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 Powerâ„¢ 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!
My favorite baking memory is probably baking banana bread with my grandma. We used to make it all the time. She has since passed but I still have her recipe and make it a lot with my mom and always think of her.
my favorite baking memories are when i come home from college for winter break and bake with my mom. i miss her and her cooking SO much when i’m away at school so this time is really special for me. she teaches me her recipes for “thing” cakes, 7-UP cakes, and sweet potato pies. the thing cakes are probably my favorite…we always have to make sure at least one pan does not include pecans since i HATE nuts! my mom knows all of the recipes by heart and i hope one day i will too!
I used to bake Christmas cookies with my mom all the time. Usually sugar cookies that you roll out and decorate.
When I was home from freshman year of college, she was dating the man who would become my stepdad. We decorated them together. We had such a blast decorating the UGLIEST cookies. Oh, we mixed all the frosting together to get weird brownish colors. We’d put hershey kisses on top and glob on frosting to stick it down. I still have pictures of those cookies in a photo album somewhere.
one of them would be baking pizza with my 85+ year old neighbor and then having her home made, secret, brownies!!!
I was baking Christmas cookies with my sister-in-law and nieces during our annual cookie baking day. My oldest niece was 13 and had been baking long enough that we let her mix up the dough herself for the next batch of cookies. She was done adding everything, but she said that the dough didn’t seem right. And nope, it DID NOT look right. We asked her what she added and she told us that she put in only what was on the recipe card. We couldnt figure out what happened so we asked her to show us exactly what she put in. It all made perfect sense when she pointed to powdered sugar container and said she added flour. Yep, the containers weren’t labeled an she had added cups and cups of powdered sugar to the dough. We nearly died laughing and fortunately we had enough butter to make another batch. Poor girl probably won’t live that one down for a long time!
My favorite baking memory is making chocolate chip cookies with my mom when I was little… and looking back thinking how much less messy it would have been with a stand mixer! (or, you know, a baker’s assistant more than 7 years old)
for years I longed for the time I would be able to bake with a child. Several years ago I adopted a son–he’s all boy, rough, and tumble and full of hugs and sloppy kisses. I started baking bread about a year ago and after the first time or two observing he seemed to think it was something messy enough he might enjoy. He now helps me measure and stir ingredients and he asks when he will be big enough to knead the dough. I’m a blessed woman.
My favorite baking memory is baking piroshki (a traditional russian food similar to polish pierogi). She would make the dough and I would anxiously wait all day until it rose twice. I would sneak bites of the filling she prepared (egg+cabbage was my favorite!). Finally, we would split the dough into many small pieces and work together to make pretty little piroshkis. Aww childhood :)
My best memory is my first memory of cooking. My dad was always really busy and travelling but whenever he was home he gave us his full undivided attention. I remember him coming home from a long trip and teaching me to make oatmeal raising chocolate chip cookies. I couldn’t have been more than 4 years old, we would snitch in the dough together and he would tell me his stories of growing up and working on their farm. While the cookies baked, I would run over to my mom in the living room and she would let me do her hair and put every clip and bow we owned in her hair. Such a small memory made me feel safe, loved and cared for, it taught me what family really meant and how to one day do the same for my own children.
My favorite baking memory is baking with my grandma. We used to always get together and bake up tons of pumpkin bread every Thanksgiving and Christmas! She’s no longer here, but when my daughter gets old enough I plan to carry on the tradition with her!
What an amazing recipe, and absolutely perfect for the fall! I can’t wait to try it!!
I love cooking, and I have definitely always been more of the ‘baker’ in our family. My mother, not so much. Once upon a time, she tried baking sugar cookies, a bit similar to this recipe listed above. I was in 5th grade, and I had to take them to school the next day for my whole class. After working all night, they were finally ready for me to take to school in multiple tupperware containers.
I got to school, so excited about having cookies for my classmates. I just knew they would be a hit. After handing them out, I was noticing that not too many kids were eating them. And, then I began to eat mine… only to be surprised that I didn’t break any of my teeth! They were so hard, that no one could eat them. So, my teacher had a better idea. He put all of the cookies in a blender to crumble them up to put as a topping on ice cream that we had. But, unfortunately (and embarrassingly) the cookies BROKE the blender!!!
Needless to say, it became a running joke with my teacher and I, and I was never asked to bring a baked good ever again. And, if I had to, I usually baked instead of my mother. Oy vey.
My favorite baking memory is making pumpkin pie with my Nana the day before Thanksgiving when I was 6 years old. I couldn’t even reach the stove, but I got to help stir and roll out the dough for the pie crust. I dropped the bowl with the filling, and we had to start all over! But Nana just smiled and hugged me and made a new batch.
My grandmother was a fabulous baker. My mother has never even baked using a box cake mix. I am not the baker my grandmother was but I have always loved to bake. A favorite memory
Is me at the age of ten. I decided I wanted to bake an angel food cake, my favorite. I found a recipe, dug out some money from my secret area of my dresser, walked to the store and bought the ingredients. I followed the recipe and that evening after dinner brought out my cake for my mom, dad and three brothers to enjoy. The entire cake was eaten in one sitting.
I have so many fond memories of baking with my mother when I was little. She still has her same KitchenAid mixer that she got 30 years ago, and it continues to work like a charm! I however, would love to have KitchenAid of my own :) I think my all-time favorite memory was when I was seven and my mom taught me how to make her famous banana bread for the first time. It came out perfect, and from then on I always wanted to be in the kitchen with her!
My favorite baking memories are of my French-Canadian grandmother, who had a strong background in traditional French cuisine. Her (technically difficult) eclairs and cream puffs were more of a watch and then devour type of participation, but Saturday morning crepes were hands on. We’d measure out the few required ingredients, then watch in awe as Mimi whipped and whipped the batter with her whisk, until it was as smooth as if it had been put in the blender. Although I didn’t realize it as a kid, I learned a lot about food and baking from my grandmother! I’m very grateful for the experiences and the memories :)
I have seen these painted by a company. Baking with pumpkin is a tribute to all pumpkins. Not just once a year but these look wonderful. Go to my pantry and there are 4 cans of it :) Look delicious!