These super soft pumpkin cookies with brown sugar frosting will melt in your mouth! Make these quick (just 30 minutes!), tasty pumpkin cookies to usher in the fall asap!
Ready to make all the pumpkin everything? Let’s go! Try these Pumpkin Snickerdoodles, this Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake, this Pumpkin Pie, or these Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls.
This recipe I’m sharing today is the absolute best way to commence my annual fall baking addiction and welcome pumpkin season. This pumpkin cookies recipe is the ultimate when it comes to pumpkin cookies.
I never thought I’d love a pumpkin cookie without chocolate chips this much, but these little beauties have absolutely stolen my pumpkin-cookie-loving heart with their perfectly soft, not-too-cakey texture and just the right amount of pumpkin pie spice. And that frosting…ohmagosh the frosting – life. changing.
Why This Recipe Works
Brown sugar frosting – My newest, latest, and greatest obsession is this brown sugar frosting. Good heavens people, who knew I was missing something so tremendously important in my life? If you’ve never had brown sugar frosting, I promise you, you will be eating it on every dessert (and maybe just by itself by the spoonful).
So fast – These beauties can be yours in just 30 tiny minutes, and that includes baking time. Heck, it takes me that long to help my kids locate their shoes and patiently watch them tie the laces 10 times. 30 minutes is practically instant gratification when we’re talking cookies.
Universally loved – Okay maybe I haven’t had everyone in the universe try these cookies, but I’ll tell ya what, even people who promise me they don’t like anything pumpkin come around after one bite of these easy, soft pumpkin cookies.
Perfect for bake sales – I have made these for my kids’ bake sales for a couple years in a row now and they sell like hotcakes, er…like pumpkin cookies? Either way, you get the point, they are the first item to go on the tables, even over the chocolate cupcakes!
Here’s How You Make It
Ready to make the easiest, tastiest soft pumpkin cookies with brown sugar icing? Let’s go!
Making the cookies
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, then get out a medium size bowl and whisk together the dry ingredients.
- Next, get out another, larger bowl and beat together the sugars and butter until light and fluffy. Add to this the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla and mix it all together.
- Now, add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until combined (I use a wooden spoon). Then, using a cookie scoop (or scooping out about 1 1/2 tablespoons dough), drop the pumpkin cookie dough mounds onto a lightly greased cookie sheet leaving about 2-3 inches between each cookie. Use the palm of your hand to slightly flatten each mound (press down about 1/2 inch to flatten the top a little bit).
- Put in the oven to bake for 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the pan for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Making the brown sugar frosting
- To make the frosting, melt the butter in a medium saucepan and boil it for 2 minutes. Then, stir in the brown sugar, reduce the heat to medium-low and boil for 2 more minutes. Stir in the milk, then remove the pan from the heat and pour the brown sugar mixture into a large bowl. Stir in the powdered sugar to make the brown sugar frosting.
- Frost the cooled cookies.
Brown Sugar Substitutes
No brown sugar? Here are acceptable brown sugar substitutes that will work just as well for these cookies:
- Try using white sugar and adding some molasses to it. To do this, you’ll add 1 tablespoon of molasses for every cup of white sugar. So for this recipe, you’ll need to use a 1-to-1 ratio.
- No molasses? Use maple syrup instead at the same ratios. Bonus if you’re a maple syrup fan like I am!
- Coconut sugar is another brown sugar substitute and can be swapped at a 1-to-1 ratio as well. It is a pretty dry sugar and doesn’t hold moisture as well so if the coconut sugar isn’t melting as well as you’d like it to in the sauce pan, you can add a little bit more milk (teaspoon at a time) until you reach the desired consistency.
- Try raw sugars like turbinado or demerara in evenly proportioned swaps. The textures of raw sugars are coarser than brown sugar so while these sugars will still be delicious, you might notice that you can still feel a grainy texture when you bite into the cookie.
