I have fond childhood memories of baking chocolate chip cookies with my my mom and sister. When my sister and I saw our mom’s circa 1972 split pea green KitchenAid Stand Mixer come out, we knew we were in for a treat.
The process of helping my mom in the kitchen and being her little helper was almost as good as the cookies we’d bake together.
My dad always knew if my sister and I had been in the kitchen that day helping out as evidenced by the eggshells in his cookies, which we’d proudly present to him and that he’d never turn down. They simply added a delicious crunch.
As a helper, I learned early on not to crank the mixer to high speed immediately after adding the flour. A good way to make my mom mad was to spray her kitchen with flour.
The best part of cookie making came when adding the chocolate chips to the dough.
I’d always sneak a handful of chocolate chips that were supposed to make it into the cookie dough, but made it into my mouth instead.
With this cookie recipe, I wanted to embrace the classic chocolate chip cookie I grew up eating, but also incorporate everyone’s favorite fall ingredient: pumpkin.
Plenty of recipes exist for soft, cake-like, pumpkin whoopie pie cookies, but I wanted these cookies to have the traditional chewiness of a true chocolate chip cookie, but infused with pumpkin.
After testing and experimenting with so many recipes and creating everything from cakey, soft, pumpkin mounds to pumpkin-laced hockey pucks, I finally found the texture and flavor I was in search of with this recipe.
The resulting cookies are soft, tender, light and have just a touch of cakiness, but they are also chewy with some heartiness. Soft pumpkin cookie meets chewy chocolate chip cookie. The edges crisp up and the centers remain pillowy soft.
They’re packed with the warming flavors of fall, including cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, cloves, and a dash of molasses.
The chocolate chips pair nicely with the pumpkin and the flavors complement each other so well. Then again, chocolate pairs so well with most anything for me.
A few cook’s notes:
The dough is soft and a bit tacky to work with, courtesy of the pumpkin puree. Pumpkin does a beautiful job of tenderizing baked goods, but it makes the dough a bit sticky. Counteract the stickiness by chilling the dough before scooping it into balls. In my trials, I chilled the dough ranging from 90 minutes to 4 days. The longer the dough is chilled, the easier it is to work with.
Prior to baking, rolling a ball of dough through a cinnamon-sugar mixture not only creates a extra bonus of texture and flavor in the finished cookies, but it does double-duty by taking the edge off some of the dough’s stickiness.
I found the best cookies result from using 1 1/2 tablespoons of well-chilled dough, scooped using a cookie scoop, dredged through cinnamon-sugar, and flattened slightly before baking.
The cookies spread very little while baking and I recommend flattening the dough mounds slightly before baking otherwise the base will cook through and become too well done before the top sets.
The cookies keep beautifully, and paradoxically, get softer over time. The brown sugar and molasses attract moisture from the air so there’s little worry of them drying out.
Then again, I don’t think you’ll have too many extra cookies just lingering around.
[print_this]
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes about 3 dozen medium-sized cookies
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened (1 stick)
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 tablespoon unsulphered molasses (I use Grandma’s Original)
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, ground ginger, salt – all optional and to taste
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups Nestle Tollhouse Semi-Sweet Morsels
Cinnamon-Sugar Mixture, for rolling
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine butter, brown sugar, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, and beat on medium-high to high speed for 3 to 4 minutes to cream ingredients; stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the egg, vanilla, and beat on high speed for 3 to 4 minutes until mixture is light and fluffy. Add the pumpkin, unsulphered molasses (blackstrap molasses may be substituted but it’s bolder and more intense), 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, cloves, optional spices, salt, and mix until incorporated, about 1 minute. (All spices should be added to taste and use more or less, depending on how robustly-flavored you prefer your cookies. As written, the spices are nicely balanced and the cookies are of average intensity. Adding ginger, additional cinnamon or cloves, will give them a stronger punch and kick, rendering them more like a pumpkin-ginger-spice cookie)
Add the flour, baking soda, and mix until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips by hand. Dough will be thick and dense yet soft, and must be refrigerated and chilled before it’s suitable for scooping out and baking off. Cover mixing bowl with plastic wrap or transfer dough into an airtight container and refrigerate dough for at least 90 minutes, overnight, or up to four days.
Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare baking sheets by lining them with Silpat liners, parchment paper, or spray them with cooking spray; set aside. Make the Cinnamon-Sugar Mixture by combining 1/3 cup granulated sugar and 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon in a small bowl and stir to combine; set aside.
