With less than a week until Halloween, my boys and I baked these cute high altitude pumpkin sugar cookies. This is a no-spread sugar cookie recipe, so they hold their shape beautifully while baking. They’re soft, not too sweet, scented with vanilla bean, and so perfectly delicious. The sweet maple icing is subtly spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, and I grated a little fresh nutmeg over the frosting for a pretty finish. If you’re looking for a perfect sugar cookie recipe, you’ve found it!
Looking for more fall cookie recipes? You’ll love these homemade oatmeal cream pies, soft and chewy pecan date cookies, and orange ginger shortbread cookies.
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Why You’ll Love These Cookies
Easy to Make. The cookie dough comes together quickly and easily in a food processor. And you don’t need any special tools to ice them, just a small offset spatula.
No Spread Recipe. With no leavening in the dough, these cookies don’t spread or lose their shape as they bake, making them perfect for cutout cookies.
Perfect for Fall. Fall is when I love to bake all the pumpkin things. And these cute little cookies are as delicious as they are adorable.
See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.
Ingredients
Cookies
- All-Purpose Flour. The flour provides structure and binds the dough together.
- Powdered Sugar. Sweetens the cookies. The fine texture of the powdered sugar, as opposed to the coarser texture of granulated sugar, makes a smooth, soft dough that bakes into beautiful, smooth-textured cookies.
- Salt. Balances the sweetness.
- Butter. Adds richness and flavor.
- Vanilla. Flavor. I like to use real vanilla beans or vanilla bean paste, and the flecks look just gorgeous. Good-quality vanilla extract is delicious, too.
- Milk or Cream. Moisturizes the dough, pulling it all together.
These pumpkin sugar cookies are rich and buttery, and not at all too sweet, making them ideal for decorating with royal icing or buttercream frosting. You’ll notice that there is no leavening or eggs in the dough, so this is a “short” dough, similar to shortbread cookies, that hold their shape perfectly, without rising or spreading while baking.
Buttercream Icing
- Butter. Adds richness and flavor.
- Powdered Sugar. Sweetens and thickens the frosting.
- Maple Extract. The maple extract adds lovely flavor to these cookies, as well as colors the icing a little. Of course, you could add any flavor of extract that you like.
- Cinnamon + Nutmeg. The spices complement the flavor of the maple icing perfectly. I always freshly grate whole nutmeg – it’s quick and easy to grate, and the flavor and scent is fantastic.
- Milk or Cream. Adds moisture, only if needed for desired frosting consistency.
The buttercream is rich and creamy, and the surface crusts over, while it stays soft underneath.
Instructions
Tips.
- Making sugar cookie dough is really quick and easy if you use a food processor. But I’ve made this dough many times using just a bowl and pastry cutter, as well. So however you make the dough, the end result will be just as delicious.
- Keep your butter and ingredients cold, and don’t over-handle the dough. Cool dough that hasn’t been overworked makes soft, tender, flaky sugar cookies.
- Since there’s no eggs or leavening in the dough, these cutout sugar cookies don’t spread or lose their shape while baking. But it’s important to chill the cut cookies prior to baking, which also helps them maintain their size and shape when they bake.
Step-By-Step Process.
- In a food processor, pulse the flour, powdered sugar and salt to combine. With the food processor running, drop the butter pieces in one at a time, pulsing until evenly dispersed.Add the vanilla and cream, then pulse until the mixture comes together into a soft, supple dough.
- Dump the dough out and knead a few times just to bring together any stray floury bits. Shape into a flat disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
- Flour a clean work surface, and flour the dough lightly as well. Roll the dough out evenly to between 1/4-1/8 inch thick. Cut as many cookies as you can, and set the cut cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet, spacing them 2 inches apart. Gather up the scraps of dough, re-roll the dough, and continue cutting cookies. I used a 2 1/2 inch cutter, and was able to cut 2 dozen cookies.
- Refrigerate the cut cookies for 1 hour. Chilling the cut cookies helps to keep the cookies from spreading while they bake, so they maintain their shape.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Bake the chilled cookies on the center oven rack. Depending on their size, they should take about 8-10 minutes. The baked cookies will still be very pale on top, but the surface will no longer look like raw dough, and you should see tiny flaky layers around the edges. If you’re not sure if they’re done, gently turn a cookie over and look at the bottom – if the dough looks wet in the middle, bake the cookies for a couple more minutes. Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for several minutes, and then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.
