No Chill Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles

I’ll be the first to admit it. This is the first time I’ve jumped on the pumpkin spice bandwagon, but for good reason!

I don’t do “spice.”

At least not the spice combos including cinnamon, nutmeg and/or cloves. It’s not my thing and never has been. This is why it’s shocking that I decided to combine two things I have no interest in. Pumpkin Spice and Snickerdoodles.

I do love my family and my family does love both pumpkin spice and snickerdoodles. So I decided it’s time to give back to the family that gives me so much and I created something just for them.

It turned out I created a lot of somethings just for them because why create a new recipe if you don’t try your hardest to perfect it.

I created not one, not two, but three different pumpkin spice snickerdoodle recipes. Each adjusting the ingredients by just a little to see if I could come up with the perfect pumpkin spice snickerdoodle.

Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodle Recipe Notes

Obviously I wanted the pumpkin spice flavor, so the cookies have pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice in them. I also wanted to keep with the traditional snickerdoodle as much as I could, and it’s not perfect but it’s dang close. I was able to obtain the cracked top, the spiced sugar coating, and the classic snickerdoodle flavor achieved with cream of tartar. The flatter texture and appearance was something I couldn’t get… yet.

There will be additional attempts to perfect this recipe, but it will have to wait for another day because we have a lot of pumpkin spice snickerdoodles in this house right now. I’ll update this recipe with additional notes if I learn something new.

I love this recipe because I was able to achieve the cracked surface without chilling. I will admit the chilling does make the dough easier to handle, but it also made the cookies more puffy or mounded. This isn’t the look or texture I was going for.

According to everyone who sampled these cookies they tasted like snickerdoodles, they had a fantastic pumpkin flavor, the cinnamon in the coating didn’t overpower the pumpkin pie spice, and they give them as many thumbs up as I’ll allow.

I hope you like these cookies just as much!

No Chill Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles

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Ingredients

  

• 1 1/2 sticks butter melted
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 cup pumpkin puree not pumpkin pie filling
• 2 3/4 cup flour
• 2 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1/4 tsp salt

For the spiced sugar coating

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 350F. Combine butter and sugars in a medium bowl, do not over mix. Stir in pumpkin puree until smooth. Add egg and vanilla, stir until combined.
• In a separate bowl mix together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice and salt.
• Fold dry ingredients with the wet ingredients. The mixture will be somewhat moist, but that's how it should be.
• In a small bowl combine the ingredients for the spiced sugar coating. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Spoon up a heaping tablespoon of dough. Gently roll dough into balls using a light touch and just the palms of your hand. I found the dough is slightly sticky on the finger tips, but if you roll it in the palms of your hand gently you can get a nice, soft dough ball. The melted butter in the recipe should help it keep it from sticking to your hands. Dough balls were approximately 1 1/2in to 2in in diameter. You may need to adjust baking time if you make them smaller.
• Place the dough ball in the spiced sugar coating and gently toss to coat. I found the dough is so soft that while it will hold shape, it will start to lose that shape the more you handle it and try to roll it around. The more sugar coating you can toss onto it instead of rolling it, the better. Gently remove the sugared dough ball from the coating and carefully place it on the baking sheet using your fingertips to fix any major misshaping of the ball.
• Bake cookies for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.