Our melt-in-your-mouth pumpkin cookies are soft, pillowy, and piled with delicious frosting. Add a sprinkle of cinnamon and you truly have the best soft pumpkin cookies recipe ever!
Soft Pumpkin Cookies
I love pumpkin treats during the fall season, and you can’t beat these easy pumpkin spice cookies.
These cookies bake up with a cake-like texture.
They have just the right amount of pumpkin flavor, and honestly, it’s difficult to keep these amazing soft pumpkin cookies on hand after I’ve made a batch.
My dad really loves soft pumpkin cookies and he usually makes oodles of them from store-bought mixes, so when I saw this recipe for pumpkin cookies in an old holiday issue of Better Homes and Gardens, I knew I wanted to give it a whirl.
These cookies really lived up to their name!
The pumpkin flavor in these cookies is sweet and delicious, and yes, these pumpkin cookies are so soft that they really do sort of melt in your mouth.
One really just isn’t enough!
What could be better than a yummy pumpkin cookie, you ask? Well, a yummy FROSTED pumpkin cookie, of course!
How to Make Pumpkin Cookies
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl beat the 2 cups of butter with an electric mixer on medium speed for 30 seconds.
Add granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, the 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and the nutmeg.
Beat until combined. Then, beat in the eggs and 2 teaspoons of vanilla until combined. After that, beat in pumpkin. Finally, beat in as much of the four as you can with the mixer. Stir in remaining flour with a wooden spoon.
Drop dough by heaping teaspoons 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until tops are set. Transfer to wire racks to cool.
For frosting, in a small saucepan heat the 1/2 cup butter and brown sugar until melted and smooth. Transfer to a medium bowl.
Stir in milk and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Beat in powdered sugar until smooth. Spread frosting on cookies. Sprinkle with additional cinnamon if desired.
Don’t forget, we publish the full recipe with specific directions in the recipe card below!
Our Tips
- This recipe makes a LOT of cookies. About 60! It’s great for the holidays when you’re expecting friends and family.
- You really don’t have to use the frosting because the cookies are great on their own, but, who skips frosting?
- I will say that the recipe for the frosting in the magazine did not end up matching the photos featured in the article. I think the recipe was probably printed wrong because I ended up having to add MUCH more powdered sugar to the frosting to produce a more firm, spreadable icing.
If you’re like me, your family will eat most of these pumpkin cookies in a couple days and you can share any excess with your friends or co-workers.
Sprinkle the tops of these luscious melt-in-your-mouth pumpkin cookies and you have a really beautiful holiday cookie that everyone in your family will absolutely adore.
If you’re a pumpkin fiend like me, you’ll also definitely want to check out my pumpkin donuts and pumpkin crunch cake recipes! They are also huge hits with my family!
- Pumpkin Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
- Pumpkin Cupcakes
- Pumpkin Sheet Cake
- Fantasy Fudge
- Maple Walnut Fudge
Melt-In-Your-Mouth Pumpkin Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
Cookies
- 2 cups butter softened
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 15- ounce can pumpkin
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
Frosting
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3 to 4 cups powdered sugar add until desired consistency/firmness
- ground cinnamon sprinkled on top optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl beat the 2 cups of butter with an electric mixer on medium speed for 30 seconds. Add granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, the 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and the nutmeg. Beat until combined. Beat in the eggs and 2 teaspoons of vanilla until combined. Beat in pumpkin. Beat in as much of the four as you can with the mixer. Stir in remaining flour with a wooden spoon.
- Drop dough by heaping teaspoons 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until tops are set. Transfer to wire racks to cool.
- For frosting, in a small saucepan heat the 1/2 cup butter and brown sugar until melted and smooth. Transfer to a medium bowl. Stir in milk and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Beat in powdered sugar until smooth. Spread frosting on cookies. Sprinkle with additional cinnamon if desired.
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These cookies are AMAZING!!! One of my new favorite recipes!!
Can I add chocolate chips to this recipe ? Thank you
I’ve never tried it, but, it should be okay. Let us know how it turns out! :)
I add the Ghiradelli 60% choc chips…they are an excellent addition. This makes enough you could do some as is and some with choc. chips :)
This is the question I came looking for! How did it turn out with chocolate chips??
How did they turn out Iris?
It turned out great, i did not measure how much i put , eye ball it ?
2 cups of butter? I want to make sure I’m reading that right before I try these. It seems like a lot of butter but I’m ok with it as long as it’s correct. Lol Thank you
Hey Tori, that’s right. It makes a lot of cookies! :)
These cookies are heavenly delicious!!! I took a big batch to work and the cookies were gone in a matter of minutes..lol. Thanks for sharing your recipe ?
Hi! What’s an easy way to store these? Does the frosting harden up enough to be able to stack them?
Just curious what kind of butter you use for this. Salted or unsalted? Thank you.
hi how far ahead can these be made? I have baked the cookies and need them in two days, Should I freeze them? Should I frost them before freezing?
Eh…these tasted good, but did not come out the way I wanted it to…my cookies are as flat as pancakes :(
I’m not sure what went wrong. I microwaved my butter to be softer, mixed it, then put all the dry ingredients inside. I accidentally put the pumpkin in last after putting flour inside.
I spent hours steaming a giant pumpkin leftover from Halloween and feel disappointed these cookies weren’t what I was looking for…
I’m wondering if my pumpkin puree was too watery or something….I just feel utterly disappointed I screwed these up.
Hi Spence, since these cookies were developed using canned pumpkin, I’m guessing the results could absolutely be related to the water content in your fresh steamed pumpkin. We’ve had so many great reviews of these cookies I do feel like you might have went wrong somewhere. I know what it’s like to spend a lot of time on a recipe only to have it fall flat, totally been there. Hope you’ll try them again following the recipe sometime! Thanks for commenting!
Did you strain your pumpkin puree through a cheese cloth after you blended it? If you didnt, then your puree was to watery for the cookies.
It could probably be that you microwaved the butter. The butter needs to be at room temperature (Soften) :) I’ve tried microwaving butter to make my process way fast and its a huge fail :/
These cookies are dangerously addictive! The recipe makes a lot of cookies so I brought half of them into work and everyone loved them! They’re so soft…heavenly. Thanks to these cookies my “diet” is ruined…but it’s kinda worth it. 10/10. Amazing. Definitely planning on making these again and again this fall and winter!
Thank you so much! My 3-year old daughter devoured these! With or without the frosting! So delicious ?
Sooooo delicious!