Pumpkin Spice Cookies — These pumpkin spice cookies are made without pumpkin puree but are full of flavor thanks to the pumpkin pie spice! These are so soft and fluffy!
Table of Contents
Cozy Spiced Pumpkin Cookies
These pumpkin spice cookies are supremely moist, soft, with hints of chewiness at the edges, and their flavor is pure fall.
I used pumpkin pie spice in them, rather than pumpkin puree. I have a recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies which uses pumpkin puree and it was a hard recipe to nail.
In general, baking cookies with pumpkin puree can turn cookies into little pumpkin cakes, unless you’re using a small amount (under 1/4 cup or so).
But at that point, you don’t taste it anyway, and all the flavor comes from the spices. Because on its own, I think pumpkin puree is bland and gross.
So I skipped the puree and went with pumpkin pie spice for all the flavor, and none of the potential for cakey cookies.
The intensity of the pumpkin pie spice, with notes of cinnamon, ginger, and cloves shining brightly, give the cookies such great depth of flavor. The brown sugar helps keeps them soft and adds a richness of caramel-like flavor.
If you’re a fan of spice cake, pumpkin, brown sugar cookies, soft gingersnaps or soft molasses cookies, add these little pumpkiny puffballs to your list.
Ingredients in Pumpkin Spice Cookies
To make these pumpkin spiced cookies, you’ll need:
- Unsalted butter
- Light brown sugar
- Egg
- Honey
- Pumpkin pie spice
- Vanilla extract
- All-purpose flour
- Cornstarch
- Baking soda
- Salt
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
Adjusting the Spice Level
I used 2 tablespoons pumpkin pie spice in these cookies, which is a pretty hefty amount, but it flavors the entire batch of cookies very nicely. They’re robustly spiced, without being overdone. If you are more sensitive to spices, you may wish to dial down the amount.
How to Make Pumpkin Spice Cookies
- Cream together the butter, sugar, and egg until light and fluffy.
- Then, add in the vanilla, honey, and pumpkin pie spice and continue mixing until combined.
- Add in the dry ingredients and mix until just combined (be careful not to over work the dough!).
- Scoop the cookie dough into balls and chill for at least 3 hours, and up to 5 days.
- Once the dough has had time to chill, bake the cookies until the edges are set.
Baking Tip
If you prefer softer cookies, don’t bake for more than 9 minutes! For firmer cookies, bake these for roughly 10 minutes.
Recipe FAQs
I added cornstarch to the dough, my workhorse for creating super soft and supple cookies. I’ve used it in at least 15 cookie recipes and it never disappoints. They’re like puffy little pillows. Lightweight, supremely soft, delicate, and just melt in your mouth.
Technically yes, but your pumpkin spice cookies won’t turn out as soft and fluffy as mine did.
I’ve only ever made these cookies as written, but I bet you could add mini chocolate chips or chopped nuts to these pumpkin spice cookies if desired. This is a really soft dough, so you’ll want to be gentle when folding in the mix-ins.
If you can’t find pumpkin pie spice, it’s usually a blend of about 1 part cinnamon, to one-half part allspice, to one-quarter part each of ground ginger, nutmeg, and cloves.
For example, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon allspice, 1/4 teaspoon each of ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. Give or take. It’s all personal preference.
Play around with what works for you, and if you already keep those spices on hand, it’s cheaper to DIY than buy pre-made and you can tweak it to your liking.
Yes, this pumpkin spice cookie recipe is easily doubled. Just keep in mind that you’ll need to bake the cookies on multiple baking sheets since you don’t want to overcrowd them!
I’ve only made these pumpkin spice cookies as written, but if you have a gluten-free flour blend that you’ve used before and trust, you can certainly try it in this recipe! If it works out, please leave me a comment down below.
The spicd pumpkin cookie dough must be chilled before baking, no exceptions. It’s a scientific impossibility to take warm dough and have it bake up into thick, puffy cookies. Warm dough is limp and spreads much more while baking. Chill your dough if you want puffy cookies, period.
Yes! You can freeze the cookie dough AFTER you’ve scooped and shaped it, and bake off these cookies one by one if desired. You’ll likely need to add a minute or two to the total bake time if using frozen cookie dough, but otherwise you won’t have to alter the recipe at all.
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Soft and Puffy Pumpkin Spice Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 large egg
- ¼ cup honey, I used clover from TJs
- 2 tablespoons pumpkin pie spice, yes tablespoons, not teaspoons
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons corn starch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- pinch salt, optional and to taste
Instructions
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter, sugar, egg, and beat on medium-high speed until well-creamed, light and fluffy, about 5 minutes (or use a hand mixer and beat for at least 7 minutes). Do not shortcut the creaming process; make sure dough is very light in color and fluffy, stop to scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the honey, pumpkin pie spice, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until combined and smooth, about 2 minutes.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, optional salt, and mix until just combined, about 1 minute.
- Using a medium 2-inch cookie scoop, form heaping two tablespoon mounds (I made 17). Place mounds on a large plate, flatten mounds very slightly with your palm, cover with plasticwrap, and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, or up to 5 days, before baking. Do not bake with warm dough because cookies will spread and bake thinner and flatter.
- Preheat oven to 350F, line baking sheets with Silpats, or spray with cooking spray.
- Place mounds on baking sheets, spaced at least 2 inches apart (I bake 8 cookies per sheet). Bake for 8 to 9 minutes, or until edges have set and tops are just beginning to set, even if undercooked, pale, and glossy in the center. Do not bake longer than 9 minutes for soft cookies because they firm up as they cool; bake for 9-10 minutes if you like firmer cookies (The cookies shown in the photos were baked with dough that had been chilled overnight, allowed to come to room temp for 10 minutes while oven preheated, and were baked for 8 minutes).
- Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes before removing and transferring to a rack to finish cooling.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Pumpkin Cookie Recipes:
The pumpkin spices cookies are made with NO pumpkin puree, but the cookie recipes shared below DO use pumpkin puree.
Soft and Chewy Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies — These pumpkin oatmeal cookies are bursting with chocolate chips in every bite! They’re thick, hearty, perfectly chewy, and not at all cakey.
Pumpkin White Chocolate Chip Cookies — Soft, chewy, loads of white chocolate, and so much pumpkin flavor!! A pinch of salt balances the sweet white chocolate for a salty-and-sweet treat!!
Soft and Chewy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies — No cakey cookies here! Soft, chewy, thick, loaded with chocolate and bold pumpkin flavor! Your new favorite pumpkin cookies!
Iced Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies — Soft and pillowy pumpkin cookies that are chock full of pumpkin spice and everything nice! The icing takes these cookies over the top.
Buttery Pecan Pumpkin Spice Cookies – Buttery soft dough with big chunky pecans in every bite! Salty-and-sweet and so hard to resist!
Soft and Chewy Pumpkin Snickerdoodles — Soft and pillowy in the middle, chewy around the edges, and ever so slightly crisp on the bottom! Classic snickerdoodles get a makeover with the addition of pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spices!
I love baking honey into cookies- I’ve done that before but this post reminded me that I should do it again! Pumpkin spice and honey though? Amazing!
If you have any recipes for cookies with honey on your site, send me the links. I want to check out the texture!
Yum, these look heavenly. And so puffy yet so chewy and not cake-y! I love it. Your descriptions made me feel like I was eating one right now… if only!! :)
Glad my descriptions work :)
Pumpkin + Honey + Non Cakey cookie = LOVE! :)
Pumpkin and honey is such a winning combo, but I never thought to combine the two in cookie form! What a genius idea! I love that they are crazy puffy, but not cakey. That is so interesting and in a good way!! I have to try these!!
I know you bake things other than the standard oatmeal, PB, choc chip cookies, etc. and if you have any experience baking with honey, LMK! I want to compare notes and textures!
These cookies sound very comforting! I would have thought honey would make flat cookies, but it’s great you found it didn’t.
I was so worried about the same thing and was pleasantly shocked!
These look so interesting–Simple yet complex at the same time! Love that! Pinned!
Thanks for pinning!
Yum. I want to sink my teeth into this puffy, chewy cookie. And I have everything on hand except the pumpkin spice. Looks like I need to go to the store!
OMG! I am going to have to try these with some local honey. I just found your blog and I am enjoying all the wonderful ideas.
Thanks, April, for stopping by and commenting and if you try any recipes, LMK how they go!
Butter, honey and pumpkin pie spice –what a great cookie for autumn! I bet these made the house smell heavenly…and the texture looks perfect! I like to replace some sugar with honey in baked goods–it has a nice rich flavor and I don’t usually have to use much to get good flavor and sweetness. Honey is especially good if I’m baking anything with pea protein powder–it needs lots of extra moisture!
God bless you for baking with pea protein. I have heard horror stories about that stuff. Mostly the flavor but I can imagine the texture just sucks the moisture right out of anything! Sort of like coconut flour. I am impressed you work with it!
And yes, these made the house smell so good! Like a yankee candle :) If you have any experience baking cookies with honey, LMK. I was pleasantly shocked with the puff these seemed to have that I can only attribute to the honey b/c all other variables were pretty standard issue.
Love how puffy these guys are! And the combo of honey and pumpkin spice sounds just too good to be true.
Fluffy little pillow cookies bursting with fall flavors? Count me in!! ;)
From candles, to cookies, to even coffee, I absolutely LOVE pumpkin. A few days ago, I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies that look awfully similar to the picture you had posted here. As far as honey, my hubby and I like to drizzle it on top of our oatmeal. In the pursuit of health, we’ve been trying to eat more oatmeal, and honey is a perfect sweetener for it!
Honey & oats (and pumpkin with choc chips) – sounds wonderful!
Honey and pumpkin is wonderful! I love to honey roast pumpkin for salads and then add some pumpkin seeds/pine nuts or spinach/rocket.
I made a few pumpkin recipes on my blog; I have yeasted pumpkin bread , a quick savoury double roasted pumpkin bread and pumpkin puree granola.
You can cheack it out here https://themoonblushbaker.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/advertising-space-double-roasted.html and https://themoonblushbaker.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/restricted-to-tropical-kitchen-sink.html
Your cookies are always look so perfect! Pumpkin spice definitely is making its way into my heart!
You have lots of great recipes in your archives and honey roast pumpkin sounds delish!
I love honey in cookies, and in anything…it has such a unique flavor! Have you ever heard of Honeyville? https://www.honeyvillecolorado.com
They make gourmet, flavored honeys (peanut-butter honey! Thought of you ;)), like raspberry, cinnamon, lemon, bumbleberry, maple, and so many other varieties. They are fabulous in cookies!
Peanut butter honey sounds great! I combine the two all the time – and there’s also coconut oil PB that I’ve had/made. Those honeys sound great!
Wow these sound wonderful. I like the sound of all those spices!
I have a favorite pumpkin recipe which actually doesn’t use the typical pumpkin pie spices. It’s a sort of southwest pumpkin soup:
https://scrumptiousgruel.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/for-one-second-annual-pumpkin-week-in-spring-day-one/
That soup sounds so good and hearty for when the weather cools off!
Being in Turkey right now where honey is always served at breakfast, I have developed a new-found love for it. I imagine these cookies would be delicious – a taste of fall baked right in!
Oh I bet the honey over there is so extra-special and so good!