Soft Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

After having baked a hearty pumpkin seed sourdough bread already, we felt like there must also be something sweet with the autumn vegetable number one and of course there is. So we proudly present: soft pumpkin snickerdoodles!

Some of you may wonder what a snickerdoodle is and why we don’t call them cookies. A snickerdoodle is a kind of cookie which is made with butter (or oil), sugar, flour and – most importantly – rolled in cinnamon sugar. Due to this last step, they are also often called “sugar cookies”. Characteristically they have a cracked surface and can be crisp or soft based on how exactly you baked them.

Part of the ingredient list is “cream of tartar” which (together with baking soda) adds a unique and tangy flavour to the snickerdoodle. Unfortunately cream of tartar is not available everywhere, but you can replace it with baking powder like we did in this recipe.

Things to know before you start

Time Schedule

In about 3 hours you will have a big batch of soft pumpkin snickerdoodles.

Info: The work and waiting times for the shape and bake steps are per baking plate full of pumpkin snickerdoodles. You will have dough for 2 or even 3 full baking plates depending on how big you are going to make them. So while one batch of pumpkin snickerdoodles is baking in the oven, you can already prepare the next one.

Total ingredients

This recipe yields about 24 medium or 36 small sized soft pumpkin snickerdoodles.

Tip: If you can’t buy canned pumpkin puree, you can easily make it on your own by baking, cooking or microwaving pumpkin pieces until they are soft and then blend them to a puree.

Difficulty

A pretty quick, straightforward and simple recipe for soft pumpkin snickerdoodles.

Baking tools

A stand mixer or hand mixer, a bowl, 2 baking plates (1 is also fine) and parchment paper are needed. As usual for most cookie / snickerdoodle recipes a cookie scoop can come in handy for shaping the pumpkin snickerdoodles so they all will be the same size, but it is not necessary. Using just your hands is also fine.

Also check out our list of baking tools that we are constantly using.

Steps

1. Mix

• We used a stand mixer to mix the dough, but you can also use a hand mixer
• Beat the softened butter together with the white sugar in a large bowl for about 1 minute
• Afterwards, add the vanilla extract and pumpkin puree and mix for 2 minutes until combined
• Then add the egg and also mix until fully incorporated

• Sift all the dry ingredients together in a second bowl and stir until combined
• Carefully add them to the previous dough step by step while mixing further on low speed until just combined to avoid overmixing
• The dough should be very soft but still thick

2. Rest

• Store the pumpkin snickerdoodles dough sealed in the fridge at 4-6°C (39,2-42,8°F) for 2 hours

3. Shape

• Take a small bowl, fill it with white sugar and and pumpkin spice and stir until combined
• Take 2 baking plates and cover them with parchment paper
• Use a cookie scoop or tablespoon to get some dough out of the bowl to have roughly the same amount of dough for every cookie
• Roll the dough with your hands into a ball
• Coat it with the pumpkin spice sugar mixture on all sides by rolling it around in the bowl you previously set aside
• Place the coated dough balls next to each other on the baking plate (3 rows with 4 cookies per row)
• We went for 12 pumpkin snickerdoodles per baking plate so we had 24 in total

4. Bake

• Preheat oven to 175°C (347°F) for ~20 minutes with the circulating heat function
• Put one baking plate in the middle rack of the oven and bake for a total of 10 minutes or until the edges start getting brown
• After baking, take the pumpkin snickerdoodles out
• Info: We baked one batch with the circulating heat function and one with the upper and lower heat function. By using the upper and lower heat function, the dough diverged too much. If your oven only has the upper and lower heat function, you should bake at about 190°C (374°F).

5. Cool

• Let your soft pumpkin snickerdoodles rest on the baking plate they were baked on for 5 minutes
• Afterwards transfer them, including the parchment paper, to a wire cooling rack for further cooling for at least 15 minutes to set

Conclusion

Taste

These beautiful pumpkin snickerdoodles have a soft and moist inside and are crunchy on the outer edges. They are sweet as well as aromatic.

You can clearly tell that pumpkin spice is leading in the taste as it is quite a unique taste of course. If you know it, you can clearly taste the pumpkin but its taste is more hidden.

It’s like you assume something is there, a secret, but you are not entirely sure what it is, which is a very nice twist in a cookie.

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