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Hi Bold Bakers!
WHAT YOU GET: My flavorful and chewy maple pumpkin cookies are perfectly crisp around the edges and gooey in the middle — and just the thing to get you into the Fall spirit! I was lucky enough to team up with PAVILIONS®, the sponsors for this recipe, for their Fall Into Flavor campaign!
As summer draws to a close, I start to daydream about falling leaves, warm spices, and pumpkin-flavored everything. In the middle of those daydreams, and in the middle of my shopping at PAVILIONS®, I happened to spot exclusive O Organics® Pumpkin Pie Spice.
Even though we’re just entering September and the Fall season, I immediately needed to make pumpkin maple cookies. So, I stocked up and threw pure maple syrup, a can of pumpkin puree, and that pumpkin pie spice in my cart!
When my kitchen filled up with the comforting smell of baking pumpkin pie spice and maple syrup, I had to peek out the window to see if the leaves started to turn! These cookies are everything I love about baking in Autumn. The outside of the cookie gets slightly crispy while the middle stays moist, gooey, and chewy. Maple syrup naturally helps sweeten the cookies and pairs perfectly with the pumpkin flavors. My maple pumpkin cookie recipe also calls for dark brown sugar, which delivers a lovely rich caramel flavor.
And if you need more cozy fall flavors, PAVILIONS® has you fully covered, with recipes inspired by the Fall season — so get ready to Fall Into Flavor, people! Get more inspiration at www.pavilions.com/fall where you can find shoppable recipes to make recipe planning and shopping easy. You can even sign up for Virtual Cooking Classes from Celebrity Chefs.
Ingredients You’ll Need To Make Maple Pumpkin Cookies
You only need a handful of ingredients to make these irresistible cookies — and they’re all available at PAVILIONS®. You’ll need:
- Butter: I used exclusive O Organics® butter for this recipe and you can really taste the difference from other brands.
- Dark brown sugar: I prefer dark brown sugar in this recipe over granulated sugar because of the molasses. It helps keep the cookies moist and adds a delicious caramelly flavor.
- Egg: Just one egg is all you need to help keep the cookie’s structure. Without it, your cookie will turn out dry and dense.
- Pumpkin puree: When it isn’t pumpkin season, or I don’t want to make my own, I pick up a can of exclusive O Organics® pumpkin puree and it always does the trick.
- Pure maple syrup: The maple syrup helps sweeten the cookies and I love the taste of 100% maple syrup with pumpkin.
- Pure vanilla extract: Real vanilla extract enhances all the wonderful flavors in these maple pumpkin cookies.
- All-purpose flour: Flour, along with the egg, gives your cookies structure and helps your cookie rise.
- Baking soda: Baking soda is key to getting your cookies to rise and helps make them nice and fluffy.
- Salt: Salt is essential in desserts! It adds a depth of flavor and helps balance the sweetness of the cookies. Salt also pumps up the protein in the dough, which gives the cookies a nice chewy texture!
- Pumpkin pie spice: These warm spices are what makes pumpkin desserts so delicious.
What Is “Pumpkin Pie Spice?”
While I can always make my own homemade pumpkin pie spice, I often opt to buy a jar of organic pre-made spice. Exclusive O Organics® pumpkin pie spice includes all my favorite warm spices, including cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves — exactly what goes into my homemade version!
How To Make Pumpkin Puree
In order to make homemade pumpkin puree, which helps make these cookies moist and chewy, you need to find a Sugar Pumpkin, also known as a Pie Pumpkin! Then, it’s just a matter of baking the pumpkins and running them through a blender until smooth.
But it’s not always pumpkin season! I often use canned pumpkin puree in my Fall-inspired recipes, which is canned during its peak season at peak ripeness. It tastes just like my homemade version, and I don’t have to deal with cutting a pumpkin and scooping out the seeds.
PAVILIONS® carries exclusive O Organics® Organic Canned Pumpkin that is 100% pumpkin — nothing else! It works perfectly in this recipe! If you’re a bit lost in the baking aisle of your local PAVILIONS®, keep in mind that “canned pumpkin” and “pumpkin puree” are the same thing!
