Iced Pumpkin Spice Cookies

It’s no secret that baking is one of my favorite fall activities. I love to bake goodies for people. We celebrated my best friend’s birthday this past weekend, and she absolutely loves my pumpkin spice cookies. So of course I had to make a fresh batch! These pumpkin spice cookies are one of my absolute favorite cookies to bake. They bake up soft (the only way to go if you ask me), and have a perfect balance of sweet between the cookie and icing.

These cookies always seem extra special to me as I only make them in the fall. I suppose I could make them any time, but they are just such a perfect fall cookie (especially since pumpkin spice is all the rage!). Whip up a batch with the recipe below!

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups flour (I split mine half white flour, half whole wheat flour)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar (I cut mine down to 1 1/4 cup – it makes a difference with how sweet the icing is!)
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Set aside.
• In a larger bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in egg and vanilla until creamy, then beat in the pumpkin until smooth.
• Add in dry ingredients, and mix thoroughly together.
• Drop tablespoonfuls onto lined cookie sheets (foil or parchment paper). Bake for 15 – 20 min (I find 16 minutes perfect!).
• Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Make sure they cool completely before icing them.

Icing Ingredients:

2 cups confectioner sugar
3 tbsp milk
1 tbsp butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla

• Combine all ingredients in a bowl until a semi-thick icing is formed. Add more milk to thin if necessary.
• Once cookies are completely cooled, just smear some on with a knife. The icing will harden some on the outside after a bit, but it never gets crunchy-hard – it’s one of my favorite icings for that reason. The perfect texture!

If you’re not an icing fan, these cookies are just as yummy without icing. I love them plain with a cup of tea. If you are making a plain batch, I highly recommend using the full 1 1/2 cups of sugar so they don’t taste too bland or get a bit overpowered by the spices. Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

December Baking: Week 1

The first week of December’s baking was for my husband’s birthday. We didn’t have a huge party, just some friends over to play games. My husband is a big Magic the Gathering enthusiast – he goes every Friday for Friday Night Magic at our local comic shop, competes in some tournaments throughout the year, and is currently studying to become an official judge!

This year he requested a carrot cake – my first time ever making one! I consider myself a good baker; I can make a mean cupcake, and frost it prettily, but I haven’t actually made a layer cake since I was in high school. Which is almost 10 years ago. . .so I was a bit intimidated.

But overall, I’m really happy with how it turned out! The cakes themselves seemed a little flatter than I was expecting, but once they were frosted it made for quite a decent sized cake. As for the decorating job. . .well, let’s just say it was made with more love than skill! The writing is legible (first time piping lettering!) so that’s a bonus!

Best of all, this cake was DELICIOUS. I got some recipe advice from friends, and had a couple people tell me that the Betty Crocker cake and frosting recipes were excellent. They were right! I’m not even a huge cream cheese frosting fan but this one was fantastic! I highly recommend it.

Click here for the recipe!

I also made a batch of Lemon Bar Brownies. Back when I was doing the farmer’s market, these were a best seller. I sold out of them every week. I think it’s the combo of fresh squeezed lemon juice and fresh lemon zest that knocks these out of the park. It gives them such a great balance of sweet and tang. And their consistency is really good – so dense and moist.

Click here for the recipe!

And finally, I baked my hubs a birthday surprise – Magic the Gathering cookies!! For those who don’t know much about MTG, these are the symbols of different types of cards in the game. My hubby loves iced sugar cookies so when I was browsing Pinterest ages ago and saw these, I immediately pinned them to make for his birthday! Go check out the original cookie post via Not Your Momma’s Cookie, which most certainly puts my cookies to shame. She has so many awesome cookies ideas; I’m sure I’ll use more in the future.

The cookies weren’t actually that hard to make, just time consuming. And let me tell you, piping on designs with icing is NOT the same as drawing with a pencil! But they came out decently (other than two bloopers that I very unfortunately forgot to take pictures of before eating) so I will definitely make these again in the future!

Click here for the sugar cookie recipe, and here for the icing recipe!

Our gaming get together was good fun as always. I sat out on the Magic playing and got some drawing done, but definitely joined in for some Acension and Lords of Waterdeep (my current favorite board game).

Phew! Week 1 of baking accomplished. . .just in time to start Week 2 of baking! Stay tuned for Vanilla Cupcakes, Chocolate Cupcakes, Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, and Dinosaur Cookies.

Connect With Me