Form 1 1/2 tablespoon-sized balls of dough using a cookie scoop and dredge each ball through the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place balls on baking sheets; cookies spread very little and can be spaced about 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Flatten balls slightly before baking to ensure cookies cook through evenly. Bake for 12-13 minutes or until the edges near the bases of the cookies are golden and set, and tops have just set; cookies will continue to firm up as they cool. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheets for at least 10 minutes before moving them. Cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one week or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Cookies can be kept vegan by using vegan margarine such as Earth Balance and replacing the egg with a flax egg. Cookies can be made gluten-free by using a gluten-free flour blend such as Bob’s Red Mill.
[/print_this]
And now, onto the Giveaway portion of this post. You can enter to win:
a $200 gift card from Williams-Sonoma
and a KitchenAid Stand Mixer
Yes, one lucky person will win both.
The mixer is from the KitchenAid Custom Metallic® Series | Tilt-Head Stand Mixer | Flour Power™ Rating – 9 Cup
It’s a 5-Quart size with a 10-speed Solid State Control
It comes with a flat beater, wire whip, and dough hook
It retails for $649.95
I’m sure I don’t need to sell you on the benefits, workmanship, and high quality nature of a KitchenAid Stand Mixer or twist your arm to pick out $200 worth of items from Williams-Sonoma.
Although Tweets, Facebook mentions, or Pinterest Pins about this post are appreciated, they are not required for entry.
Simply answer the following question by leaving a comment below to enter the giveaway:
Please share a favorite baking memory. (Please be detailed and specific)
Contest ends Monday, October 8, 2012 and winner will be chosen randomly. Open to continental U.S. residents only. Complete contest rules can be found at the bottom of this page.
This post is sponsored by Nestlé® Toll House® Morsels, the perfect special ingredient for all of your family’s favorite treats!
AMAZING GIVEAWAY!
A baking memory…..
Every year around christmas time, my mom,sisters, and I would make our FAVORITE cookie! The peanut butter thumbprint cookies! I loved pb and of course I loved the chocolate hershey kiss that went in the middle! My sisters and I would love helping my mom and we all would pray for a broken hershey kiss while unwrapping them or we would sneak one in to eat while doing it.
I will always remember the fun times making those cookies together BUT the funniest thing was what happened every year! My mom would buy the bags of hershey kisses for the cookies and when she would go to get the bags, she would notice one gone or one opened and almost empty. She would seriously flip her lid, lol!
Guess who was the hershey kiss monster? My dad! She would yell at him and tell him these were not to be eaten, but every year he still did it. Finally one year my mom got smart and hid them! Haha!
Oh memories!
Those cookies sound incredible. I think my sis and I did pretty well about keeping eggshells out….I think ;-)
My sis and I baked a lot as kids so it’s hard to come up with just one favorite moment. Perhaps when we started baking cookies at Christmas for gifts. We had such a blast, made such a mess, and ate way too many treats. But absolutely worth it!
My favorite memory is learning how to make a proper pie crust and apple pie as taught to me by my maternal grandmother. From the sprinkling of the water and flour, to the angle of the rolling pin, to the dotting of the butter nestled in the cinnamon apples, it’s all as if it happened yesterday.
What an AMAZING giveaway, lady! Go you! :)
all of my baking memories involve my beautiful mother….so they’re all great memories!! one of my most favorite things to do is bake a loaf of pumpkin bread with my mom in the fall :)
Funny how a lot of these memories are “failures”! I guess that’s how we learn :)
I remember baking with my mother when I was young – she would let me do pretty much anything to help EXCEPT crack the eggs. So of course, that’s the only part I wanted to do…I decided one time to crack them on my own (to prove her wrong for not trusting me, of course!) but the yolk and shells ended up all over the counter. Embarrassed, I covered them with a towel and they ended up drying, and stripping off the enamel of our countertops. Mom was NOT happy and I still think of that when I crack eggs today!
Every holiday season my family bakes cut-out sugar cookies. We’ve been doing this in our immediate family for 30+ years and my dad takes the lead. He’s been doing it for 60+ years, having started with his mom when he was a toddler!
My dad and I do most of the rolling, cutting, frosting together – we get started really early (5am early!) and then the rest of the family joins later in the day. We usually bake all day and then give the cookies to friends and family across the country.
