Autumn Baking-Week 3: Pumpkin Cookies

So, this week I put off doing the baking until after a work day, for some reason, but I had time and energy, and luckily this ended up being a ridiculously easy recipe to make. It was also fun in that I was able to try out my Princess Tiana flour sifter for the first time and it worked really well! She makes everything more delicious. I am also reminded that while I have the big fancy Kitchen-Aid stand mixer, sometimes the cheapo electric hand mixer just makes life so much easier.

This particular recipe is one that I cannot track down the source of, so I will write it out here.

Pumpkin Cookies

1 cup butter or shortening(I used butter)

1 cup sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups sifted flour

1 tsp. double-acting baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. allspice

1 cup chopped nuts(I used pecans)

1 cup raisins(I used golden raisins)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla and mix well.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and allspice, and add to the other mixture. Stir in the nuts and raisins.

Drop cookies onto a well-greased cookie sheet and bake about 15 minutes.

Makes about 5 dozen

The creamed butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, and pumpkin don't look very good at the start, and don't worry if some of the liquid starts coming out of it, it'll all mix together again.

So, I made a judgement call on this one. The ingredients say to use sifted flour, and the instructions say to sift the flour with all the dried ingredients. Sometimes they just mean to do it all in a single sift, but I took the instructions literally. I sifted the flour after measuring it, and then sifted it with the other dried ingredients. This made it all very airy and fluffy, I think. It's worth it.

I didn't bother chopping the pecans. They're pretty flimsy, so I just crushed them with my hands. Why waste a knife and cutting board and having to wash them later when you don't have to!

Here is how the batter looks after it's fully mixed. My sister doesn't like raisins, so half the dough remained raisin-free, and the rest got raisins.

Here is the finished raisin-free product. The cookies are small, but this is actually the size cookies are supposed to be. I got 64 out of my batch, if I did the math right. The amount you use per cookie is basically a rounded teaspoon. A literal teaspoon measure, though I just eyeballed it. These were light and fluffy on the inside, but actually a little crispy on the sides. They were amazing!

Here's the interior of the raisin version. These are great too! The smell of these cookies makes the whole place smell like autumn! A great dessert for a chilly, cloudy day today!

I highly recommend these. They are so easy and not time-consuming. Well worth the time and effort! Happy baking!