Brown Butter Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

The most fall-y fall cookies you will ever bake. These brown butter pumpkin snickerdoodles embody everything good about fall. Nutty brown butter, sweet pumpkin, and warming spices meld together in an irresistibly soft snickerdoodle cookie. 

I am a broken record on here. I always start off by apologizing for holding out on a recipe for ages and remembering to share it a month after creating and photographing it. But here I am again, apologizing for making these brown butter pumpkin snickerdoodles over a month ago and just sharing it now. Every year (as of last year haha), I seem to make some type of brown butter pumpkin cookie. I just love the combination of both flavors as the embodiment of everything great about fall. It’s nutty and sweet, complemented by such comforting spices.

So to make these brown butter pumpkin snickerdoodles, I took my favorite brown butter snickerdoodle cookie and replaced most of the egg with pumpkin puree. For most of my pumpkin cookies, I tend to replace all of the egg with the pumpkin puree, but I found the dough for these cookies to be a bit too dry so I kept an egg yolk to help bring everything together. It depends on how moist your pumpkin puree is. Homemade puree tends to have a higher moisture content, and you will not require the egg yolk. Certain brands of store bought pumpkin puree contain less liquid than other so use your best judgement on this!

And as I’ve mentioned in the past, you really can’t skip the cream of tartar in these brown butter pumpkin snickerdoodles. It gives the cookies their signature tang and without it, they aren’t really snickerdoodles. Just as delicious, but not a snickerdoodle. Luckily, you can use the cream of tartar to make my regular brown butter snickerdoodles and my snickerdoodle cookie butter. And I will be sure to post more of my favorite snickerdoodle recipes here for you soon!

While we wait, let’s bake up a batch of these amazing brown butter pumpkin snickerdoodles.

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Brown Butter Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

Prep 18 mins

Cook 20 mins

Inactive 1 hour, 30 mins

Total 2 hours, 8 mins

Author Amanda Powell

Yield 24 cookie

Brown butter pumpkin snickerdoodles, the quintessential autumn cookie.  

Ingredients

18 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

7 tablespoons pumpkin puree

1 egg yolk, if needed *see note

For the Coating

1/2 granulated sugar

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

pinch of ground cloves

pinch of ground nutmeg

Instructions

1. Add the butter to a small saucepan and heat on medium until the butter is melted. Continue to cook, stirring often, until the butter begins to turn brown and smell nutty. Remove from heat and allow to cool and partially solidify in the refrigerator. 
2. While the butter is cooling, mix together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg together in a medium bowl. Set aside. 
3. Add the butter and sugar to a stand mixer and beat until light and fluffy. Beat in the pumpkin puree, and the egg yolk, if needed. Mix in the vanilla. 
4. Beat in the flour mixture and beat until just combined. 
5. Cover the bowl and chill in the refrigerator. While the dough is chilling, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Mix together the ingredients for the coating in a shallow bowl. 
6. Roll balls of dough that are about two tablespoons big. Roll the dough in the coating mixture, then place them 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. 
7. Bake each sheet for about 8 - 10 minutes, or until a light golden brown. 
8. Store in an airtight container for up to a week. 

Notes

*If you find your pumpkin puree has low moisture, you may need to add an egg yolk to the cookie dough to keep it from being too dry to work with. 

Courses Dessert

Cuisine American