THE CREDIT
The Pin-spiration (Original Pin) | The Source (via Pennies on a Platter)
THE SELECTION
You know why I picked this particular recipe? I mean, besides the fact that the picture looked like amazing fluffy cookie deliciousness?
It was because I had all the ingredients already on hand.
And that comes in very handy, dear Internet, when you get the whim to bake at 10:00 on a Saturday night and you’ve been comfortably outfitted in sweatpants for upwards of four hours.
It occurred to me at some point as I was mixing things together that I’ve never actually made regular Snickerdoodle cookies before, ever. That really has no bearing on this particular recipe, I just thought that was weird.
ALSO! You will be VERY PROUD OF ME. I used the CORRECT amount of pumpkin this time. I measured it out and everything. I feel like I should give myself a giant gold star.
THE PROCESS
These cookies operate like most other cookies. Mix the wet ingredients, mix the dry ingredients, then mix together. One thing of note: these cookies require some chill time, so make sure you plan ahead for that! The source site recommends letting them chill for over an hour. I let mine hang out in the fridge for an hour and a half. Much longer than that, and I get impatient. Fortunately I have the Internet to distract me while I’m waiting.
Also, I’m going to share with you one of my favorite kitchen gadgets that I’ve found to come in very handy. You can obviously perform this recipe without it, but it’s a huge lifesaver.
It’s called the Measure-All Cup, by The Pampered Chef. You set your measurement where you want it, fill it with your ingredient in question, and then you push the bottom part and shove the ingredient into whatever you are making, then wipe it clean with a spatula. I don’t know. Suction is involved somewhere. Basically it functions like those push popsicles we had when we were kids. It’s awesome. I’m not explaining it very well.
You know what it’s especially great for? Peanut butter. Have you ever tried to measure peanut butter in a measuring cup? And then tried to scrape it back out again? Yeah, sucks, right? This thing just pushes it out like it’s nothing. It’s also great for brown sugar, molasses, anything syrupy, really (maple syrup, chocolate syrup, any syrup, also, syrup has lost all meaning to me now. Syrup. Syrup syrup syrup. It’s not even a word anymore. Syrup.) It’s also good for, oh, I don’t know… say… PUMPKIN.
I assume that there is a knockoff version flying around in other baking stores and/or Target or the like. I love it and it saves a lot of stress and irritation. It runs about $10 or so but it’s like the best $10 you will spend ever. Unless you buy a case of pumpkin or something. That seems like a sound investment too. I don’t know. I have a lot of Pampered Chef stuff that I really like. I even sold it for a while. It’s nice stuff, and while some of it is obviously frou-frou crap that you don’t need, a lot of it is super amazing. (Quick mental count, I used about four or five PChef products in the making of this recipe.) (I may or may not have a slight addiction.)
I swear, they’re not paying me for this.
Also, for this recipe, you’ll definitely want to use a mixer if you have one. Once you get towards the last of the dry ingredients, it gets harder to stir, so for those of you brave souls who use a whisk… I salute you.
Enough of that. On to…
THE RECIPE – PUMPKIN SNICKERDOODLES
INGREDIENTS
For Cookies
- 1 cup butter or margarine (this equates to two sticks)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 3/4 cup pumpkin (NOT a whole can!!!)
- 1 egg
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 3/4 cups flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder (remember: not soda)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
For Coating
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- dash of allspice
DON’T preheat your oven yet. There will be plenty of time for that later.
Mix together the butter, sugar, and brown sugar until fluffy. Stir in pumpkin (NOT THE WHOLE CAN! Man, I am so proud of myself for catching it this time), then the egg and the vanilla extract. (NOTE: if you were trying to lighten this up, you can use 2 egg whites instead. After unwrapping two sticks of margarine, I gave up on trying to lighten up this one, so I just used a regular ole egg). Set aside.
In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg; gradually mix into the previous bowl of wet ingredients.
Cover and chill the dough for at least an hour.
NOW you can preheat your oven, to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Scoop out balls of dough (which, by the way, when I was licking it off the mixer, tasted like MAGIC) and roll them in the coating mixture.
The original recipe says to line your baking sheets with parchment paper. Here’s the thing, Internet. I don’t own parchment paper and I don’t use regular baking sheets most of the time. If any of you own a baking stone (you know, the kind that 99% of people use exclusively for their pizza) – USE IT FOR COOKIES. It gives you the most amazing, evenly-baked cookies and they never ever ever ever stick to the “pan.” So I don’t line those because there’s no need. Which means I don’t know how dire it is if you line regular sheets or not.
Bake for 12-14 minutes.
THE VERDICT
Their result:
[via]
Mine:
Did it require any weird gadgetry or or cookware? You will need two mixing bowls (you can re-use your “dry ingredients” bowl to mix your coating in), ideally a mixer of some form, maybe a scooper for consistent cookie size, a baking sheet of some form. Possibly parchment paper, I guess that would be an out of the ordinary item. I didn’t use it but you might want to. I have no idea how much that costs.
How much did the ingredients cost*? For me, this time around? Nothing. I’d already bought a bunch of cans of pumpkin and had all the other ingredients and spices on hand. FREE COOKIES.
*This is based on the price of goods in the Midwest. Cost may vary per region. Though “free” is “free” everywhere.
Does it taste as good as it looks? These were AMAZING. Light, fluffy, delicious. The pumpkin flavor was very subtle but I was too busy drooling over them to really notice or care.
Does it only look good because it was so well photographed? Mine actually ended up kind of looking like their photographs… victory? But they taste like they look: wonderful.
Other notes: I was really wary of calculating the points value of these because I made absolutely no effort to lighten them up whatsoever. However I ended up getting 41 cookies out of this batch, which brought them to 2 points per cookie. Not bad at all!
Final recommendation: I ended up taking the vast majority of these to the office so I wouldn’t eat them all, because I knew they were terrible for me, and I have a weakness for cookies. I would definitely recommend them – they’re easy and delicious and a nice seasonal twist on an already pretty popular cookie.
totes making these. i’ve been baking too much though – everyone at work hates me (they get all my leftovers). also? buying TWO of those measuring things – one for me, one for momma for Christmas. genius.
I can’t believe you’ve never made a regular snickerdoodle…that’s crazy! As always, your post makes me want to immediately make this treat…they sound so yummy!!!
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