One memory I will never forget is making gingerbread houses with my grandmother. She had my brother and I over every winter to bake cookies and make gingerbread houses. We would always make sugar cookies and decorate them. She loved having us over to be in the kitchen with her. I think I got my love for the kitchen from her.
That’s cute you think I could wait 4 days for the dough to chill without slamming my face into it. ;-)
My favorite baking memory is when I used to bake Christmas cookies with my Grandma as a kid. This year, with her Alzheimer’s advancing, I have to teach her how to bake them again.
My favorite baking memory is with my grandma (my mom’s mom). We would make Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookies and I’d be so excited to try the dough, my favorite part. I would stand on a chair and help her as she mixed the dough by hand in a bowl inside the sink so she wouldn’t make a mess all over the counter. Or maybe it was so I wouldn’t make a mess all over the counter by “helping”. Ha! She’d bake the cookies and then freeze some of them away for the next time my brother and I visited. You can be sure my bro and I made a beeline for the freezer the next time we stopped by.
I love your story of possible crunchy cookies from egg shells. Hilarious but such a sweet memory. I enjoyed making cookies with my mom and as you, of course stole handfuls of chocolate chips when no one was looking. I’d wait eagerly for the mixing to be done so I could lick the beaters, spoons and bowl clean. But in our house, it sometimes took days to empty out the bowl of dough… I helped it along by sneaking spoonfuls of dough as a walk by snack. ;) BTW pumpkin and chocolate just go together! :)
My mom delighted in making her yearly fruit cake. Fruit cake, which so many people love to dislike. My mom’s fruitcake turned everyone around – it is terrific. So, she made a huge batch every holiday season – and I helped to varying degrees. It was (and is) a blast to make. The recipe makes a huge quantity, thus one starts by mixing the dry fruits and nuts in a turkey roasting pan. A big one. We used to make as much of the dried fruit ourselves from our fruit trees, so many of the fruits were not candied with sugar, just by the sun. After we mixed the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl you combine it all in the roasting pan – it barely fits. By hand. What a wonderful, visceral experience – kneading and squeezing and mixing all those fabulous ingredients together. Then the messy experience of trying to use your hands to stuff the dough into all those pans – someone helping you scrap it off of you. The ovens would be stuffed full of all sizes of pans in hot water – scary! Of course, the finished product is delicious and always coveted by the lucky people on our list. I still have to limit my requests every year.
It is one of the fondest memories I have of my mom, I made it with her until she was well into her eighties, my kids, husband and brothers helping at various times. My husband, brother and kids still help me every year – everyone wants to be the mixer. I hope it never ends. Thanks for bringing up that memory. You made my day.
My favorite baking memories are from Christmas time when I was a kid. My mom would bake every so often throughout the year, but at Christmas we pulled out all the “classic” recipes-Peanut Butter Blossoms, Russian teacakes, Pecan Tassies, PB Cup cookies, cut out sugar cookies, etc. I loved getting to help in any way she would let me, from unwrapping the candies to measuring/mixing when I got older. Now that I’m an adult, I find myself wanting to start the Christmas cookie baking earlier each year, and although I have added new cookies to the rotation (so many awesome recipes out there now with blogs!) I always make some of the “classics”
What a gorgeous cookie! And Mixer. And of course shopping spree. This is like the best post ever :) My favorite baking memory is helping my mom make cookies on the weekends. We would look through cookbooks and pick one recipe that looked delicious and new!
My mom does not generally enjoy cooking, so I don’t have a ton of memories cooking or baking with her. But I do remember when she would make homemade chocolate chip cookies. I would volunteer to help with as many steps as possible, all the while hoping and praying that she would let me lick the beaters before she put the cookies in the oven to bake. She would also usually let me eat one cookie fresh and hot from the oven before letting the rest cool and putting them away. Those days were the best. :)
My favorite cooking memory is making stuffing with my mom (we still do this, except now it’s more of me making stuffing and her making sure I’m not forgetting anything). There’s no recipe, just a list of ingredients so we have to add spices and things by smell, sight and taste. Part of the reason this is my favorite memory is because it happens every year – from the time I could sit up on my own I was sitting on the counter pulling bread apart into the stuffing (we use bread pieces instead of bread crumbs). As I got older I became more and more interested in making the stuffing, and in the past few years my mom has passed on the making of the stuffing to me – I still make it at her house, in her kitchen, with her helping…that’s half the fun of it!