Pumpkin Coffee Cake Cookies with Vanilla Glaze
Big, flat pumpkin cookies with a real chew, packed under a brown sugar streusel lid and finished with a vanilla glaze. Blotting the pumpkin dry is what keeps them from puffing up into little cakes. No chilling and no mixer required.
Servings: 18 cookies
Calories: 285kcal
Ingredients
For the streusel
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter 85 g, softened
- 3/4 cup brown sugar 165 g, packed
- 3/4 cup all purpose flour 94 g
- 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
For the cookie dough
- 1/2 cup canned pumpkin puree 122 g
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter 113 g, melted and cooled
- 1 cup brown sugar 220 g, packed
- 1/2 cup white granulated sugar 100 g
- 2 egg yolks
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour 219 g
- 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
For the glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar 120 g
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons milk 30 ml
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 350F (175C) and line a baking sheet with parchment.
- Make the streusel. Stir the brown sugar, flour and pumpkin pie spice together with a fork. Work in the softened butter until the mixture holds together in crumbs, stopping when the largest clumps are about pea sized. Set aside.
- Spread the pumpkin puree on a plate and press folded paper towels into it, swapping in dry ones until it has lost about half its volume and looks more like a soft dough than a puree. A fine mesh sieve works faster.
- Put the blotted pumpkin in a large bowl with the cooled melted butter and both sugars. Mix until smooth. The mixture will go very dark, which is the brown sugar.
- Add the egg yolks and vanilla and whisk until glossy.
- Sift in the flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Fold with a spatula until you have a thick dough that holds its shape.
- Scoop with a 2 inch scoop, spacing the balls about 2 inches apart, eight to a sheet.
- Press a well into the middle of each ball and flatten slightly. Pack the streusel into the well and partway down the sides, using more than looks right, and press it in rather than sprinkling.
- Bake for 12 minutes, until spread and lightly colored at the edges. The centers will still look soft. Leave on the sheet for 10 minutes to finish setting.
- Whisk the powdered sugar, vanilla and milk together, slowly at first and then quickly to break up any lumps.
- Once the cookies are cool, drizzle the glaze over parchment or a rack, since a fair amount runs off.
Notes
- Blotting: measure the half cup of pumpkin first, then press it dry. Losing about half the volume is the target. Skip this step and the cookies puff instead of spreading.
- Timing: the 32 minute total covers one sheet. Two sheets fit in most ovens at once, so the full batch of 18 is two rounds. Allow another hour for the glaze to set firm enough to stack.
- Storage and freezing: airtight once the glaze has set, with parchment between layers, best in the first two or three days and good for about five. To freeze, leave them unglazed, freeze flat on a sheet, then bag for up to three months and glaze fresh after thawing.