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! So EASY and the dough can be made in advance, and perfect for all those COZY fall vibes!
Prep Time15 minutesmins
Cook Time10 minutesmins
Additional Time1 hourhr
Total Time1 hourhr
Course: Cookies
Cuisine: American
Servings: 16
Calories: 152kcal
Author: Averie Sunshine
Ingredients
Cookie Dough
½cupunsalted buttermelted and cooled
½cupgranulated sugar
⅓cuplight brown sugarpacked
¼cuppure pumpkin pureenot pumpkin pie filling
1egg yolkfrom a large egg (discard white or save for your morning eggs)
1teaspoonvanilla extract
1 ½cupsall-purpose flour
2 ½teaspoonspumpkin spice
½ to 1teaspoonground cinnamonor to taste
½teaspoonbaking soda
½teaspoonsalt
¼teaspoonground cloves
¼teaspooncream of tartar*
Cinnamon-Sugar Coating
⅓ to ½cupgranulated sugar
2teaspoonsground cinnamon
Instructions
Cookie Dough - To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or large mixing bowl with handheld electric mixer), add the melted and cooled (make sure it's cool or you will scramble the egg), sugars, and beat on medium-high speed until well combined. Stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Add the egg yolk, vanilla, and beat to incorporate. Stop and scape down the sides of the bowl. Set aside momentarily.
In a separate large mixing bowl, add the flour, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, baking soda, cloves, cream of tartar *(See Notes) salt, and whisk to combine. Spices Tips - I add extra cinnamon and cloves because I am fond of the flavor. However, most blends of "pumpkin pie spice" contain a mixture of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and sometimes lemon peel. Therefore, if you want to just add a bit more pumpkin pie spice if you don't have individual spices, go for it. And/or add other spices to your liking, i.e. ground ginger, ground nutmeg, etc. It's all personal preference.
Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and beat on low speed to just incorporate; do not overmix.
Cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours. Chilling Tips - If you don't have room for the whole mixing bowl, make a dough mound and wrap that in plastic wrap, and then place it in the fridge. You MUST chill the dough because it's far too soft to bake with at this point and your cookies will spread horribly if you attempt it. You can chill the dough longer than 2 hours (up to 24-36 hours before baking it) however if you plan to chill for more than 2 hours, form the cookie dough mounds or balls within the 2 hour window or else the dough could become unreasonably stiff and difficult to work with.
After 1-2 hours, remove the dough from the fridge, and using a medium cookie scoop (about 1 1/2 tablespoons) and form approximately 16 equal sized balls of dough. Give each ball a quick roll between your palms to smooth; set aside on baking sheets momentarily.
Preheat oven to 350F and line two baking sheets with Silpat baking mats, parchment paper, or spray the baking sheets well with nonstick spray.
Cinnamon-Sugar - To a medium bowl (not too small because you have to roll the dough balls through it), add the graulated sugar, cinnamon, and stir to combine.
Roll each mound of dough through the cinnamon sugar, and place about 8 mounds per baking sheet, evenly spaced. You do not need to flatten the dough mounds.
Bake for about 10 minutes, or as needed until done. Baking Tips - I always perfer baking one sheet of cookies at a time, on the center rack, and I rotate it midway through the baking time for the most even baking. However, you can bake two sheets at once if preferred. Baking time is just an estimate or guideline, and your cookies may take more or less time to bake depending on your oven, how cold the dough was going into the oven, the exact size of your cookie dough balls, etc. Cookies are done when they are set on the top and lightly golden browned and will have the tell-tale crinkling of a snickerdoodle cookie, although that also continues to develop at the cookies cool.
Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheets for 5-10 minutes, or until cool and set enough to transfer to wire racks, where they can cool completely. Cinnamon-Sugar Tip - Sometimes it can seem that the cinnamon-sugar coating almost disappears during the baking process. But don't worry if that happens to you! Simply sprinkle the baked cookies with an extra large pinch of cinnamon-sugar right after you pull them out of them oven while they're cooling on the baking sheets.
Storage - Cookies will keep airtight at room temp for about 5 days, or in the freezer for up to 4 months. Unbaked cookie dough balls will keep airtight in the fridge for up to 48 hours or so, or in the freezer for 3-4 months. If baking from frozen, add a couple minutes of baking time once in the oven, but you don't need to wait for them to thaw fully on the countertop before baking.
Notes
*In short, cream of tartar is essential to this recipe and my recommendation is that you should NOT omit it and make the recipe as written with ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar.However, if you’re all out of cream of tartar (or never bought any in the first place), you theoretically can replace both the cream of tartar AND baking soda with baking powder, which is just cream of tartar and baking soda mixed together. So in this recipe, ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar + ½ teaspoon baking soda = ¾ teaspoon baking powder (total) as a substitute.