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.
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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.
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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!
My favorite baking experience was baking cookies with my children for the first time.
my most memorable baking memory has got to be during thanksgiving me and my mom bake a pumpkin pie cake semi homemade with toasted walnuts its absolutely delicious : )
I love cooking with my mom every Christmas. We both do the desserts and even if I do the same cake she always does, I always feel like hers is the best. No one can come close to my mom’s baking!
I love the holidays and being in the kitchen with my Mother. She always bakes from scratch and I am her helper. Licking the bowl after the batter is poured into the cake pan is still a treat aft many, many years. I do the same with my daughters now!
I can remember my first time using that little easy bake oven and my first cake I baked. I was so proud. Those little cakes were a work of art. I laugh now but back then it was a real accomplishment.
My grand daughter getting her hands gooey with cookie dough
My favorite baking memory is with my dear Aunt Joy, whom I was named after. From about the age of 6 we would make homemade white bread together. She taught me how to knead and wait patiently for the bread to rise twice. Lots of life lessons from just making bread. My Aunt Joy lived to be 93 and we cherished that memory.
My favorite baking memories is of making 7-layer cookies with my aunt, Pam. We would improvise, sometimes adding bits o’ brickle, sometimes leaving out the coconut. I spent a month with her one summer and we always had these cookies on hand. So fun and easy to make- both the cookies and the memories :)
My favorite baking memories are always from Christmas when Mom would spread a big bedsheet on the floor under the table and Daddy would mix up the Tarrelli dough and all six of us would stand around the table making shapes – until we filled up a cookie sheet and mom started having to bake the cookies. Then they let me make the glaze since I was the oldest and I’d glaze the cookies and we’d all sprinkle the colorful little balls on our own pans of cookies. Then Mom would get shoe boxes she had saved out and would line them with foil, then with waxed paper and we’d fill the boxes up to mail to our relatives across the country. Then on the few Christmases we were able to spend with the whole family we’d have a dozen or more people gathered around a big kitchen table in whoever’s house we had all gathered at. We’d make shapes, and braids, and laugh and tell stories of Christmases past and share family memories. It’s a tradition I’m continuing with my two little ones… and each year we do cookies by ourselves I get homesick for the rest of my big extended family.
My mom STILL has her ’70s split pea green kitchenaid mixer, and I still use it every Christmas with my niece ‘helping’ me mix dough. My parents allowed me free reign of the kitchen at a very young age (which horrifies me a bit now) and some of my best memories are making brownies, cakes and cookies with my friends who were sleeping over. One particular time I remember, my friend Em and I were trying to make a chocolate souffle from a box mix. I’m pretty sure neither of us even knew what a souffle was, but we thought we could follow the directions and make it with little difficulty. For some reason I had to leave the kitchen just before the final steps and when I came back Em already had it in the oven. When the timer went off, we pulled out a soupy mess and I noticed there was no extra pan for the “water bath” the recipe called for. When I asked Em, she told me she thought it meant to pour water directly on top of the souffle, and when I gave her a funny look she responded with “What? I’m ten! How am I supposed to know what a water bath is?” Thanks so much for the great blog and the wonderful fall recipes!
My granddaughter and I baked browies
This is such an amazing giveaway, and these cookies look so chewy and delicious!
I think one of my favorite baking memories was when I was younger and made Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies with my grandpa. That recipe was his specialty thing and I remember him telling me that we had to “test to see if the chocolate chips were still good” multiple times during the cookie prep period. And he would NEVER let you waste any batter; it all had to get out of the bowl and onto the cookie sheet. :)
Good lessons to live by, I think.
I’m PA Dutch and one of our traditions is to make and eat “Faustnacht” Doughnuts on the day before Ash Wednesday (meaning the night before the fast). It was a snowy winter day and I had to walk up a hill to school. I kept slipping backwards and could not make it up the hill ( I was 7 at the time), so I headed back to my Grandmothers. She was already working on the doughnuts since you need to start by boiling and mashing potatoes. There was no one to take me to school so I got to spend the day with her learning how dough rises and getting to help make the doughnuts. With the leftover she allowed me to make a “Donut man” like a gingerbread man but about 5 times the size. I can still smell the dough drying and see the fogged windows of that February morning in my mind’s eye more than 45 years later.
I have very, very fond memories of baking gingerbread cookies with my mom at Christmastime. We did this when I was still in grade school, so I’d have been between 5-9. We’d make the dough from scratch and then it had to refrigerate for a few hours. Waiting was TORTURE!!! Then we’d get her plastic mat out, sprinkle flour on it, and roll the dough out with her wooden rolling pin. After that task was completed, it was FINALLY time to cut out the cookies with her metal cookie cutters. My favorite cookies were the star-shaped ones, but it was also fun to make the gingerbread people.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane!!!
Chocolate and pumpkin? How can you go wrong. A nice fall twist on chococlate chip cookies.
One of my favorite baking memories was recusing my mother’s butterscotch bundt cake. shortly after moving to a rural upstate NY community, her friends, “the girls” form New York city were coming to visit. They did ot think much of my mother’s move and were quite condescending. she prepated an elegant meal, including lobster mewburg and the aforementioned from scratch cake. although normally, she let me domost of the cake measuring and mixing and licking the bowls, this time, I got to watch and bring her ingredients. To her dismay, the cake crumbled. she was devestated until I suggested caling it pudding, whipping up some cream and a butterscotch sauce and topping it with a cherry. It was a hit and even years later, they still raved about it.
There are many, but one of my favorite baking memories was getting to make cupcakes with my grandma when I little. It was on one of our summer vacation trips to visit her and my grandpa. When she asked if I wanted to make them I was so excited and I was looking forward to it until the time came to start [which seemed like forever :) ]. It was a fun and special time with just her and me.