These adorable pumpkin shaped vanilla cutout cookies are frosted with a simple vanilla buttercream, and topped with easy pumpkin fondant cutouts. Tie them up in gift bags to give away, or arrange them on a harvest cookie platter. Either way these cookies are sure to win the day.

Now I’ll admit something up front here: I am not the biggest fan of fondant. If you are like me, you can easily omit the fondant, tint your frosting orange, and pipe a generous helping of it right onto that cookie. However, if like many you love that moldable marshmallow goodness, these fondant topped pumpkin shaped vanilla cutout cookies are sure to be a big hit just as they are.

What you’ll need to make these pumpkin shaped vanilla cutout cookies:

Salted butter

Granulated sugar

Pure vanilla extract

1 large egg + 1 egg yolk

Baking powder

All purpose flour

Powdered sugar

White fondant

Orange food coloring

Pumpkin shaped cookie cutter

Small rose cookie cutter, optional

Green food coloring, optional

The Cutout Cookies

This is very similar to my Easy No-Chill Cutout Cookies, with only a small variation to all white instead of half white and half brown sugar. This yields a slight variation in flavor, but the cookie retains all of the buttery goodness and ability to hold both frosting and fondant. It remains no-chill, which means there’s no downtime between making and baking these amazing little gems! Simply roll out the dough, cut the pumpkin shapes, bake, and cool.

The Vanilla Buttercream + Fondant Toppers

This simply and easy buttercream is only three ingredients and smooth as can be. It’s perfectly balanced for these mouthwatering cookies. Now as I stated above, you can absolutely omit the fondant and use all frosting if you’d prefer. Simply tint the frosting orange with gel based food coloring (I love this Wilton one because it doesn’t thin out the consistency of the frosting). This buttercream is also wonderful in cakes, in between two chocolate chip cookies, or simply on a spoon. No one will judge.

The fondant is pre-made and also from Wilton (you can find it here). You can find orange and green pre-tinted fondant here, but I prefer to tint my own to ensure that I get the color I want. I like a deep, luscious green (I used this green from Wilton), and a more muted orange. You could also do white pumpkins, or pink, or teal, or black, or any other color you’d like! Have fun with these little cookies and put your own stamp on them.

After washing and drying the cookie cutter, you will use it again to cut out the fondant shapes so that they line up with the cookies. I used a little rose press for the green garnish, but you could use any any little green shape you’d like. You can also omit the greenery. These cookies will be adorable no matter what!

The Dietary Substitutes

I love providing gluten and dairy free substitutions so that those with alternate dietary needs can enjoy my recipes to their fullest! These are subs that I have either use and continue to stock in my own home, or that have come highly recommended from others. I want your baking experience to be the best it can be, and avoiding gluten or dairy shouldn’t hinder that process in the slightest.

As always, here is a list of tried and true dietary substitutes, so that you can enjoy this recipe without the additions of gluten or dairy:

Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 Gluten Free Baking Flour is a wonderful all-purpose sub, and it’s cup for cup, so use the same measurements as you would all-purpose flour.

Miyokos Butter is a plant based brick that closely resembles dairy butter not only in its look, but it’s taste as well. It melts, browns, and spreads just like real butter, and truly is a fantastic substitute in this recipe. Use it as a 1:1 ratio sub, same as the flour, so the recipe measurements will not change.

I hope you love these little gems! The cookies are simply delicious, and the shape is so festive for October. If you make them, tag me on your socials! I love being able to see when others bake up a recipe of mine. 😊

XO,

Heather

OTHER PUMPKIN RELATED RECIPES

Print Recipe

Pumpkin Shaped Vanilla Cutout Cookies

Prep Time20

Total Time26

Course: Dessert

Keyword: cookie, dessert, halloween, pumpkin

Servings: 24 servings

Ingredients

For the Cookies

1 cup Salted butter (softened)
1 cup Granulated sugar
1 tablespoon Vanilla extract
1 large Egg + 1 egg yolk
2 teaspoon Baking powder
3 cups All purpose flour

For the Buttercream

½ cup Salted butter (softened)
1 ½ teaspoon Powdered sugar
½ teaspoon Pure vanilla extract
White fondant
Orange food coloring
Green food coloring
Pumpkin cookie cutter
Leaf or other small cookie cutter for greenery

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°. Cream butter, sugar, egg, and extract until smooth. Add flour and baking powder, and mix well. Dough should be soft and moldable but not sticky. There is no need to chill this dough.
Roll out in one big or several smaller batches, to about ¼ inch thick. Cut out cookies into pumpkin shapes, and bake on a nonstick baking sheet for 6-8 minutes {I do 6 minutes in my oven and they come out perfect every time!}. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes. Remove to wire rack and cool completely.
In a medium bowl, combine ingredients for buttercream. Beat with a hand mixer or with a standing mixer on low for about 15 seconds, and then on medium for ad additional 30 seconds or until smooth. Frost cookies with buttercream and set aside. Roll out white fondant, and separate a small 2” ball to make the green garnish. Tint the fondant by adding gel food coloring little by little and rolling fondant in hands until desired color is achieved. Do this with both the orange and the green.
Using the same pumpkin cookie cutter, cut the fondant pumpkins out. Use the cutter to gently press two semi-circles onto the fondant as shown in the photo. This gives the illusion of a rounded pumpkin. Cut out small green garish if desired with circular fondant cutter. I used a small rose cutter for this garnish. Adhere the garnish to the fondant pumpkin cutout with a little dab of buttercream. Store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to three days. Enjoy!