italian dessert recipes

Pumpkin Spice Cookies

"Like Pumpkin Pie In A Cookie Bite"








pumpkin spice cookies These pumpkin spice cookies are part of my pumpkin dessert recipes collection. It seems we use pumpkin quite a bit in our Italian Dessert Recipes. As a kid it was always one of my favorites!

Last week we were OVER committed on our entertaining-work-errand-make-everything-happen-schedule and my overly optimistic husband booked a "card night" with friends on the very night his flight would "be back in time to help with dinner." Yeah. Right. God love him.

I'm generally expected to cook up some fancy pants dessert. Nobody says I have to. But it's just kinda expected. And my son wanted me to bake my best oatmeal cookies recipe. For company? Uh. No. I was wanting to try and put together this pumpkin spice cookies idea I had in the back of my mind....

And fortunately our friends are NOT high maintenance-fake-fingernail-shave-your-poodle-butt-type. And I could get by with any of my basic Italian cookie recipes, but I was stuck on trying these pumkin spice cookies on my family, so our friends were going to be at the grand tasting.

I modified one of my grandma's friend's recipes. My grandma had typed (yes, typed because she is older and now passed) a basic spice cookie recipe that one of her lady friends had shared with her. I wanted pumpkin. So I morphed her friend's recipe into these pumpkin spice cookies.

I love 'em! One more recipe added to my drop cookie recipes!

The butter rum icing is a must in my book. But nobody is saying you HAVE to use it. It's an option.

To make it "spice" and still taste pumpkin-y I wouldn't omit too many of the spices if you don't have them. The more you omit, the more bland. And you want these to taste pumpkin pie-ish, but in a cookie bite.



These will definitely be a do-over in our household.

Thanks for stopping by -

Lisa
Italian Dessert Recipes
Website Owner and Developer

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Pumpkin Spice Cookies



YIELD: 3-4 dozen

INGREDIENTS:

* 1 cup of shortening (I know, it's not butter, but see why below)

* 1 cup of sugar

* 1 cup of canned pureed pumpkin (see other things you can do with the leftovers on my pumpkin dessert recipes page)

* 1 egg

* 1 tsp of vanilla extract

* 2 cups of flour

* 1 teaspoon baking powder

* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

* 1/2 teaspoon salt

* 1 teaspoon cinnamon

* 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

* 1/2 teaspoon cloves

* 1/8 teaspoon ginger

* 1/8 teaspoon anise (you can leave this out - it's just an Italian thing I add)

* 3/4 cup of raisins

Icing/Frosting

* 2 cups of sugar

* 2 tablespoons of butter

* 1 teaspoon of vanilla

* 1-2 tablespoons of rum

Procedure:

* Preheat oven to 350

* Cream butter and sugar until they are fluffy

* Add the pumpkin, egg and vanilla - mix 'er up

* Next, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt , cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and anise

* Stir into the shortening sugar mixture

* Add the raisins

* Drop onto a very lightly greased cookie sheet (I always use a Silpat)

* Bake about 15 minutes

* Once they cool, put on a rack

Icing Frosting Procedure

* Put the butter in a saucepan on medium heat

* I keep an eye on it until it browns - I want a hint of "brown" and the flavor of browned butter

* Remove from the heat

* Add the sugar - stir out the lumps

* Add the vanilla and rum

* Sometimes I dip the tops in the frosting, other times I drizzle with a spoon



Shortening? What about butter?

I stuck with my grandma's friend's recipe and used the shortening. And I'm NOT a big shortening fan. I had to go to the store to get some. I rarely use it.

Here's what I liked about it. It gave these pumpkin spice cookies more of a cake type texture. And since it was the main dessert at our dinner party I wanted that feel of "cake", but in a small bite.

You can mix half butter half shortening and I'm sure it would be great - but it won't be cake like.

What's a Silpat?

It's a mat that lays UNDER your cookies ON TOP of your cookie sheet. The heat spreads evenly through the mat. There is no mess to scrape and scrub off afterwards, and the cookies come out so evenly baked!

This works with any of your drop cookie recipes and shaped cookies. (Don't use it on bar cookies!)

Which spices can I skip?

Remember the whole goal is to make pumpkin "spice" cookies. So - you want to have that pumpkin flavor and the spices that make that.

The two you could skip would be the ginger and the anise. But I'd definitely keep the cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Back to the top of the pumpkin spice cookies.














Lisa Gianotti

Memorial Day and Warmer Weather Treats!



It's finally warming up! In my neck of the woods we had SNOW on May 2nd. Now were on to the warm weather sweet treats!

I started celebrating by having a Sangria last night. Sangria is so easy to make - and the trick to making it spectacular is - following the super easy procedure. IF you need a brush up see:

How to Make Sangria

As for Memorial Day Goodies - I bake the LESS sticky stuff if I have to travel. And something that the kids can grab with their fingers as they cruise by the dessert table and run off to their next game. Cookies and brownies work the best for this!

The past month, these are my top five most viewed cookie recipes:

#1 Anisette Cookies

#2 Italian Wedding Cookie Recipe

#3 Pizzelle Recipe

#4 Ricotta Cheese Cookies

#5 Meringue Cookie Recipe

Have a fun filled Memorial Day!



Lisa


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Recipes on this site are from family cookbooks, family traditions, or intentional adaptations from traditional recipes to add an Italian flair. If a recipe was adapted or used from another cook - it is mentioned on the recipe page and the recipe author is given credit.