I call this recipe Sue's Pumpkin Cookies because it's from Sue. She sent it years ago saying the lemon zest made the cookies a little different. It does, but even without the lemon these are good pumpkin cookies. They're thick, moist and cakey.
If you are on the hunt for frosted pumpkin cookies, Sue's Pumpkin Cookie recipe is a good one. The cookies are not only frosted, but loaded with spice flavor. For extra fun, sprinkle the frosted cookies with walnuts and/or candy corn. Or forget the candy and just use frosting.
Self-Rising Flour Version
I recently tested Sue's pumpkin cookie recipe with self-rising flour. It worked perfectly! Since self-rising flour has salt, the only change you need to make to the recipe is to omit the salt. The dough is very soft, almost like a stiff batter, so you may want to use a cookie scoop. And give the cookies plenty of room to spread, as they should spread quite a bit as they bake.
If You Like Sue's Pumpkin Cookie Recipe...
Sue has a lot of other recipes in her collection, Basically Baked. Below are two of my favorites.
Recipe
Sue's Pumpkin Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- ½ cup salted or unsalted butter 114 grams
- 1 ½ cups brown sugar 300 grams
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup canned pumpkin
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 2 ½ cups unbleached all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- ¼ teaspoon ginger
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- Candy corn and walnut pieces (optional)
Buttercream Frosting
- ⅓ c. soft butter salted or unsalted is fine
- 3 c. powdered sugar
- 1 ½ t. vanilla
- 2 T. cream
Instructions
- With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar.
- Beat in eggs, one at a time. Stir in pumpkin, vanilla, lemon peel and lemon juice.
- Gradually add dry ingredients, stirring until well blended. Stir in walnuts.
- Drop by tablespoonfuls onto lightly greased cookie sheets and bake at 375 for 12-14 minutes. When cool, frost with Buttercream Frosting. Decorate frosted cookies with walnut pieces and candy corn if desired.
- To make the frosting, beat together the butter and sugar. Stir in vanilla and cream; beat until smooth.
Anna says
Deb, it's actually from an old cookbook from Minnesota. That's not to say it wasn't also in Family Circle. FC always had really good recipes.
Deb says
I looked all over for this recipe, it’s the only one with lemon juice. We were double checking it because we weren’t sure it had this much baking powder. I’d love to know where Sue got it, it seems like I got it from a family circle magazine.