These Pumpkin Snickerdoodles are a fun fall spin on classic snickerdoodles! My recipe has the perfect soft and chewy (not cakey!) texture with a buttery pumpkin flavor. Recipe includes a how-to video!
A Seasonal Snickerdoodle Cookie Recipe
If you love snickerdoodles, wait until you try these pumpkin snickerdoodles! These fall-flavored cookies are incredibly soft, chewy, and buttery. They have a distinct snickerdoodle flavor accented by pumpkin, cinnamon sugar, and other fall spices, and they’re truly the perfect fall cookie!
This recipe has been a favorite on the blog for years, and for good reason. Not only is it easy, but there’s no mixer required (yay!). You will need a bit of patience (there’s some chilling involved), but this is one cookie recipe that is absolutely worth the wait!
So often pumpkin cookies end up being cakey, but I designed my pumpkin snickerdoodles to have the perfect soft and chewy texture. You’ll find yourself eating one… and then another… and then another… so I typically recommend making a double batch just to be safe 😊
What You Need
Most of these ingredients will be expected, but there’s a few you should pay close attention to, including:
- Melted butter. Rather than creaming together our butter and sugar, which creates air bubbles and leads to thicker, fluffier cookies, we’re going to melt our butter. This is a long-time favorite trick of mine for soft, chewy cookies that have the best flavor (like my chocolate chip cookies!). It’s especially important in today’s recipe, where the extra moisture from the pumpkin could make our cookies cakey. Using melted butter is key in helping combat this!
- Pumpkin. Use pure pumpkin and NOT pumpkin pie filling. Pumpkin pie filling has additives that we don’t need in our pumpkin snickerdoodles.
- Egg yolk. Pumpkin has a lot of water in it, and the water can lead to cakey cookies. Because we’re adding all of this moisture from the pumpkin, we will omit the egg white to reduce excess moisture. We leave the egg yolk which is mostly fat and will help make our pumpkin snickerdoodles tender, but toss that egg white (or use it to make candied pecans!).
- Cream of tartar. You simply can’t make snickerdoodles without cream of tartar! This is an essential ingredient and I don’t have a good substitute, so make sure you have it before you start.
- Pumpkin pie spice. If you don’t have the pre-made version, make my homemade pumpkin spice!
SAM’S TIP: Make sure your butter has cooled enough that it’s not warm to the touch before adding your sugar! Adding the sugar while the butter is too hot can cause your sugar to melt and leave you with a greasy, unusable cookie dough.
Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Pumpkin Snickerdoodles
- Combine the (cooled) butter and sugars, then stir in the pumpkin until combined.
- Stir in the egg and vanilla.
- Combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then gradually add them to the wet ingredients.
- Cover the dough and let it chill for at least 45 minutes.
- Scoop and roll dough through cinnamon sugar before baking for 10-12 minutes.
SAM’S TIP: Never put cold cookie dough on a hot (or even warm) cookie sheet! This will cook/melt the cookies prematurely and can cause them to spread too much, leading to flat cookies.
Frequently Asked Questions
Chilling your cookie dough longer than the recommended 45 minutes is fine. I’ve made pumpkin snickerdoodle dough as far as 3 days in advance. Just keep it tightly covered in the refrigerator. If you chill for longer than 45 minutes and the dough is too difficult to scoop, let it sit at room temperature for several minutes until it can easily be scooped.
Definitely! You can freeze the balls (before rolling in cinnamon sugar) on a cookie sheet before placing in an airtight bag or container for pumpkin snickerdoodles on demand.
Unfortunately I do not recommend it. Cream of tartar is what gives all snickerdoodles (and my snickerdoodle blondies) their classic flavor and tang. Don’t skip it!
Love these pumpkin snickerdoodles? I have so many more snickerdoodle recipes, from snickerdoodle scones to snickerdoodle cupcakes!
Enjoy!
Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
Pumpkin Snickerdoodles
Ingredients
- ½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter melted and cooled for at least 10 minutes
- ½ cup (100 g) sugar
- ⅓ cup (70 g) light brown sugar tightly packed
- ¼ cup (73 g) pumpkin puree
- 1 large egg yolk
- ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups (190) all purpose (plain) flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
- ½ teaspoon salt
Topping
- ¼ cup (50 g) sugar
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Combine butter, sugar, and brown sugar and stir until well-combined. Add pumpkin and stir well.½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter, ½ cup (100 g) sugar, ⅓ cup (70 g) light brown sugar, ¼ cup (73 g) pumpkin puree
- Stir in egg yolk and vanilla extract.1 large egg yolk, ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
- In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, pumpkin spice, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt until well-combined.1 ½ cups (190) all purpose (plain) flour, 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice, ½ teaspoon baking soda, ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar, ½ teaspoon salt
- Gradually add dry ingredients to wet until ingredients are well-combined.
- Cover cookie dough with clear wrap and place in the refrigerator to chill for at least 45 minutes.
