Pumpkin Black and White Cookies

Yet another pumpkin recipe.

I love pumpkin in cookies, breads, blondies, whoopie pies, regular pies (stay tuned, we'll be making pumpkin pie from real pumpkins later this week!), ice cream, granola, everything. It adds flavor, moisture, and rich density. Baked goods with pumpkin feel velvety.

These cookies are delightful. They're like little cakes, beautifully decorated. It doesn't take much effort to make half cinnamon/half chocolate glaze, but the visual effect is impressive, especially against the orange of the pumpkin cookie.

P.S. I think the "holes" in the cinnamon glaze are from them sitting overnight while I waited for the sun to come out the next day to take pictures...they didn't look like this yesterday, but they still taste amazing!

Individually wrapping them takes a while, but it makes them easy to transport, share, and store. Look at this basket full of cookies!

The batter has no butter, just oil, and comes together easily with two bowls, a whisk, and a spatula. The hardest part about this recipe is waiting for the cookies to cool to glaze them, but even that takes much less time than, say, a cake!

The cookies, pre-decoration

The dough/batter is then dolloped on the baking sheet by the tablespoonful--the cookies are not meant to by 5 inches around like some black and white cookies, although you could certainly make them bigger if that's your style--and gently smoothed down to a roughly circular shape.

They don't need to be perfect circles to be perfect. 

Pumpkin Black and White Cookies

Yield: about 5 dozen 2-inch cookies

Ingredients:

• Cookies:
• 2 cups (10 ounces) AP Flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup (5 ounces) granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Cinnamon glaze:
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• water to thin
• Chocolate glaze:
• 4 ounces (2/3 cup) semisweet chocolate (bar or chips)
• 3 tablespoons butter
• pinch salt
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silpats or lightly pam-ed foil and set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk dry ingredients for cookies. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whisk eggs and sugar until well incorporated and slightly pale (about 2 mins by hand). Add pumpkin and vanilla and whisk until completely incorporated.
4. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and fold together with a spatula until no dry flour bits or streaks of pumpkin remain.
5. Dollop tablespoonfuls of batter onto baking sheets, keeping about 2 inches between each cookie. Spread the batter slightly with the back of a spoon or butter knife to create a 2-inch circle.
6. Bake cookies for about 12 minutes, or until a test toothpick inserted diagonally through the center comes out clean.
7. Cool on baking sheets 10 minutes, then remove to racks to finish cooling.
8. Meanwhile, make the cinnamon glaze: combine all ingredients, adding water a teaspoonful at a time until you reach the desired consistency (spreadable, thin enough to have a nice sheen but not so thin as to run off).
9. Make the chocolate glaze: melt the chocolate and butter over a double boiler or in the microwave (1 minute at a time on 1/2 power should do it), then stir in the salt and corn syrup.
10. When the cookies are cooled, glaze the bottoms, half with the cinnamon glaze and then half with the chocolate glaze. A butter knife works well for this. Let harden for a couple of hours before individually wrapping in squares of plastic wrap if desired.
11. Cookies keep at room temperature for 4 days, if they can last that long!

Recipe from the Joy the Baker Cookbook.