Description
The secret to incredibly soft pumpkin chocolate chip cookies that stay tender for days. This easy recipe uses a special milk trick for perfect results.
Ingredients
For the Cookie Base:
- 1 cup canned pumpkin puree (I use Libby’s)
- 1 cup white granulated sugar
- ½ cup vegetable oil (canola works too)
- 1 large egg
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon milk (this is crucial!)
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Mix-ins:
- 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (I buy the big bag from Costco)
- ½ cup chopped walnuts (totally optional – my youngest hates nuts)
Instructions
1. Crank your oven to 350°F and line those baking sheets with parchment. I learned this lesson after scraping burnt cookie bottoms off my pans more times than I care to admit.
2. Grab your biggest mixing bowl and dump in the pumpkin, sugar, oil, and egg. Mix it until it looks like the most beautiful orange sunset you’ve ever seen. My kids always want to help with this step because it’s so pretty.
3. Here’s where the magic happens – take a small bowl and dissolve that baking soda completely in the milk. It’ll fizz up a little, which means it’s working. Stir this into your pumpkin mixture and watch everything come together.
4. In another bowl, whisk your flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. I always do this separately because nobody wants to bite into a cinnamon pocket in their cookie.
5. Slowly fold the dry stuff into the wet stuff. Don’t beat it to death – just mix until you can’t see any more flour streaks. The dough should look soft and slightly sticky, not smooth like cake batter.
6. Now fold in those chocolate chips and walnuts if you’re using them. I always add the vanilla at this step too because I inevitably forget it otherwise.
7. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto your prepared sheets. I use a cookie scoop because it makes them all the same size, but a regular spoon works fine too.
8. Bake for exactly 10 minutes. They’ll look slightly underdone in the center when you pull them out, but that’s what we want. They’ll finish cooking on the hot pan and stay soft.
9. Let them sit on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack. This prevents them from falling apart while they’re still tender.
Notes
Use a cookie scoop if you have one – it makes every cookie the same size so they bake evenly. If you don’t have one, just use a regular spoon and try to keep them roughly the same size. I learned this after making a batch where some cookies were done and others were still raw in the middle.
Don’t mix the dough too much once you add the flour. I made this mistake early on and ended up with tough, chewy cookies instead of soft ones. Just mix until the flour disappears and stop there. And here’s something nobody tells you – slightly underbaking is your friend with these cookies. They’ll look a little underdone when you take them out, but they’ll finish cooking on the hot pan and stay incredibly soft.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Category: Dessert, Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American