- One dough is nearly finished chilling, preheat oven to 350F (175C) and prepare a cookie sheet by lining with parchment paper. Prepare your cinnamon sugar mixture by whisking together ¼ cup sugar and 2 tsp ground cinnamon in a small bowl.¼ cup (50 g) sugar, 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- Remove dough from refrigerator and scoop into 1 ½ Tablespoon-sized balls. Roll briefly between your palms until smooth and then roll through cinnamon sugar and transfer to prepared cookie sheet, spacing at least 2" apart.
- Bake cookies in a 350F oven for 10-12 minutes. Keep your remaining dough refrigerated while cookies are baking and do not place cookie dough on a hot baking sheet.
- Allow baked cookies to cool completely on cookie sheet before enjoying.
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.
Gretchen
Very little work for a very tasty cookie!! I am in love with these snickerdoodle’s and can’t wait to make them for friends and family. I may add white chocolate chips or cinnamon chips next time! Thank you Sam!
Kali
Love this recipe! I’ve made these for a lot of people, and everyone loves them. These are so easy to make and turn out great. The only “modification” I made was measuring the spices with my heart, but overall the recipe is so good.
Samantha Bowersox
I used salted butter instead of unsalted butter. Will that make a difference?
Sam
Hi Samantha! If you didn’t reduce the salt your snickerdoodles may be a bit salty.
Mavis
Amazing cookies!
Megan
I’m so excited to make these for Thanksgiving! Quick question: can I prepare the dough the day before and leave it in the fridge overnight before I bake them? Or will that upset the dough? Thank you!
Sam
Hi Megan! I actually have a section in the post on making these in advance that will give you some tips on doing so. 🙂
Megan
Sorry! I saw that just after posting my comment but couldn’t delete it. Thanks for the response!
Kwhiles
YUM!
Alysse Jacobs
Love! A perfect fall flavor profile in a really simple-to-make cookie. They’re a bit hit in the office. Good thing I doubled the recipe!
Janelle
Easy recipe. Average in taste. Ended up adding mini chocolate chips to bring them to life.
Sara
Incredible recipe, I substituted with gluten-free flour and they turned out delicious. Thank you so much for this. It’s my new go to fall recipe.
chelsea
The flavor was good, but for whatever reason these turned out way too cakey. I’m not sure where I went wrong as I followed the recipe very closely.
Sam
I’m so sorry this happened, Chelsea! I just want to double check that you only used an egg yolk instead of a whole egg?
Kara
These are delicious and have become a fall/holiday staple in this house this year! Such a good cookie and even people who don’t usually like pumpkin enjoyed them!
I think I’ve done something wrong the last few times I’ve made them. While they cool, they flatten out a lot and I can’t figure out what I’ve been doing wrong, any ideas?
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Hi Kara! If you are measuring your ingredients properly (particularly the flour), it could be that your dough just needs to chill a bit longer (maybe your kitchen is warmer than usual when you are making the cookies?). Make sure your butter has had time to cool enough too! Hope that helps 😊
Sarah
These are SO good and maybe even better than a regular snickerdoodle!
I do have a question. Both times I’ve made these, my batter is incredibly thick and hard to combine. I thought I added too much flour the first time so I did it by grams the second time and it was equally thick. Do you have any suggestions? I’m not sure if it made a difference in the overall cook of them but they do flatten out completely. Any ideas where I might be going wrong?
Sam
Hi Sarah! That’s so odd! Are you making any substitutions here?
Sarah
No substitutions were made – I’m as stumped as you are!
Mare
So soft and chewy, the right combination of tasty ingredients.
These cookies freeze well.
Cheryl
Excellent recipe! Easy and delicious!
Jacqueline
My brother-in-law just Facetimed me to tell me how good these cookies were! I made them for my son’s school and gave him what I had left. Guess I’ll be making some more! Thanks for the great recipe!
Sam
I’m so glad everyone enjoyed them so much, Jacqueline! 🙂
James Mc cabe
hi I’m just about to make these , would you have a rough size in grams what you would roll each cookie
Sam
Hi James! Unfortunately I have not weighed the dough balls. 🙁
Jenine T.
Easy recipe! Super delicious! Perfect for Fall…but I bet they’d be just as good in any season!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Jenine! 🙂
Ginny
I’ve never made snickerdoodles before. this recipe was so easy to follow, and the results were perfect. I’m so glad I doubled the recipe, because they are disappearing so fast lol thank you so much for sharing
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We are so happy you like them, Ginny! A double-batch is a must with this recipe 😋
Samantha
I tried these cookies at work one day and fell in love with them so I’m in the process of making these and I’ve followed the video and recipe to a T but after I got the dough out of the frig it won’t make a ball. can you help me please?
Sam
Hi Samantha! Is it too soft or too firm? If it chills longer than required time it may just need to rest at room temperature for a few minutes before trying to scoop it. 🙂
Amanda
These were fantastic and a huge hit! Also, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a recipe laid out with the needed ingredient listed below each step. It makes it so much easier than having to scroll back up and see how much brown sugar you need or whatever other ingredient. Thanks so much for doing that, I wish others would follow suit.