Description
Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies combine the warm flavors of fall with the classic tangy sweetness of traditional snickerdoodles. Made with pumpkin puree and warm spices, then rolled in cinnamon sugar, these cookies are soft, chewy, and absolutely irresistible.
Ingredients
Cookie Dough
- ½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup (70 g) light brown sugar, tightly packed
- ¼ cup (73 g) pumpkin puree (pure pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling)
- 1 large egg yolk
- ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1½ cups (190 g) all-purpose flour
- 1½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
- ½ teaspoon salt
Cinnamon-Sugar Topping
- ¼ cup (50 g) granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Instructions
Dump that cooled melted butter with both sugars in a big bowl. I use my wooden spoon and just stir until it looks like wet brown sand. Don’t overthink it.
Plop in the pumpkin puree first – I learned this the hard way when I tried adding it last and got orange streaks everywhere. Then crack your egg over a small bowl, fish out the yolk with your fingers, and add it with the vanilla.
Get another bowl and whisk all the dry stuff together. I always forget this step and regret it when I get flour pockets in my cookies. Learn from my mistakes.
Pour the flour mixture into the wet stuff and stir just until you can’t see dry flour anymore. Stop right there. I used to keep mixing until it was perfectly smooth and ended up with tough cookies that nobody wanted.
Cover with plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge for at least 45 minutes. I know it’s annoying to wait, but warm cookie dough spreads into sad flat pancakes. I usually make the dough after dinner and bake them the next morning.
Crank your oven to 350°F and rip off some parchment paper for your cookie sheets. Mix the cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl while you wait for everything to heat up.
Scoop out chunks of dough about the size of ping pong balls. Roll them in your palms, then roll in the cinnamon sugar until they look like little cinnamon bombs. Space them out good on the baking sheets – they spread more than you think.
Stick them in for 10-12 minutes. They’ll look underdone when you pull them out, but that’s what you want. The edges should be set but the middles still look soft and slightly wet.
Leave them on the hot cookie sheet until they’re completely cool. This is when they firm up. I used to move them too early and they’d fall apart in my hands.
Notes
Don’t bake them until they look completely done. I ruined so many batches doing this. They should still look soft and slightly underbaked in the middle when you pull them out.
For thick puffy cookies, I put the shaped balls back in the fridge for 10-15 minutes before baking. Makes them rise up instead of spreading flat. Learned this from a YouTube video at 2am when I couldn’t sleep.
Room temp egg yolk mixes better than cold. I just crack it and let it sit while I measure everything else. Sometimes I forget about it for an hour but it’s fine.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes + Chill Time: 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 10-12 minutes
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American