meets the wet, stir with a wooden spoon only until the flour is moistened. No mixer, no vigorous whisking. Every extra turn develops gluten and moves you away from the softness you are after. A few small lumps left behind do not matter, they bake out.
🍫 If you want chocolate
One cup of chips folded in at the end, by hand, and you have a different cookie. I skip it because I like the spices out front, but pumpkin and dark chocolate work very well together. Do not go past one cup though, the dough is already tender and the weight of the chips flattens it.
📅 Make ahead
The dough can be made a few hours ahead and refrigerated, which actually makes it easier to handle since it firms up when cold. Pull it out twenty minutes before shaping. Measure your spices together into one labeled container while the jars are already out, and mix the cinnamon sugar topping ahead too. On the day, all that is left is creaming, mixing and baking, and the house smells like fall in twenty minutes.
❄️ Storage and freezing
Three days at room temperature in an airtight container. These are moist cookies, so they do not keep as long as a dry one, and they soften further over the days. Baked cookies freeze for three months: cool them completely, stack them with parchment between the layers and wrap well. They thaw in about thirty minutes on the counter.
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Wet
- 1/2 cup (115 g) unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup (100 g) brown sugar, packed
- 1 cup (250 ml) pure pumpkin puree
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
Dry
- 1 1/2 cups (190 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp (5 ml) baking soda
- 1 tsp (5 ml) ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp (2 ml) ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp (2 ml) salt
- 1/4 tsp (1 ml) ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp (1 ml) ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp (1 ml) ground allspice
Topping
- 2 tbsp (25 g) granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp (7.5 ml) ground cinnamon
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Preparation
- Heat the oven to 350 °F (175 °C) and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, cream the softened butter with the granulated sugar and brown sugar for about 1 minute, until smooth. Whisk in the pumpkin puree and the egg until the mixture is smooth.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, salt, nutmeg, cloves and allspice.
- Stir the dry into the wet with a wooden spoon, only until the flour is moistened. Stop as soon as there are no white streaks. The dough will be sticky, and that is normal.
- In a small bowl, mix the topping sugar and cinnamon.
- Take about 2 tbsp (30 ml) of dough per cookie and push it off your finger straight onto the sheet, spacing them well. Drop a small pinch of the cinnamon sugar on top of each and press lightly so it sticks.
- Bake both sheets at the same time for 18 to 20 minutes, swapping them halfway: the bottom sheet goes up and the top sheet comes down.
- Let them rest 5 to 10 minutes on the sheet before moving them to a rack. They are soft out of the oven and firm up as they cool.
These ones are, and it is on purpose. Pumpkin puree holds a lot of water, which gives a tender crumb rather than a cookie that bends. This recipe delivers a soft, melting cookie rather than a chewy one. If you want to push it toward a classic cookie, drain the puree overnight in a fine mesh strainer first.
Get water out of the puree. Press it between layers of paper towel, or drain it overnight in a strainer, and you can lose a third of its volume. The lower the puree-to-flour ratio, the closer you get to a chewy cookie. Adding more flour is not the answer, it just makes them dry.
18 to 20 minutes at 350 °F (175 °C) for this recipe, longer than average because the dough is wet. Do not judge by looks: they are still soft coming out. The 5 to 10 minutes resting on the hot sheet is what sets them.
Close, and that is a fair way to think about them. A snickerdoodle is defined by its cinnamon sugar coating, which is exactly what goes on top here. The difference is the pumpkin in the dough and the fact that we press the sugar on instead of rolling, since this dough is far too sticky to roll.
Yes, as long as it is well drained. Undrained homemade puree carries noticeably more water than canned, and that changes the dough. Strain it overnight in the fridge and you will get the same result as canned.
Yes, once baked and completely cooled. Stack them with parchment between the layers, wrap well, and keep up to three months. They thaw in about thirty minutes on the counter and come back soft.
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