These Pumpkin Snickerdoodles are a fun Fall spin on classic Snickerdoodle Cookies! Don’t forget to break out the homemade pumpkin spice (you are making your own now, right??) for today’s recipe!
Pumpkin Snickerdoodle video tutorial is included just below the recipe.
Another pumpkin recipe for you today in the form of these Pumpkin Snickerdoodles!
Zach and I carved pumpkins over the weekend with his sister and I thought something pumpkin was in order for the blog today.
Something soft and chewy, buttery with a distinct pumpkin flavor, accented by cinnamon and other fall spices. Something that it’s impossible to eat just one of, no matter how good you think your will power might be. Something like a batch of these Pumpkin Snickerdoodles.
Today’s recipe requires a bit of patience (there’s some chilling required) but it’s an overall easy recipe that doesn’t even require an electric mixer. I think you’re going to like this one.
Tips for Soft & Chewy Pumpkin Snickerdoodles
Melt the butter, but let it cool
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 (see my Chocolate Chip Cookies!).
Just make sure that after melting the butter, let it cool until it’s no longer very warm to the touch before adding your sugar. Adding sugar while the butter is too hot can cause your sugar to melt and leave you with a greasy, unusable cookie dough.
Omit the egg white!
You’ll notice this recipe calls for just the yolk. The reason for this is that 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, I needed to find somewhere to cut excess moisture, and omitting the egg white was the best way to do this.
We leave the egg yolk which is mostly fat and will help make our pumpkin snickerdoodles tender, but toss that egg white (or save it for your next angel food cake?)
Chilling is Important!
These cookies require at least 45 minutes of chilling before they can be rolled into cinnamon and sugar and baked. This won’t only prevent the cookies from spreading too much in the oven, but it’s also going to keep the dough from sticking to our hands. OK there’s going to be some sticking anyway, but it keeps things to a neat minimum.
Chilling your cookie dough longer than the recommended 45 minutes is fine, too. I’ve made pumpkin snickerdoodle dough as far as 3 days in advance.
Watch your cookie sheets
A good rule of thumb is to never put cold cookie dough on a hot (or even warm) cookie sheet. It starts cooking/melting the cookies before you’re actually ready for them to begin baking and can cause them to spread too much, leading to flat cookies.
Pumpkin Snickerdoodles pack plenty of great flavor on their own, but if you want to amp things up even more you can toss a handful of chocolate chips or white chips into the batter (I’d keep it under a cup to not overwhelm the pumpkin flavor).
Enjoy!
More Great Pumpkin Recipes!
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Pumpkin Snickerdoodles
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter melted and cooled for at least 10 minutes (113g)
- ½ cup sugar (100g)
- ⅓ cup light brown sugar tightly packed (70g)
- ¼ cup pumpkin puree (73g)
- 1 large egg yolk
- ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups all purpose (plain) flour (190g)
- 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
- ½ teaspoon salt
Topping
- ¼ cup sugar (50g)
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Combine butter, sugar, and brown sugar and stir until well-combined. Add pumpkin and stir well.
- Stir in egg yolk and vanilla extract.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, pumpkin spice, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt until well-combined.
- 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.
- 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.
Anna
Just made these right this moment. Judging by the fact that the hubby just scarfed four of them in a row, I’d say they’re a hit. Good recipe. Thanks for posting.
Sam
I’m so glad everyone enjoyed them so much! 🙂
Kim
Thank you for this amazing recipe!! It is soo good How many days can the dough refrigerate for and would it be ok to freeze it?
Sam
Hi Kim! They should be ok in the refrigerator for 5 days, after that freezing them will work great. 🙂
ashton
soooo good
Rachel
These were so yummmmy! I added just a DASH of nutmeg in the cinnamon sugar, gave it a nice little spice between bites. ❣️ Thanks so much for sharing, we will be making these our fall cookie must have!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Rachel! 🙂
Vicki
Wonderful recipe! T tripled the recipe and added 1 tsp. Of ground cloves to the cookies and the sugar mix.
Michelle
These are the perfect fall cookie! The spices and pumpkin flavor are balanced and delicious. They bake up like puffy little chewy clouds. So amazing!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed, Michelle! 🙂
Marizol
Just made them they are delicious and very easy to make. I ended up with 20, cookies good size! I will be sharing this recipe with family and friends.
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed, Marizol! Thank you for letting me know how they turned out for you! <3
Suzanne
Easy to make, chewy and perfect foe the holiday. You can’t go wrong with these cookies. Make that never go wrong when it’s got pumpkin in it.
Sam
I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed, Suzanne! Thank you so much for commenting! 🙂
Holland
Do you think it would work ok to only bake a few (ones that will be eaten right away), and freeze the rest of the balls? I usually do that for chocolate chip cookies. I like my cookies fresh out of the oven!
Sam
Hi Holland! That will work just fine. 🙂