On Snickerdoodles

PUMPKIN snickerdoodles, that is.

Happy Friday! This is the weekly recipe post for paid subscribers that features some really ancient food photography. On Tuesday, all readers will receive a post on chocolate chips and why I hate them. Next Friday, paid subscribers will receive a recipe for the pumpkin donuts, which is another great way to bake with pumpkin that isn’t pumpkin pie. There is a hard stop ahead, which sucks, but hey: it’s this or endless ads on a website, so here we are!

I'm not a pumpkin lover. I've been known to call pumpkin pie the worst dessert in the world (more on that in November), and I'm more than a little repulsed by pumpkin spice lattes. But something about these pumpkin snickerdoodle cookies makes me pause and reconsider.

So here’s the origin story: I was fiddling around with a fall snickerdoodle recipe a few years ago, riffing on recipes by the ever lovely Stella Parks and Chicago cookie celebrity Mindy Segal. Trying to get the balance right, I threw in a few tablespoons of canned pumpkin that I had laying around in my fridge. The cookie turned out perfectly, irresistibly delicious. I was at a loss. Something pumpkin flavored that I enjoyed? Unthinkable.

I made them again and again, trying and failing to disprove my theory. These cookies have turned me into a pumpkin lover. They scream snickerdoodles: soft and chewy on the inside with a slight pumpkin flavor and crispy on the outside from a cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, and allspice sugar coating. If you’re looking for a pumpkin cookie recipe, stop looking and make these instead. If you’re not looking for a pumpkin cookie recipe, you’ve found a good one, so you might as well lean in.

A word of advice: take the time to scoop out the cookies using a cookie or an ice cream scoop. You know I hate giving hard and fast rules at the risk of preventing you from getting into the kitchen and cooking, but this dough is extremely difficult to work with without one. Additionally, when you’re working with snickerdoodle cookies specifically, it’s essential make sure they're evenly sized so they rise the right way. They'll get a little misshapen as you roll them in the cinnamon sugar mixture, but they'll firm up again when you chill them (another non-negotiable, I am sorry to report!).

Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies