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These soft gluten free pumpkin cookies are lightly spiced, pumpkin-flavored, and only gently browned in the oven. They're chewy, but fluffy, and are a lovely addition to the holiday season.

Why this recipe works
Soft, chewy, and perfectly spiced without the bitterness that can come from too much cinnamon, these are simple, cakey pumpkin cookies that you can sink your teeth into.
These cookies are easy to make with simple ingredients in one bowl, and without any specialized ingredients.
Unlike our gluten free pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, where we work hard to remove at least half the moisture in canned pumpkin puree, this recipe embraces the puffy texture that extra moisture creates.
what's in it
Recipe ingredients
- Pumpkin puree – Be sure to use plain canned pumpkin puree here, and measure out 5 ounces on a kitchen scale. A small can of pumpkin is usually 15 ounces, so you're using a third of the can. Refrigerate the rest in a sealed container for up to a week.
- Granulated sugar – Adds sweetness and tenderness to these cookies.
- Light brown sugar – Adds sweetness, depth of flavor from the added molasses.
- Molasses – A single tablespoon of unsulphured molasses deepens the flavor without having to add extra brown sugar. It also adds some color to the cookies.
- Melted butter – Adds moisture and flavor. Using melted butter makes the cookies a bit chewy to balance the extra softness that pumpkin puree adds.
- Egg – Adds some lift and structure without too much extra puffiness.
- Gluten free flour blend – Any high-quality all purpose gluten free flour blend that has superfinely ground rice flour as a base should work here. I like Better Batter's original blend, Nicole's Best multipurpose flour with added xanthan gum, and Bob's Red Mill 1-to-1 (in the blue bag) to with additional 1/8 teaspoon xanthan gum.
- Salt – Enhances the other flavors and balances the sweetness.
- Baking soda – Reacts with the acidity in the molasses to add some rise, and helps the cookies brown.
- Pumpkin pie spice – A mix of all the best warm ground spices (cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg) that adds more pumpkin flavor than the actual pureed pumpkin itself.
My Pro Tip
Expert tips
Use only canned pumpkin puree
These cookies are made with plain canned pumpkin puree, which has plenty of moisture and only a delicate pumpkin flavor. This simplifies the recipe, and the liquid in the puree makes for naturally cakey, pillowy cookies.
Some of our richer pumpkin recipes are instead made with pumpkin butter, which is cooked down with spices, apple cider, and maple syrup until it's lost a lot of its moisture and has lots of depth of flavor all on its own. This recipe is simpler and easier.
Chill the cookie dough for easier handling
The cookie dough begins so soft that it almost feels like it would be made into a cake. It will thicken a bit as it stands and the liquids hydrate the flour, but it will remain quite sticky to work with, but chilling the dough for about 10 minutes helps make the dough much easier to handle. Don't chill for too long, though, or they won't spread in the oven at all.
Use two wet small spoons for uniform sizing
I often like to portion gluten free cookies with a spring-loaded ice cream scoop, often a #50 scoop (that just means that it would take 50 of that size scoop to make a quart of ice cream). You can make these portions that way, of course, but this dough is so sticky that I find it's easier to use 2 teaspoons to scoop and then scrape off this cookie dough.
Handle the cookie dough with wet hands
The dough is too sticky to handle with dry hands. So roll it into rounds and press into flat 1/2-inch thick disks with wet fingers and hands.
Make perfect rounds with a wet cookie cutter
To ensure that your baked cookies are truly round, not oval, moisten a 2½-inch or 3-inch metal cookie cutter and use it to coax the raw dough into a rounder shape.
Be careful about oven temp
The molasses in these cookies makes the cookies more vulnerable to burning. Most ovens run hot, so be sure to check your oven temperature with a simple analog standalone thermometer, and let that guide you to a proper 325°F. The bottoms will burn at 350°F.
Cool before icing or serving
The freshly-baked cookies are fragile. Let them sit undisturbed for 10 minutes, then lift with a thin spatula onto a wire rack so they cool completely. And let them cool entirely before trying to dip them in the icing or the tops of the cookies will come off in the icing, and the icing will melt right off.
substitutions
Ingredient substitutions
Dairy free
The only dairy in these cookies is from the melted butter. To make them dairy-free, you can try using vegan butter. Melt and Miyoko's Kitchen are my favorite brands. I would not try using shortening, as it has no moisture and your cookies will be way too puffy and almost dry.
Vegan
To make vegan cookies, you'll need to replace the dairy as described above, use a “chia egg” to replace the one egg (1 tablespoon ground white chia seeds + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel), and use vegan versions of all the sugars since many are made with bone char.
