These are the perfect pumpkin cookie. Crispy edges, chewy middle and lots of chocolate chips!
We are getting closer to L’s birthday, just under a month to go. In fact, I can see so many ways he is now transitioning from baby to toddler (insert many, many tears). There’s the way he arches his back and immediately turns around to stand in his car seat and play rather than sit so I can buckle him in. There are the moments when we are reading books and he is very, very opinionated about which ones we read. Farm books are almost a guaranteed win but my favorite Little Blue Truck is not so popular these days. Oh yeah, and last week he started diving towards his crib instead of letting me walk him around with his head rested on my shoulder before naps and bedtime. So amazing to watch him grow, yet so very bittersweet.
And as we are getting closer to his birthday, I’m realizing I really need to get my you-know-what together for a menu plan. I already told you about all the mini cookies I want to make but after that I’m still all over the place. I’m also thinking about doing cookie favors (it’s a mostly adult / family party) but I don’t even know what flavors to make. I think I’m in a little bit of denial that his birthday will be here before we know it.
The good news? These cookies. If the only thing to eat at the party is these perfect mini pumpkin cookies, I don’t think anyone will mind. Seriously. I knew they were going to be winners before they even went into the oven (hello, delicious cookie dough). The flavor and texture is insanely perfect. It’s hard to get that in a pumpkin cookie but here are a few reasons they are still the perfect balance of crispy and chewy:
- 1) Canned pumpkin is limited to just 1/3 of a cup (high amounts of canned pumpkin = cakey cookies). Don’t worry, we make up for it with seasonings!
- 2) The pumpkin is cooked with the butter to reduce some of the excess liquid and enhance flavor.
- 3) There are no eggs! Eggs sometimes make baked goods cakey so I took them out. Pumpkin cookie dough for everyone!
So if you make one new cookie recipe this month, please do me a favor and make it this recipe for mini pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.
- 170g (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
- 81g (1/3 cup) canned pumpkin
- 262g (~2 cups) all-purpose flour
- 3g (½ teaspoon) baking soda
- 5 grams (1 teaspoon) salt
- 3g (1 ½ teaspoons) ground cinnamon
- ½g (1/4 teaspoon) ground nutmeg
- 234g (~1 cup, packed) light brown sugar
- 106g (~1/2 cup) granulated sugar
- 15 milliliters / 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 215g (~1¼ cups) mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Melt butter and pumpkin in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly; set aside to cool
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg; set aside
- In the large bowl of an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, beat butter mixture, sugars and vanilla for several minutes on medium speed or until well-combined
- Reduce speed to low and stir in flour mixture (do not overmix)
- Fold in chocolate chips
- Chill dough in refrigerator for at least 24 hours (you can do less chilling, but texture will not be as good)
- Once dough has chilled, pre-heat oven to 325 degrees; cover baking sheets with parchment paper
- Scoop cookie dough with small cookie dough scoop (~1 tablespoon) onto prepared baking sheets so that cookies are spaced one inch apart
- Bake cookies 8-10 minutes or until brown around good portion of edges
- Set aside to cool
- Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature up to a week (texture best first day or two) or freeze up to two months
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My nephews’s 3rd birthday was little blue truck themed! Or was that his 2nd? Man I cannot keep track anymore and it hasn’t even been that long! Anywho, I love that these pumpkin cookies do not look cakey as most of them turn out to be.
Haha, B won’t even let me get past the first page of Little Blue Truck, much as I wished otherwise…the fall scenes/colors are so pretty! Maybe one day. Although these days he only lets me read a page or two of even his fave books before tossing them aside and getting me another one from his bookshelf (which he gets to by scaling his chair and nearly giving me a heart attack every time). This age is really cute :) Oh and the pumpkin cookies obviously look amazing.
LOL I thought of you when we got to read LBT a few times yesterday. L does the same thing with quickly grabbing book after book too, though! Our lifetime of heart attacks has begun.
Our office is having a pumpkin baking contest this week so I made these last night. I did not heat the butter and pumpkin but used softened butter and pumpkin straight from the can. I did add a bit more spice with clove as well. The batter came out the same consistency as regular tollhouse batter and did not require any refrigeration. I was able to scoop and bake immediately. I have a photo of my cookies. They look and taste great. I sent the entire first batch to my son, at college. I will remake these for the contest on Wednesday. Thanks for the recipe.
Thank you so much for the nice note, Caroline! And I’m so glad to hear that the cookies worked well with your tweaks to the recipe. I hope you did well in the baking contest:-)
I had to chime in and say that these were Devine! I followed the recipe to a T, however I only chilled the dough for an hour. I will say at first my heart broke when I saw the cookies puffing up while baking because I can’t stand cakey pumpkin cookies. I did a test run on a small batch and decided to flatten them down a little with a spatula, then threw them bake in for another minute to bake and that did the trick. This will be my go to for pumpkin cookies, finally found a recipe that works!
Thank you so much for the nice comment, Pat! I’m thrilled that you enjoyed the cookies:-)