This Frosted Pumpkin Cookies recipe delivers soft and chewy pumpkin-spiced cookies with the perfect blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. All topped with a light maple flavored frosting for a full of Fall flavor!
Table of Contents
Including pumpkin puree as well as spices adds a twist to the usual Pumpkin spice desserts with a batch of these having a lightly soft sugar cookie center that is complimented with the maple syrup flavored buttercream.
Ingredients and substitutions for Frosted Pumpkin Cookies
- Butter: Unsalted butter is used for the cookie, but if all you have on hand is salted, that works as a fine substitute, just leave out any salt suggested in the recipe.
- Sugar: Confectioners or icing sugar dissolves into the buttercream and the superfine or caster sugar adds to the sugar portion of our cookies creating a nice balance without making them overly sweet.
- Eggs: The room temperature egg binds and adds structure to our cookies resulting in that soft interior that compliments the sugar and butter.
- Pumpkin: We used canned pumpkin here as it has less moisture than homemade mashed pumpkin. We want to wrap our pumpkin in paper towels or a clean tea towel to remove some of the moisture. We need to do this to ensure our cookies are nice and buttery without being cake. This will also take the overall weight of our pumpkin down from 122 grams / ½ cup to 85 grams / 5 ½ tablespoons of pumpkin puree.
- Flour: Plain or all purpose flour is best for a nice light cookie crumb.
- Baking powder: This helps our cookies rise so they are not stodgy.
- Ground spices: The ground spices all help to heighten and give depth of our cookies as well as complimenting the pumpkin.
See recipe card for quantities.
How to make Frosted Pumpkin Cookies:
Step 1: Whip: The butter and sugars until pale and fluffy.
Step 2: Add: The egg and beat before whipping in the pumpkin puree.
Step 3: Stir: The flour, baking powder, ground spices and salt in a separate bowl and toss into the pumpkin butter mixture, whipping until combined.
Step 4: Scoop: A portion of dough and place onto your baking tray with 1 ½ inches between each.
Step 5: Bake and indent: Bake for 10 before removing and indenting and baking for a further 4 minutes. Remove and set aside to cool.
Step 6: Whip buttercream: The butter and sugar, maple syrup and milk until pale and fluffy.
Step 7: Smear: The buttercream over the center of each cookie and smooth with an offset spatula. Allow to set.
Step 8: Enjoy: Serve up!
Variations
You can definitely change up the dish by changing the following:
Sweet potato - you could substitute the canned pumpkin with sweet potato puree.
Chocolate frosting - instead of maple syrup in your frosting, add some melty chocolate (20 grams / 2 tablespoons chocolate chips or chunks melted) or 14 grams / 2 tablespoons cocoa powder sifted into you frosting mixture.
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Frosted Pumpkin Cookies
Ingredients
Pumpkin Sugar Cookies
- 150 grams / 5.3 ounces butter softened
- 65 grams / ⅔ cup confectioner’s/icing sugar
- 50 grams / ¼ cup superfine/caster sugar
- 55 grams / 1 large egg room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 122 grams / ½ cup canned pumpkin slightly dried (see ingredient section)
- 282 grams / 1 ¾ cups plain flour
- 2 grams / ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Maple Frosting
- 30 grams / 2 tablespoons butter softened
- 145 grams / 1 ¼ cups confectioner/icing sugar sifted
- 30 grams / 1 ½ tablespoons maple syrup
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
Pumpkin sugar cookies
- Preheat your oven to 180C/350F and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
- Place the butter and sugars into a bowl and beat until pale and fluffy, approximately 4 minutes.
- Add in the egg and beat until well combined and fluffy.
- Add in your pumpkin puree and beat until combined and smooth.
- In a separate bowl, place the flour, baking powder, ground spices and salt and stir.
- Toss into your pumpkin butter mixture and beat until just combined and smooth.
- Scoop up a portion of dough and place onto your baking tray with 1 ½ inches between each cookie.
- Bake for 10 minutes, remove from the oven and press the center with the back of a cookie scoop or a flat bottomed glass.
- Return to the oven for a further 4 minutes until the cookies look matt all over.
- Remove and allow to cool for 5 minutes on the tray before placing on a cooling rack.
Maple frosting
- Place the butter, sugar, maple syrup and milk into a bowl and beat on medium until the mixture is smooth.
- Spoon a tablespoonful into the center of your cookies and smooth out with an offset spatula.
- Set aside to allow the frosting to set.
- Serve up alongside your favorite hot beverage.
- Enjoy!
Notes
- Pumpkin: We used canned pumpkin here as it has less moisture than homemade mashed pumpkin. We want to wrap our pumpkin in paper towels or a clean tea towel to remove some of the moisture. We need to do this to ensure our cookies are nice and buttery without being cake. This will also take the overall weight of our pumpkin down from 122 grams / ½ cup to 85 grams / 5 ½ tablespoons of pumpkin puree.
- Ground spices: The ground spices all help to heighten and give depth of our cookies as well as complimenting the pumpkin.
- Ice Cream Scoop: The scoop used here creates medium cookies with a diameter of 5 centimeters 1.97 inches scoop was used for putting the icing into the center of our biscuits.
- Variation: You could substitute the canned pumpkin with sweet potato puree.
- Storage: The cookies are best consumed within 3 days of baking and should be kept covered in a container to keep them nice and soft. Or freeze without frosting for up to 2 months.
Nutrition
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