What You Need To Make These Fall-Inspired Cookies
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Spatula
- Whisk
- Mixing bowls
- Baking sheet
Gemma’s Pro Chef Tips For Making Maple Pumpkin Cookies
- Go homemade or go to PAVILIONS®! For this recipe, I purchased pumpkin pie spice and canned pumpkin. Dark brown sugar is a must to obtain that delicious, rich caramel flavor. Dark brown sugar has molasses, which also helps to keep the cookies moist and chewy!
- Make the dough up to 3 days in advance for better flavor and texture. This is called “aging” your dough. Bakers like to age their dough because it gives the flour and sugar time to absorb the liquid. Aging your dough helps cookies bake more evenly and stay chewy.
- Pan Bang! When the cookies are baked and still hot, bang the cookie sheet on the counter to create a crinkle top on your cookie.
- To save time during the busy holiday season, you can make a batch of Maple Pumpkin Cookie dough, scoop, and freeze it. When you have guests drop by, defrost the dough for 10 minutes on a tray, then bake off for freshly baked cookies!
Thanks to PAVILIONS® for sponsoring this recipe post.
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Watch The Recipe Video!
Chewy Maple Pumpkin Cookies
Ingredients
Cookie Dough
- 1 cup (8 oz/225 g) butter, melted (I used O Organics®)
- 1 ½ cups (9 oz/255 g) dark brown sugar (I used O Organics®)
- 1 large egg , at room temperature (I used O Organics®)
- ⅓ cup (2 ½ oz/71g) pumpkin puree (I used O Organics®)
- 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup (I used O Organics®)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 ¼ cups (11 ¼ oz/319 g) all purpose flour (I used O Organics®)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
Cinnamon Coating
- 4 tablespoons dark brown sugar (I used O Organics®)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon (I used O Organics®)
Instructions
To Make the Cookie Dough
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the melted butter and brown sugar.
- Whisk in the egg, pumpkin, maple syrup, and vanilla until smooth.
- In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir to combine the dough. The dough will be soft, so chill the dough for a minimum of 90 minutes to firm up. (It can be held in the fridge for up to 3 days)
To Make the Cinnamon Coating
- In a small bowl, mix the coating ingredients. Set aside.
- Pre-heat the oven to 350°F (180°C) and line 2 baking trays with parchment.
- Using a ¼ cup measure, scoop out roughly 15 balls of dough (about 2 oz/57 g). Shape into balls in your hand before tossing them into the cinnamon sugar mixture until coated.
- Place onto the baking tray, spaced about 4 inches apart from each other.
- Bake for 16 to 18 minutes or until the edges have browned, and the center looks puffed and slightly underdone. I like to bake off just one tray at a time.
- Once baked and still hot, bang the pan on a firm counter to create a crinkle texture on top of your cookie. Allow them to rest on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack. Continue to bake the rest of the cookie dough.
- Enjoy the cookies fresh and store any leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days.
Hi – could you substitute jam for pumpkin spice ?
I made this recipe twice this year and both times it was a hit! Unfortunately, neither time did they come out chewy – both batches were puffed and cakey (still delicious, just not what I was going for). Not sure what I’m doing wrong. The second time around I tried blotting a lot of the moisture out of the pumpkin and pulling them from the oven right at 16 minutes, but not much of a difference.
We love this chewy maple pumpkin cookie! I’ve made it dozens of times now, along with Gemma’s pumpkin pie spice and pumpkin puree recipes. I am such a beginner baker but following Gemma’s recipe was easy and the cookies came out perfectly chewy and delicious every single time! Thank you so much Gemma!
I just made these today. They are so delicious. I had to come on and post. Thank you so much for this recipe!
Can you make these into bars? Any adjustments other than time?
Hi Gemma, mine were delicious in flavour and spread quite large but were more cake -like than biscuit. I did use wholemeal spelt flour and coconut sugar and I weighed all the ingredients. What do you think happened? In Australia it is hard to find canned pumpkin so I cooked and pureed my own.
I made two batches and took them to work. They were a huge hit and one co-worker did compare them to a snickerdoodle. I also found 17 minutes at 350 was perfect! I aged the dough in rectangular loaves overnight and cut them into pieces and then rolled them. It was a quicker alternative to scooping
Has anyone tried this with gluten free flour? Looks super yummy!
Is it ok to add food colouring?
This is a very good cookie. It taste more like a snickerdoodle though. You can hardly detect the pumpkin or maple. Also I think the cinnamon brown sugar coating should be double. I had to make another batch of it. For me 17 minutes at 350 seemed to work well.