TIP: For lots of FAQs on making these cookies, see my original sugar cookies post.
Once your cookies are baked and cooled, you can do the most fun part – besides eating them, of course. Frosting these cookies is so fun, and it’s really easy to texture the buttercream to make them look like pumpkins.
Frosting and Decorating
- With an electric mixer, beat the butter for 1 minute until smooth.
- Add the powdered sugar, maple extract, cinnamon and nutmeg. Beat for 4-5 minutes until very light and fluffy, scraping the bowl occasionally. Only add the milk if needed for desired consistency.
- To decorate your pumpkin cookies, you’ll only need a small offset icing spatula. You can spread the frosting on as thick or as thin as you like; I kept it fairly thin on mine. Scoop up some frosting with the spatula, and swipe it along one side of the pumpkin, letting the icing leave a textured ripple along the edge of the cookie. Repeat with a total of 4-5 swipes, working from the outside of the pumpkin to the middle, so that the ripples of buttercream look like the ridges in a pumpkin.
- If you like, sprinkle with a little extra nutmeg.
Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!
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High Altitude Pumpkin Sugar Cookies with Maple Icing
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Ingredients
Cookies
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
- ¾ cup powdered sugar
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ¾ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces
- 2 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
- 3 tbsp whole milk or cream
Frosting
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- ½ – 1 tsp maple extract
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tbsp milk or cream, if needed
Instructions
Cookies
- In a food processor, pulse the flour, powdered sugar and salt to combine.With the food processor running, drop the butter pieces in one at a time, pulsing until evenly dispersed.Add the vanilla and cream, then pulse until the mixture comes together into a soft, supple dough.
- Note that if you don't have a food processor, you can make the dough in a bowl, using a pastry cutter. I've done this many times, and it just takes a bit longer to work the butter evenly into the flour, and then work the liquid into the mixture until it forms a soft dough.
- Dump the dough out and knead a few times just to bring together any stray floury bits. Shape into a flat disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
- Flour a clean work surface, and flour the dough lightly as well. Roll the dough out evenly to between 1/4-1/8 inch thick. Cut as many cookies as you can, and set the cut cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet, spacing them 2 inches apart. Gather up the scraps of dough, re-roll the dough, and continue cutting cookies. I used a 2 1/2 inch cutter, and was able to cut 2 dozen cookies.
- Refrigerate the cut cookies for 1 hour. Chilling the cut cookies helps to keep the cookies from spreading while they bake, so they maintain their shape.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Bake the chilled cookies on the center oven rack. Depending on their size, they should take about 8-10 minutes. The baked cookies will still be very pale on top, but the surface will no longer look like raw dough, and you should see tiny flaky layers around the edges. If you're not sure if they're done, gently turn a cookie over and look at the bottom – if the dough looks wet in the middle, bake the cookies for a couple more minutes. Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for several minutes, and then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.
Frosting
- With an electric mixer, beat the butter for 1 minute until smooth.
- Add the powdered sugar, maple extract, cinnamon and nutmeg. Beat for 4-5 minutes until very light and fluffy, scraping the bowl occasionally. Only add the milk if needed for desired consistency.
- To decorate your pumpkin cookies, you'll only need a small offset icing spatula. You can spread the frosting on as thick or as thin as you like; I kept it fairly thin on mine. Scoop up some frosting with the spatula, and swipe it along one side of the pumpkin, letting the icing leave a textured ripple along the edge of the cookie. Repeat with a total of 4-5 swipes, working from the outside of the pumpkin to the middle, so that the ripples of buttercream look like the ridges in a pumpkin.
- If you like, sprinkle with a little extra nutmeg.
Notes
- These cookies freeze beautifully, so you can bake them in advance and then freeze until you’re ready to decorate them.
- You can also make the dough in advance, wrap it well, and freeze for 3-6 months. Thaw it overnight in the refrigerator, then let it warm up at room temperature until you can roll it out.
- Note that the icing on these cookies is buttercream, not royal icing. It won’t dry and harden like royal icing, but the the surface of the buttercream will dry a bit and crust over, while staying soft underneath. As such, be careful if you stack the cookies, as you can mess up the frosting.
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