High Altitude Pumpkin Pie Cookies
High altitude pumpkin pie cookies, made with soft sugar cookies, spiced pumpkin pie filling and pretty piped whipped cream or buttercream on top.
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Large Cookie Scoop with Release Lever (2 1/2 - 3 tbsp capacity)
- Food Processor or Pastry Cutter
Ingredients
Cookies
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- 1 tbsp corn starch
- ¾ cup powdered sugar
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ¾ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons
- 1 large egg
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
Filling
- ½ cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
- 1 large egg
- 3 tbsp light brown sugar
- ⅛ tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
- ⅛ tsp ground cloves
- ⅛ tsp ground ginger
- ⅛ tsp ground allspice
- ⅛ tsp ground nutmeg
Instructions
Getting Ready
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven.
- Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Cookie Dough
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, corn starch, powdered sugar, baking powder and salt, until well combined.
- Add the cold butter pieces, and use a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the flour mixture until very small pieces of butter remain, and the mixture is crumbly.
- Add the vanilla and egg, and stir in to moisten the dry ingredients, then use your hands to work the moisture in until it comes together into a soft dough.Tip: If you're having a hard time getting the dough to come together, you may need to add more moisture, with a very small amount of milk. This dough also comes together quickly and easily with a food processor instead of a pastry cutter.
- Use a large cookie scoop with a release lever (2 1/2 - 3 tbsp capacity) to scoop 13 portions of dough. Roll each portion of dough into a smooth ball, and place several inches apart on the baking sheet.
Filling
- In a bowl, combine the pumpkin, egg, brown sugar, vanilla and spices.
- Whisk together until smooth.
Assembly and Bake
- Use the bottom of a tablespoon measuring spoon to indent the cookie dough balls.
- Spoon the pumpkin filling into the indents. You may have a little filling left over, but you can fill the cookies full.
- Bake the cookies for about 15-17 minutes until the edges are set. These cookies don't become very brown when baking.
- Cool on the baking sheet for one minute, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Whipped Cream or Buttercream
- To decorate your cookies, you can use either whipped cream or buttercream.
- My recipe for Perfect American Buttercream is stable at room temperature, and looks super pretty piped onto the cookies. This is a good option if the cookies are going to be sitting out for hours. I used piping tip 1M to pipe drop flowers and ruffles on the cookies.
- For more of a "pie experience", make a batch of Stabilized Whipped Cream. Dollop or pipe the whipped cream generously on top of the cookies before serving.
Notes
The baked cookies should be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, or frozen for up to 3-6 months.
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