Gluten Free Pumpkin Cookies

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 – Refined white sugar adds a simple sweetness and tenderness to these cookies.
• Light brown sugar – Light brown sugar adds more depth of flavor than plain granulated sugar, since it has a touch of molasses in it.
• Molasses – We use a single tablespoon of unsulphured molasses (I like Grandma's brand) to these cookies for additional depth of flavor without having to add too much bulk or extra brown sugar. It also adds some welcome color to these cookies.
• Melted butter – Melting the butter first makes the cookies chewier and doesn't add any air like the butter would if we were to cream it with the sugars first. These cookies are already puffy enough, but the melted butter gives them flavor and some density.
• Egg – A single, room temperature egg adds some lift and structure.
• Gluten free flour blend – I like to use Better Batter here, since it has the right balance of starches and protein to give these cookies some substance.
• Salt – Salt brings out all the other flavors and balances the sweetness.
• Baking soda – This chemical leavener is activated as soon as you add it to the wet ingredients in these cookies, so it doesn't provide a ton of lift in the oven. It neutralizes the acidity from the molasses nicely, though.
• Pumpkin pie spice – A fall mix of all the best warm ground spices (cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg), you can make your own pumpkin pie spice with the components or buy it ready made. This ingredient provides 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 gf 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, or maybe our gf pumpkin bars. It will thicken a bit as it stands and the liquids hydrate the flour, but it will remain quite sticky to work with. That's why it's really useful to chill the dough for about 10 minutes in the refrigerator before separating it into portions.

These cookies don't spread much during baking, but they won't spread at all if you bake them cold. So be sure to only chill the dough very briefly, or shape the cookies and let them come to room temperature before placing them in the oven to bake.

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

Whichever way you separate portions of the cookie dough, you'll need to roll it into better rounds and press into flat 1/2-inch thick disks with wet fingers and hands. The dough is too sticky to handle with dry hands.

Make better rounds with a wet plain cookie cutter

This step is super optional, but if you'd like to ensure that your baked cookies are more round than oval or otherwise misshapen, you can use a moistened 2½-inch or 3-inch plain cookie cutter to coax it into a rounder shape. It's hard to explain how, but you'll see what I mean if you watch the how-to video in the post.

Make sure your oven temperature is at a reliable 325°F

The molasses in these cookies adds lots of flavor and some welcome color, but it does tend to burn rather easily. 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 (ask me how I know that).

Let your gluten free pumpkin spice cookies cool before icing or serving

Once the cookies have finished baking, they will be quite fragile. You probably won't be able to lift them off the baking paper or tray to check the undersides, so just 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.

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.

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.