Gluten Free Pumpkin Cookies Recipe
Equipment
- #50 spring loaded ice cream scoop (optional)
- Plain metal cookie cutters (optional)
Ingredients
For the cookies
- 5 ounces canned pumpkin puree, at room temperature
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- ¾ cup (164 g) packed light brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon (21 g) unsulphured molasses
- 9 tablespoons (126 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 1 (50 g (weighed out of shell)) egg, at room temperature, beaten
- 2 ¼ cups (315 g) all purpose gluten free flour blend, (I used Better Batter; click thru for info on appropriate blends)
- 1 teaspoon xanthan gum, (omit if your blend already contains it)
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
For the icing (optional)
- 1 cup (115 g) confectioners’ sugar
- 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, (plus more by the teaspoon if necessary)
Instructions
Make the cookies.
- Preheat your oven to 325°F. Line rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper and set them aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, place the pumpkin puree, granulated sugar, brown sugar, molasses, melted butter, and beaten egg. Mix until very smooth, working out any lumps in the brown sugar.
- Add the flour blend, xanthan gum, salt, baking soda, and pumpkin pie spice, and mix until fully combined. The cookie dough will be very soft, but will thicken as it stands.
- For easier scooping and shaping, chill the dough in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes.
- Scoop the slightly chilled dough into portions about 1 1/2 tablespoons in volume (a heaping #50 scoop or two teaspoons will work well).
- With wet hands, shape the mounds of cookie dough into rounds, then press into disks about 1/2-inch thick.
- For the roundest cookies, moisten the bottom edges of a 2½-inch round cookie cutter, place it over each disk of raw dough, and move around in concentric circles to help round out any misshapen edges.
- Place the cookies in the preheated oven and bake for 14 minutes or until top springs back when pressed very gently in the center. The cookies should no longer glisten on top, as if wet.
- Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool for 10 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Make the (optional) icing.
- In a medium-sized bowl, place the confectioners’ sugar. Add the water, and mix until smooth. It will form a very thick paste.
- Add a bit more water, and mix until smooth and well-combined. The icing should be bright white and opaque but thickly pourable.
- If you’ve added too much water, balance it by mixing in more sugar. It’s much easier to thin with a few drops of water than to thicken with more sugar, though, so proceed carefully.
Decorate the cookies.
- Dip the tops of the cooled cookies into the sugar glaze by inverting them into the bowl of icing, and bob up and down a few times to make sure the icing adheres.
- Let excess icing drip off, then twist the cookie as you return it to a right-side up position to try to prevent the glaze from dripping off the side. Return the cookies to the wire rack to sit until the icing is fully set.
Video
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
make ahead/leftovers
Storage instructions
These cookies are so moist and tender that they stay fresh-tasting for quite a while. I don't like to stack them when they're at room temperature, since they do tend to stick to one another.
Freezing
You can, and should, freeze these cookies if you'd like to store them touching one another and don't want them to stick. Just lay them out in a single layer, with or without the icing, on a rimmed baking sheet that is small enough to fit in your freezer. Freeze the cookies until firm, then pile them into a freezer-safe container and enjoy them either right from the freezer or at room temperature.
FAQs
No, this recipe must be made with a rice-based all purpose gluten free flour blend. It isn't designed to be made with almond flour. To make almond flour cookies requires a recipe specifically formulated for that flour.
You can wrap this cookie dough well and store it in the refrigerator for at least a week. It will be easy to shape, but make sure you let the raw cookies come to room temperature before baking them or your cookies will be too puffy.
The cookie dough is naturally quite sticky, which we manage by chilling it a bit and handling it only with moistened hands and tools. If your baked cookies are very sticky, they're probably underbaked—or you overmeasured one of the wet ingredients, and they have too much moisture.
Flavor variations
- Add some pumpkin pie spice or plain ground cinnamon (just about 1/8 teaspoon) to the confectioners' sugar in the icing for a little extra zip
- Top with a cream cheese frosting like we used in our gf pumpkin bars instead of the icing
- Sprinkle the top of each raw cookie with coarse sugar before baking for a little sparkle
- Dust the baked, un-iced cookies with powdered sugar after they're baked and cooled
I love this recipe, and the directions are great and easy to follow. The cookies turn out moist, fluffy, and they are so delicious. Looking forward to trying more of your recipes.
So glad you enjoyed the cookies, Norma Jean, and that you found the instructions easy to follow. Thank you for sharing your experience, and glad to have you try more recipes!
Could cooked puréed pumpkin or butternut squash be used instead of canned pumpkin. I try to avoid using canned anything if possible.
Sure, you can definitely roast butternut squash or pumpkin, then remove the seeds and skin and puree the flesh, but it may have too much moisture. You’d have to mimic the approximate moisture of the canned stuff and it should work fine!