I have fond childhood memories of baking chocolate chip cookies with my my mom and sister. When my sister and I saw our mom’s circa 1972 split pea green KitchenAid Stand Mixer come out, we knew we were in for a treat.
The process of helping my mom in the kitchen and being her little helper was almost as good as the cookies we’d bake together.
My dad always knew if my sister and I had been in the kitchen that day helping out as evidenced by the eggshells in his cookies, which we’d proudly present to him and that he’d never turn down. They simply added a delicious crunch.
As a helper, I learned early on not to crank the mixer to high speed immediately after adding the flour. A good way to make my mom mad was to spray her kitchen with flour.
The best part of cookie making came when adding the chocolate chips to the dough.
I’d always sneak a handful of chocolate chips that were supposed to make it into the cookie dough, but made it into my mouth instead.
With this cookie recipe, I wanted to embrace the classic chocolate chip cookie I grew up eating, but also incorporate everyone’s favorite fall ingredient: pumpkin.
Plenty of recipes exist for soft, cake-like, pumpkin whoopie pie cookies, but I wanted these cookies to have the traditional chewiness of a true chocolate chip cookie, but infused with pumpkin.
After testing and experimenting with so many recipes and creating everything from cakey, soft, pumpkin mounds to pumpkin-laced hockey pucks, I finally found the texture and flavor I was in search of with this recipe.
The resulting cookies are soft, tender, light and have just a touch of cakiness, but they are also chewy with some heartiness. Soft pumpkin cookie meets chewy chocolate chip cookie. The edges crisp up and the centers remain pillowy soft.
They’re packed with the warming flavors of fall, including cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, cloves, and a dash of molasses.
The chocolate chips pair nicely with the pumpkin and the flavors complement each other so well. Then again, chocolate pairs so well with most anything for me.
A few cook’s notes:
The dough is soft and a bit tacky to work with, courtesy of the pumpkin puree. Pumpkin does a beautiful job of tenderizing baked goods, but it makes the dough a bit sticky. Counteract the stickiness by chilling the dough before scooping it into balls. In my trials, I chilled the dough ranging from 90 minutes to 4 days. The longer the dough is chilled, the easier it is to work with.
Prior to baking, rolling a ball of dough through a cinnamon-sugar mixture not only creates a extra bonus of texture and flavor in the finished cookies, but it does double-duty by taking the edge off some of the dough’s stickiness.
I found the best cookies result from using 1 1/2 tablespoons of well-chilled dough, scooped using a cookie scoop, dredged through cinnamon-sugar, and flattened slightly before baking.
The cookies spread very little while baking and I recommend flattening the dough mounds slightly before baking otherwise the base will cook through and become too well done before the top sets.
The cookies keep beautifully, and paradoxically, get softer over time. The brown sugar and molasses attract moisture from the air so there’s little worry of them drying out.
Then again, I don’t think you’ll have too many extra cookies just lingering around.
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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes about 3 dozen medium-sized cookies
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened (1 stick)
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 tablespoon unsulphered molasses (I use Grandma’s Original)
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, ground ginger, salt – all optional and to taste
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups Nestle Tollhouse Semi-Sweet Morsels
Cinnamon-Sugar Mixture, for rolling
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine butter, brown sugar, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, and beat on medium-high to high speed for 3 to 4 minutes to cream ingredients; stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the egg, vanilla, and beat on high speed for 3 to 4 minutes until mixture is light and fluffy. Add the pumpkin, unsulphered molasses (blackstrap molasses may be substituted but it’s bolder and more intense), 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, cloves, optional spices, salt, and mix until incorporated, about 1 minute. (All spices should be added to taste and use more or less, depending on how robustly-flavored you prefer your cookies. As written, the spices are nicely balanced and the cookies are of average intensity. Adding ginger, additional cinnamon or cloves, will give them a stronger punch and kick, rendering them more like a pumpkin-ginger-spice cookie)
Add the flour, baking soda, and mix until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips by hand. Dough will be thick and dense yet soft, and must be refrigerated and chilled before it’s suitable for scooping out and baking off. Cover mixing bowl with plastic wrap or transfer dough into an airtight container and refrigerate dough for at least 90 minutes, overnight, or up to four days.
Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare baking sheets by lining them with Silpat liners, parchment paper, or spray them with cooking spray; set aside. Make the Cinnamon-Sugar Mixture by combining 1/3 cup granulated sugar and 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon in a small bowl and stir to combine; set aside.
Form 1 1/2 tablespoon-sized balls of dough using a cookie scoop and dredge each ball through the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place balls on baking sheets; cookies spread very little and can be spaced about 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Flatten balls slightly before baking to ensure cookies cook through evenly. Bake for 12-13 minutes or until the edges near the bases of the cookies are golden and set, and tops have just set; cookies will continue to firm up as they cool. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheets for at least 10 minutes before moving them. Cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one week or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Cookies can be kept vegan by using vegan margarine such as Earth Balance and replacing the egg with a flax egg. Cookies can be made gluten-free by using a gluten-free flour blend such as Bob’s Red Mill.
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And now, onto the Giveaway portion of this post. You can enter to win:
a $200 gift card from Williams-Sonoma
and a KitchenAid Stand Mixer
Yes, one lucky person will win both.
The mixer is from the KitchenAid Custom Metallic® Series | Tilt-Head Stand Mixer | Flour Power™ Rating – 9 Cup
It’s a 5-Quart size with a 10-speed Solid State Control
It comes with a flat beater, wire whip, and dough hook
It retails for $649.95
I’m sure I don’t need to sell you on the benefits, workmanship, and high quality nature of a KitchenAid Stand Mixer or twist your arm to pick out $200 worth of items from Williams-Sonoma.
Although Tweets, Facebook mentions, or Pinterest Pins about this post are appreciated, they are not required for entry.
Simply answer the following question by leaving a comment below to enter the giveaway:
Please share a favorite baking memory. (Please be detailed and specific)
Contest ends Monday, October 8, 2012 and winner will be chosen randomly. Open to continental U.S. residents only. Complete contest rules can be found at the bottom of this page.
This post is sponsored by Nestlé® Toll House® Morsels, the perfect special ingredient for all of your family’s favorite treats!
I loved baking with my mom when I was little. I think it was all the samples she gave out. And I love carrying that on with my daughter. She gets so excited to “cook cookies”!
I have so many, but I think one of my favorites is watching my teenage brothers in my aunt’s kitchen helping two of our good friends daughters (ages about 6 and 7 then) bake cookies, and them just being totally into what they were doing, unconcerned about anything else.
Wow! This is such a great opportunity! Thanks Averie!
Heading off to college next year, so this would definitely be well used!
My favorite baking memories were from when my brother (a year older than me) and I used to make chocolate chip cookies. The good, ol’ unhealthy ones with 2 sticks of butter and 1.5 cups of sugar…yum yum yum! haha…
It was lucky if a dozen cookies made it to the oven! We’d always have the worst stomach-aches from scarfing the cookie dough, but apparently it was good, because we did it many, many times :D
(of course, today the cookies would have to be gluten and dairy free for us….but that’s not an issue! They can still be tasty! (and stomach-ache inducing :) )
One of my favorite baking memories is the first time my niece made cookies with me. She wanted to taste every ingredient as we made cookies. Now when she comes to my house, her first question is “what are we making today?!?!”
I would die for this! I have three kids! It’s so awesome!
Those cookies look delicious!!
Last year with my Mom, we made three different kinds of cookies for x-mas. It was our first time baking that much together, so I was a little worried whether they were going to be good. They were delicious!!
My favorite baking memory was definitely teaching others how to make cake pops at a non-profit I volunteer at (I have semi-regular baking night as social activities with the residents). Halloween Cake Pop night was definitely my favorite. Two of the resident had their little boys there, so when the time to crumble the cake (one chocolate, and one vanilla flavored dyed green), the little boys volunteered to do it. I instructed them to crumble the cake–they looked at me, at the cake, and then at their moms with a Can-I-Really-Play-With-The-Food-Mom? expression on their faces. Once they got their hands in the cake, they were having so much fun. When I added the frosting, they said “Ewww, this is so weird!” as they eagerly continued to make the dough.
I had mummies and Frankensteins planned out as tutorials but everyone let their creative juices flow and had some cool looking cake pops!
My favorite baking memory was making meringue cookies for the first time. I think I was 12. I was so excited to make them all by myself while my parents were gone. I couldn’t wait to present them with the finished cookies.
