Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles Are Like a Bear Hug on a Dreary Day
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My go-to snickerdoodle recipe comes from a bakery I've never visited, of which I know little about. In fact, I'm not entirely sure how a copy of Rosie's Bakery Chocolate-Packed, Jam-Filled, Butter-Rich, No-Holds-Barred Cookie Book came to be in my possession as an eager, young baker, but for years, it was my reference for all things cookie-related — the tender, chewy-edged snickerdoodle recipe being a personal favorite.
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I've made the recipe in its classic cinnamon-spiced iteration countless times, and it still holds up; really, no other snickerdoodle I've eaten quite compares. This Fall, I decided it was high time it received an autumnal update, so after a bit of tweaking, I bring to you pumpkin spice snickerdoodles. The texture is a bit cakier, though not by much. (Many pumpkin spice snickerdoodles call for a much greater volume of pumpkin puree to tint the cookies a deep orange hue, a major mistake in my book, as snickerdoodles are as much about texture as they are about spice.) The flavor is just in between subtle and strong. All in all, I think they're pretty great.
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Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles
INGREDIENTS
- 3 cups (15 ounces) all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided
- 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and salt together in a medium mixing bowl.
Combine the cinnamon with 2 tablespoons sugar in a small bowl. Stir together thoroughly.
Using an electric mixer on medium speed, cream together the butter and remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a silicone spatula as needed. Add the pumpkin purée, eggs, and vanilla, and mix until homogenous. Stop the mixer once during the process to scrape the bowl with a rubber spatula, and scrape the bowl again at the end. Add the dry ingredients in two additions, scraping down the bowl as needed, and mixing until no streaks of flour remain.
Measure out generously rounded tablespoons of the dough, and roll them into balls with your hands. Roll the cookie dough balls in the cinnamon sugar, then arrange on two half-sheet pans, spacing the cookies about 2 inches apart.
Bake until puffy, and the bottoms are just beginning to brown, 9-11 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through the cooking time. Let the cookies set up on the pans for 1 minute, then transfer to a cooling rack.