Expert Tips
- The cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
- Some ways to customize these easy pumpkin cookies is to add mini chocolate chips to the batter or sometimes I like to top the brown sugar frosting with a sprinkle of chopped walnuts or pecans.
More Fall Desserts
- Baked Apples with Apple Crisp Topping
- Super Soft Peanut Butter Cookies
- Carrot Cake Cupcakes
- Easy Homemade Cinnamon Rolls
- Best Easy Homemade Pumpkin Pie
Did you try these incredibly soft and delicious Pumpkin Cookie with Brown Sugar Frosting?? YAY! Please rate the recipe below!
Pumpkin Cookies With Brown Sugar Frosting
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup butter - softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup brown sugar - lightly packed
- 1 15 oz can canned pure pumpkin puree - (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
- 1 large egg
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Frosting
- ½ cup butter
- 1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
- ¼ cup heavy cream - (or other milk)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 cups powdered sugar
Instructions
- In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, and salt.
- In a large bowl cream together butter and sugars until lightly and fluffy. Add pumpkin, egg, and vanilla and mix until thoroughly.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until combined. Use a cookie scoop (about 1 1/2 tablespoons dough) to drop mounds onto a lightly greased cookie sheet leaving about 2-3 inches between each cookie dough mound. Use the palm of your hand to slightly flatten each mound (press down about 1/2 inch to flatten the top a little bit).
- Bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes. Allow to cool on the pan for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- To make the frosting, melt butter in a medium sauce pan. Add brown sugar, reduce heat to medium-low and stir in heavy cream. Continue to stir over medium-low heat for about 2 minutes until smooth. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla and pour into a large bowl. Add powdered sugar and mix in completely. Frost cooled cookies.
- Store in airtight container at room temperature up to 5 days.
Notes
- The cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
- Some ways to customize these easy pumpkin cookies is to add mini chocolate chips to the batter or sometimes I like to top the brown sugar frosting with a sprinkle of chopped walnuts or pecans.
- Store in airtight container at room temperature.
I made these cookies twice now for the bakery where I work. They are delicious, but I did have an icing failure. The directions to “boil” the brown sugar in the already boiled butter, made me think i needed to see boiling bubbles which made the brown sugar caramelize. Instead what worked for me was to mix the butter, brown sugar, and cream, and cook that at a boil for 2 minutes. I cooled it to room temp and then added the powdered sugar. I think cooling it is pretty important too. Did you really have success using the three “boiling steps”? The method I ended up using makes the most amazing pliable icing and would be very fun for children to put on the cookies. These are a big hit with all of my taste testers.
I’m so glad it wasn’t just me that ended up with caramelized brown sugar, I will be trying your method for the icing next time.
Thanks Judy, I am going to try it your way, the way the frosting is written just didn’t sound right to me, so excited to try these though, thanks Tiffany!
Thank you for your post. I failed twice on the frosting. Once scorching it and the other time I got crunchy bits of sugar. I will try your method
Thank you for saving our Cookies Judy!
Thank you for this tip! I combined the frosting ingredients, brought to a boil for a minute, then cooled and whisked in the powdered sugar and a pinch of sea salt. So delicious and the perfect texture.
Something went wrong with my icing. It’s still grainy and not like a spread. Its oily. It’s also dark and not light like in your photo. We had trouble with the sugar boiling. It wasn’t boiling, so we turned up the heat a little but we didn’t want to burn it, so we finally pulled it off heat. When we added cream, it bubbled up to almost the top of the pot. Any ideas of what went wrong?
The cookies themselves are delicious and cakey! We are making the frosting, and want to know if the frosting can be made in advance (and stored in the fridge)?
How do you get these cookies and other frosted cookies from sticking to each other?
Thank you,
KC
I love, love, love these cookies. When I make them I double the frosting and freeze the other half and use the next time I make the cookies. It freezes great. Just thaw, mix, and frost. Saves a lot of time.
Any clue as to the calorie count for one cookie?