Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Soft, thick, and perfectly pumpkin-y, these Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies will bring the flavors of fall into your kitchen… all in under an hour.

Pumpkin and fall are about as synonymous as any two words can get. Now I like pumpkin, but I’m not a pumpkin nut (pumpkin seed? Anyway…). Before you leave my page, never to return, I promise that I’ll be bringing you plenty of pumpkin goodness this season, including these amazing pumpkin chocolate chip cookies! I also love apple, caramel, pear, maple, and walnut for fall. These flavors exude cool days and rainy evenings, fireplaces being lit for the first time since winter, and cozy sweaters and socks that replace the shorts and tank tops of summer. I adore all things fall, and I’m so excited that it’s finally that time of year!

What you’ll need to make these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies:

Salted butter

Dark brown sugar (golden or light would work as well)

Granulated sugar

Pumpkin Purée

A large egg

Salt

Baking soda

Pure vanilla extract

Ground Cinnamon

Ground nutmeg

All purpose flour

Chocolate chips

Walnuts, optional

Making the Cookies

These pumpkin chocolate chip cookies are an offshoot of several other recipes of mine (when you get a good base recipe, you keep the flavors coming! These Two Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies are a staple in our house). I use ½ cup unsweetened pumpkin purée to create the prefect balance of pumpkin and chocolate in these cookies. The dark brown sugar plus pumpkin create the softest cookie that stays soft for days (we are on day three of these cookies in our house and they are just as soft as day one!).

You will begin by creaming your butter and sugars together. Now I use my standing kitchen aid mixer with the paddle attachment, which actually works just fine for creaming the mixture. This way I don’t have to swap attachments before adding the flour (saving me one dish to wash, they all add up 😉). I grew up making cookies totally by hand with just a bowl and a wooden spoon… so I can appreciate both methods. Either will work just fine for these cookies. Now there are two reasons why creaming the butter and sugar are important: 1, it allows the ingredients to fully mix together, and 2, it adds air which gives volume to your cookies. These cookies bake up nice and thick (they are chilled for 30 minutes to aid in this as well).

Next you will add you egg, vanilla, and pumpkin, ensuring that this is well mixed and fully incorporated. Next you will add all of the dry ingredients; the flour, salt, baking soda, and spices. Mix this until just incorporated, and then add the chocolate chips. You will also add the walnuts at this point if those are on your list. Gently mix until the chocolate chips and walnuts are evenly distributed within the cookie dough.

Using a three tablespoon cookie scoop, make dough balls and place them on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Place the sheet in the fridge for 30 minutes. About five minutes before they are done chilling, you can preheat the oven.

Now if you don’t have fridge room for an entire cookie sheet, simply make the dough balls and place them on a couple of parchment lined dinner plates. Remove the dough balls once chilled and transfer them to the parchment lined baking sheet at that point. The reason we chill the dough balls individually is for even chilling. Chilling the entire batch of dough could result in the middle being less chilled than the outer dough parts that are exposed to the air.

Bake at 375° for 12 to 14 minutes, or until golden on the outside. These cookies will appear slightly under-done in the middle when you remove them from the oven, but they will set up nicely and be perfectly soft once they cool. Remove the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat baking with the remainder of the dough until all cookies are baked. Store leftover cookies at room temperature in an airtight container for up to five days.

You can also freeze this cookie dough to bake at a later date. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and then in parchment paper. Freeze for up to two months. You can remove the wrapped dough from the freezer and thaw it in the refrigerator overnight, and then bake as directed as the cookie dough will already be chilled.

Dietary Substitutions

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 used 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. 

Enjoy Life makes a dairy free + allergen friendly semi sweet chocolate chip that would work great in this recipe.

I hope you adore this taste of fall in a cookie! There are plenty more fall recipes to come (and more pumpkin, I pinky promise), so stay tuned, and don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter to get the first look at new recipes sent right to your inbox!

XO,

Heather