Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies that are soft, thick, chewy (not cakey!), and loaded with Fall flavor! These are simple to make (no mixer required) and a must-try this season!
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
These cookies are like a pumpkin-spiced version of my “Worst” Chocolate Chip Cookies. They’re soft, chewy, full of flavor, infused with just the right amount of pumpkin and pumpkin spice.
They’re also Zach’s current obsession. He probably won’t be thrilled I’m sharing this, but he loves pumpkin spice and pumpkin-flavored desserts maybe even more than he loves bacon. Seriously. Since he doesn’t typically have much of a sweet tooth, I do love having him as my designated taste-tester of all things pumpkin during the Fall baking season.
He helped me perfect my pumpkin cheesecake last year and he gave two major thumbs-up to these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. There’s a lot to love about them. Soft, chewy, buttery, perfectly spiced, I definitely get the attraction. It took a lot of testing to get us here, though.
Ingredients for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
How to Make the PERFECT Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Baking with pumpkin can be a bit of a science. There’s a lot of water in pumpkin, and water in baked goods often results in baked goods that are cakey. This isn’t necessarily a problem if we’re making something like… Pumpkin Cake, but if you’re trying to make a nice, chewy cookie it’s definitely not what you’re looking for.
To help combat this, I highly recommend blotting your pumpkin before using. If you’ve made my Pumpkin Scones before, you’re already familiar with blotting pumpkin puree before baking with it.
This simply means we measure out our pumpkin and then use a paper towel to, well, blot it until most of the water has been absorbed and is removed from the pumpkin. Check out my video below the recipe for a more visual guide to how to do this, but it’s really as simple as folding up several paper towels and then blotting until they no longer come away wet.
Blotting our pumpkin puree is a great first step, but we’re not going to be able to get all of that water out of our pumpkin, nor do you want to spend the time trying. Another way to cut the overall amount of water in the recipe is to use a single egg yolk and leave out the egg white. Egg whites contain a lot of water, so removing the white in this instance helps to yield a more chewy, tender, and less cakey cookie.
Another thing that helps is using melted butter. I am a huge fan of using melted butter in my cookie recipes as it usually yields chewier, buttery-er cookies.
By melting our butter, we skip the step of having to cream together our butter and sugar. Creaming together butter and sugar creates little air pockets that also tend to puff up our cookies and make them more cake-y. Melting our butter avoids this step and keeps the cookies softer and chewier.
Two important things when making a cookie dough that uses melted butter:
- Let the butter cool after melting it, at least until it’s no longer warm to the touch. If your butter is too hot when you add the sugars it can actually melt the sugars. If this happens, your cookie dough is likely to be a runny mess and your cookies will be a mess, too. Unfortunately no amount of chilling will help salvage this.
- Cookie doughs made with melted butter often require chilling. This Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe is no exception. The dough will need to sit in the refrigerator for at least 60 minutes before baking. It’s worth the wait, though, and also gives all of your ingredients time to meld together and helps develop the flavor of these cookies.
Enjoy!
More Pumpkin Recipes You Might Like:
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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter melted and cooled
- 1 cup granulated sugar (200g)
- 1 cup light or dark brown sugar firmly packed (I like to use a blend of light and dark brown sugar, but either will work) (200g)
- 1 large egg yolk room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ⅔ cup pumpkin puree (165g), blotted (¹see notes in recipe for instructions on blotting) (weigh before blotting, I find this usually weighs 127g after blotting)
- 3 cups all purpose flour (375g)
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (click the link for instructions to make homemade pumpkin pie spice)
- 1 ½ cups chocolate chips Use your preferred type, I like to use a blend of milk and semisweet chocolate chips (255g)
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine melted, cooled butter and sugars.
- Add pumpkin, egg yolk, and vanilla extract and stir well.
- In a separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice until well-combined.
- Gradually add dry ingredients to wet, stirring until completely combined.
- Stir in chocolate chips.
- Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill dough in refrigerator for at least 60 minutes.
- Once cookie dough has chilled, preheat oven to 350F (175C), leave cookie dough in the fridge until oven has fully preheated.
- Scoop dough by 1 ½ Tablespoon-sized scoops and, if desired, roll between your palms to form a smooth round ball. Drop onto parchment paper lined cookie sheet or an ungreased cookie sheet and bake on 350F (175C) for 12-14 minutes.
- Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet before enjoying.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Esther
These were so delicious, thick and chewy cookies! I loved them! Thank you for including the weight of the pumpkin puree after blotting because I ended up blotting out too much water and had to add some back in. Lol!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We’re so happy they were a hit for you, Esther! Enjoy 😊