These delightfully soft cutout sugar cookies are packed with pumpkin flavor and simple to make. They don't spread at all during baking, so they keep their shape perfectly.
I love the smells, sights and flavors of fall, and baking with my favorite pumpkin butter (just a reduced, slightly sweetened and spiced form of cooked pumpkin/squash) is a true pleasure. Believe it or not, though, I'm restraining myself this year by not presenting you with 3 or 4 pumpkin recipes a week. These soft gluten free pumpkin cutout ? sugar cookies with a simple maple glaze made the cut, though, by a mile.
Naturally egg-free (adding an egg to the cookie dough makes them taste like cake, not cookies), these soft cutout sugar cookies don't spread at all during baking so you can cut the dough into truly any shape you like. I happen to have one silly pumpkin cookie cutter, so I made some of those shapes.
But unless you really make it obvious, your 10-year-old might hold one of the soft pumpkin-shaped cookies upside down and say something like, “oh look, a heart!”
So you might want to go old-school and just do rounds. Or maybe you're better-prepared for the season than I am, and you have a perfectly suited pumpkin cookie cutter.
Maple-Iced Gluten Free Pumpkin Cutout Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
For the cookies
2 cups (280 g) all purpose gluten free flour (I used Better Batter)
1 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if your blend already contains it)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice*
3/4 cup (150 g) granulated sugar
8 tablespoons (112 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 ounces pumpkin butter, at room temperature
For the icing
1 cup (115 g) confectioners’ sugar
2 to 4 teaspoons pure maple syrup
*DIY Pumpkin Pie Spice: In a small bowl, place 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice, 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves and 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg. Mix to combine.
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line rimmed baking sheets with unbleached parchment paper and set them aside.
In a large bowl, place the flour, xanthan gum, baking powder, salt, pumpkin pie spice and granulated sugar and whisk to combine well. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the butter and pumpkin butter, mixing to combine after each addition, then kneading with your hands until a smooth dough forms. Place the dough between two sheets of unbleached parchment paper and roll out a bit less than 1/3-inch thick. Using a 2 1/2-inch round cookie cutter (or any other shape you like), cut out rounds of dough and place them about 1-inch apart on the prepared baking sheets. Gather and reroll any scraps.
Place the baking sheet in the center of the preheated oven and bake set in the center and just beginning to brown on the edges, about 10 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
When the cookies are nearly cool, make the glaze. In a small bowl, place the confectioners’ sugar and 2 teaspoons of maple syrup, and mix well. Add more maple syrup by the half-teaspoon until you have a smooth but very thickly pourable glaze. Using a wide, flat knife or a small offset spatula, spread the glaze in a thin, even layer on the top of each cookie. Set the cookies on a flat surface until set.
Adapted from my recipe for Soft Gluten Free Cream Cheese Cutout Sugar Cookies.
MsJlooper says
I made these last week for our company “Treat Day”. Everyone loved them. They had no idea they were GF.
Keturah says
Made them and my GF kids loved them. I wonder if your cookie cutter is really supposed to be an apple? Just because I have a mini cutters set with a pumpkin and an apple and my mini apple looks just like your larger pumpkin-ish cutter…. Anyway, thanks for your posts. I’ve bought two cookbooks so far and contemplating a third.
sandyfeet425 says
Would 4 oz of pumpkin butter equate to 1/4 cup?
youngbaker2002 says
o my gosh these look like the absolutely most perfect pumpkin cutout cookie ever! can’t wait to make them!
Jessica Pietrosanti says
These are absolutely wonderful! I made them with my kids (4 and 2) and they were a huge hit. I’m going to try making them dairy free for a friend’s child too and I’ll report back with an update.
I also wondered if apple butter might work in this recipe. Do you think it would depend on the moisture content?
Many thanks for all of your beautiful recipes!
Margaret says
I made these yesterday (the day you posted the recipe). I was looking for a GF cookie to take to a friend and these popped up in my mail box. So I decided to try them. It wasn’t easy to find pumpkin butter in area (Fort Worth) so I went to Sprouts, a natural food store. They had maple pumpkin butter. That sounded good to me! It turned out to be very good. My cookies did not seem to be done after 10 minutes so I let them bake a bit longer and it turns out that your 10 minutes was probably just right to get a soft center. Mine were a bit too crispy but they still tasted good. I also doubled the icing and I am glad I did. I wanted more than just a glaze. My friend (who is not GF) really liked them and so did her husband! I am amazed at all the created GF recipes you come up with that really do taste like the gluten equivalent. Thank you!
Chelsea Johnson says
Do you think you could swap the pumpkin butter for other fruit butters (apple, peach, etc) for different seasons/flavors? Obviously you might want to change the spices as well, but I’m all caught up in the idea of lots of different flavor cookies from one recipe!
Athletic Avocado says
These are simply beautiful! I love the addition of the pumpkin butter :)
Lauren Morra says
Adorable! What a great use of pumpkin butter :)
Jennifer S. says
beautiful! I love pumpkin everything!
youngbaker2002 says
I 2nd that Jennifer!