Pumpkin Spice Sugar Cookies
These Pumpkin Spice Sugar Cookies are perfectly spiced for Fall. Tender pumpkin cookies with pumpkin spice cream cheese frosting are the perfect flavor combination!
I don’t know about you but when there are tiny bits of spices in cookies and frosting you just KNOW they are going to be delicious… Right!?!
Pumpkin spice flavored cut out cookies are delicious on their own…
they are baked to perfection. The cookie dough does not spread, just be sure your butter is at room temperature for 30 minutes, the temperature of the butter should be about 70° it should feel cool to the touch, not warm and mushy.
The frosting puts the flavor profile over the top to the ultimate deliciousness!
The oven should be well preheated at 400° (do not turn oven on and as soon as it beeps, open the door and put cookies in) give the oven at least 15 minutes to preheat well. Use an additional oven thermometer to ensure the temperature of your oven is really at the correct temperature.
Choose orange or white pumpkin or make a mix of each. Reserve a small amount of frosting and make it brown or green if you prefer for the stems.
Using star tips works great for making these cute swirls of pumpkins on the cookies and a smaller tip with tighter “prongs”.
Using a 2D piping tip (one of my favorites) for the pumpkin area and a 4B piping tip for the stem, any star style tips will work, practice on the counter or a paper plate to see how the frosting will look, it’s easier to practice somewhere other than the cookies 🙂
Delicious pumpkin spice cream cheese frosting, you can also use buttercream and add pumpkin spice.
Color the frosting the perfect color you are looking for use a small amount of gel food coloring.
This is the orange food color I use and to make it more “earthy” looking I add extra cinnamon to the frosting.
For the white frosting “off white” I add pumpkin spice and a bit more cinnamon to the frosting and it looks great with all those brown specks in it.
Cream cheese frosting is creamy and a bit soft, but once you put the cookies in the fridge the frosting firms up well.
When wrapping the cookies keep some air in the bags so the bag doesn’t “stick” to the frosting or flatten it.
Clear self sealing bags. And these are the bags with dots are a bit frosted as well, and these were thicker which I liked, both worked great, they are just different, it’ll depend on what you are looking for.
This cookie recipe can be used to make any shape cookies you’d like, ghosts, leaves, flowers.
Don’t think of pumpkin spice as just a “Fall Thing” most people like the warm cinnamon flavor it offers, you can just add cinnamon if you prefer and make pumpkin spice a year-round thing!
Enjoy the yumminess of pumpkin all year!
Give some of these pumpkin recipes a try:
- Pumpkin Chili
- Pumpkin 13×9 Cake
- Pumpkin Pancakes
- Pumpkin Dip
- Pumpkin Scones
- Pumpkin Muffins
- 6″ Pumpkin Cake
Pumpkin Spice Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup salted butter, room temperature or add a pinch of salt
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice add a pinch of additional cinnamon if desired
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°.
- In the bowl of a mixer with a beater blade, mix butter until smooth and light in color.
- Add in the powdered sugar and mix on medium speed until blended.
- Add in the egg, and vanilla extract and mix on medium until the dough comes together, turn to medium-high speed and mix for an additional minute until tehe dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
- Remove the dough from the bowl, roll it into a ball, and cut it in half. Roll 1 portion of cookie dough in between wax paper or plastic wrap or a lightly floured work surface. (I try to avoid additional flour and only use some as needed or the cookies can become dry.
- Roll the cookie dough to 1/4" thick, dip the desired cookie cutter into flour then press into cookie dough until you have as many cookies cut as you can get out of the rolled dough. Use the remaining dough "scraps" to re-roll the dough and cut out more cookies. Continue until all the cookie dough is cut into shapes.
- Place the cut dough pieces onto parchment lined baking sheets. Bake at 400° for 7-9 minutes, until the bottoms are lighlty golden. Allow cookies to cool completely on the baking sheet until completely cooled.
Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- 4 oz cream cheese
- 4 oz butter (which is 4 oz) I use salted, if using unsalted you can add a a pinch of salt for balanced flavor
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream
- 4-6 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice add more if desired, or use cinnmaon
Instructions
- In the bowl of a mixer, add butter and cream cheese and mix on medium speed until well creamed, light in color, and blended.
- Add in the powdered sugar, heavy cream, vanilla, and pumpkin pie spice and mix on medium speed until the frosting is smooth and creamy.
- Add food coloring if desired, and mix well. Add more pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon for a speckled color if there isn't enough for the look you want. Use a tablespoon of cocoa and a drop of brown coloring for a rich dark brown color.
- Place piping tips into piping bags and fill with frosting with star tips I used a 2D and 4B tip for these pumpkin cookies.
- Be sure the cookies are completely cooled before frosting, once frosted place the trays of frosted cookies into the fridge to firm up the frosting until completely cold. I avoid stacking cookies with cream cheese frosting, and when wrapping them in plastic bags, I leave a little air in the bags so the bag doesn't touch all the frosting to avoid it messing up the frosting.