I doubled the recipe and thought I had to double everything, from the time in the oven to the temperature. It was a failure in so many ways but I learned how to double a recipe!
Cooking and baking with my family has always been a big part of my life. I don’t think I will ever forget when my proper, conservative, southern Christian grandmother told my cousin to check “that bucking lid” on a pot of mashed potatoes. He thought she said “that **cking lid!” I have never seen someone so shocked or my parents laugh so hard!
My favorite cooking memory is baking chocolate chip cookies using the recipe from the Toll House bag with my mom. Mom like to tie a too large gingham apron around my waist that was long enough to tickle the tops of my toes. She would pick me up and set me on the yellow Formica counter top of our first home, most of which was a shade of canary, as well. In my lap Mom would place a stainless steel mixing bowl and hand me a wooden spoon to stir the ingredients as she added them. Inevitably, I would be covered in flour, but it never bothered her. As we spooned the chocolate chip cookie dough onto the sheet pans, Mom would pop a small bit of dough in my mouth and another in hers. We were fearless in the face of salmonella in our pursuit of chocolaty goodness . Finally she would set me on the cream colored tile in front of the oven and turn on the oven light. I would sit patiently waiting for the cookies to spread and brown so that she and I could get the first taste before anyone else.
Yummm I’m going to make those cookies tomorrow.
My best baking memory is when I taught myself how to make apple pie, and I did a class on it in 7th grade. I was known for my apple pie, and eventually I tuahgt my grandma how I made them :-) I’m sure looking back that it was to make me feel good about myself, but it still makes me happy.
My favorite baking memory is of watching my Grandma make pecan pies. She would use her butter knife to trim the pie crusts, then a fork to pinch the edges. I can still see her using her “shaker” to beat the eggs. She still makes the best pies! Lemon Meringue, Chocolate Cream, and Coconut Cream are my favorites.
My favorite baking memory was making a birthday cake for my 7th grade Language Arts teacher with my best-friend. Part of the cake caved-in and for some reason we thought sticking a Matchbox car on top (since the teacher was fond of hot-rods) would distract from the giant crack in the cake and frosting.. well it only made it worse. I grew-up baking, with grandparents that baked, with aunts and uncles that baked, but baking with my best-friend (whose parents weren’t from the US.. so she did not know much about baking or have the ingredients or mixer or even the utensils) was most memorable.
In three months this same best-friend is getting married, and I’ll be baking a lot of goodies for her wedding. Thankfully my baking-skills have progressed, and I do not plan to put a Matchbox car on any of the items. :o)
My mother never cooks unless it’s Christmas, and when she does she goes above and beyond. Baking christmas cookies and making candy with my mom and little sisters is something that I’ll cherish for the rest of my life. We always made Santa peanut butter cookies (and it took me years to realize that we only made peanut butter because my dad was Santa) and used glasses instead of rolling pins to roll them out. A long afternoon covered in flour was always something I looked forward to during the Christmas season.
My favorite baking memory was helping my mom make Christmas cookies when I was younger. I would always help me roll out the sugar cookies, cut out the shapes, and put on the sprinkles to make them sparkle. We would always argue because I wanted to use some of our huge cookie cutters but she liked the small ones.
I make my own Christmas cookies now and don’t get home early enough before Christmas to help her anymore. But I know she still has my sister’s kids, who are 7 year old twins, over to decorate sugar cookies every year – and I’m sure they love it as much as I did.
Looks like another home run recipe from Averie Cooks. And your pumpkin chocolate chip cookies spin me back to memories of baking with my grandmother, Nona. Like you she packed wholesome goodness into each sweet including her buttery date nut cookies. Smelling the mounds of cookie dough as they transformed into mouthwatering bites of goodness was an almost transcendent experience!
My favorite baking memory is the first time my grandma taught me how to bake — I was probably about four or five, and the cookbook was her very first one (a child’s cookbook) from the 1930s. (I remember loving the illustrations, which was probably the start of my love for all things vintage!) I always hung out in the kitchen when we visited, because Grandma would give me “samples” of whatever she was making. Getting to actually make something was exciting!
I got to put on an apron that was much too big for me, and learned about how to read a recipe and measure out the ingredients. We made a “cinderella cake” — probably similar to a pound cake. 20 years later, I’m still cooking and baking. :)