These pumpkin snickerdoodles are everything you love about snickerdoodles and pumpkin pie in one. I love the sweet flavor and creamy texture that the white chocolate chips add, but feel free to leave them out. Adapted from my pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, this cookie dough comes together without an egg and the cookies have a wonderfully chewy texture.
I originally published this recipe in 2014. Have you ever tried them before?
If the end of summer has a silver lining, it’s that September marks the start of the Fall Baking Season. And when the weather begins to cool down, I always enjoy baking a batch of seasonal cookies. We have plenty of recipes to choose from and I have even more in my cookie cookbook!
My brown butter pumpkin oatmeal cookies are one of my favorites because they’re made with ultra-flavorful brown butter. (An over-the-top cookie, try them ASAP!) Then there’s my regular pumpkin cookies, which are similar to cakey muffin tops. They’re definitely delicious, but sometimes you crave a pumpkin cookie that has the same dense & chewy texture as a regular chocolate chip cookie. That’s where my beloved chewy pumpkin chocolate chip cookies come in. Today’s pumpkin snickerdoodles are a variation of that recipe. So good and always a hit!
These Pumpkin Snickerdoodles Are:
- A reader-favorite recipe since 2014.
- Deliciously spiced—and you can use homemade pumpkin pie spice!
- Egg free. See all of my egg-free baking recipes.
- Excellent both with and without white chocolate chips.
- Pretty quick—only 30 minutes of refrigerator chill time.
- One of my favorite recipes to make with leftover pumpkin puree.
My best advice: Make a double batch, because these disappear quickly!
Before You Begin, Blot the Pumpkin
This is actually optional, but I find it remarkably useful when I make brown butter pumpkin oatmeal cookies and soft pumpkin cookies.
Pumpkin is approximately 90% water by mass, which isn’t really useful in a chewy cookie recipe. (Think about it—there isn’t usually liquid in a chocolate chip cookie recipe, is there?) Using a paper towel, blot out some of the pumpkin’s moisture, so all that’s left is the flavor:
Here Are All of My Success Tips
- Skip the egg: What is the purpose of eggs in a cookie recipe? They bind ingredients together, tenderize the texture, and leave behind moisture. After some experimenting, I cut out the egg completely because pumpkin can replace it. If you’re in need of other egg-free cookie recipes, check out my shortbread recipe.
- Use both baking powder AND baking soda: To ensure these pumpkin snickerdoodles rise and hold their shape, use both and make sure they’re fresh. I replace them every 3 months because I find they lose their strength not much longer after that.
- Add plenty of spice: You can use store-bought or homemade pumpkin pie spice, plus extra cinnamon in the dough and more for the coating.
- Slightly flatten the balls before baking: The cookies won’t spread unless you give them a head-start. Slightly flatten the balls of dough before baking, as pictured below.
- Chill the cookie dough: Chilling the cookie dough helps guarantee the cookies don’t overspread. The dough only needs about 30 minutes in the refrigerator before shaping and baking. Pretty quick!
- Give it time: Let the pumpkin snickerdoodles cool on a cooling rack for a while. Like any cookie, they’re tasty warm from the oven, but I find their chewiness and flavor amplify over time. Sometimes I even leave them uncovered on the cooling rack overnight. The next day, they’re chewier and more flavorful. (Now the real test is if you can wait that long to dig in!)
These Step Photos Will Help:
While you can leave them out if desired, the white chocolate chips add texture and a deliciously sweet and creamy flavor. I love them both ways. Here is the cookie dough plain, and again with the white chocolate chips mixed in.
After 30 minutes of chilling, the cookie dough is a little more solid and sturdy and that’s because there’s butter in the dough. (Butter solidifies when it’s cold.) Use a medium cookie scoop to shape each ball of dough. You need 1.5 Tablespoons of dough per cookie:
Roll the dough balls in a cinnamon-sugar mixture, and then arrange on a lined baking sheet. Slightly flatten the cookie dough balls with the bottom of a spoon or cup:
Plain or White Chocolate Pumpkin Snickerdoodles
Considering the flavor, texture, and ease of this recipe—these pumpkin snickerdoodles are nothing short of a dream! Many readers bake them with white chocolate chips, but I love them plain. You could even swap the white chocolate chips for cinnamon chip morsels, a product by Hershey’s that you can usually find around the holidays.
P.S.: Because this recipe uses only 6 Tbsp of pumpkin puree, you may have extras to use up. Here are recipes to make with leftover pumpkin puree. Enjoy!
More Fall Baking Recipes
- Pumpkin Bars
- Maple Brown Sugar Cookies
- Pumpkin Donuts & Pumpkin Scones
- Apple Pie Bars
- Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Snickerdoodle Cake
Pumpkin Snickerdoodles
- Prep Time: 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes
- Yield: 18 cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These soft & chewy snickerdoodle cookies are full of pumpkin, white chocolate, and cinnamon sugar. Warning: they disappear quickly, so make a double batch!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (1 stick or 115g) unsalted butter, melted & slightly cooled
- 1/4 cup (50g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 6 Tablespoons (86g) pumpkin puree (see note)*
- 1 and 1/2 cups (188g) all-purpose flour (spoon & leveled)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice*
- optional: 1/2 cup (90g) white chocolate chips, plus a few extra for the tops
Coating
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together in a medium bowl until no brown sugar lumps remain. Whisk in the vanilla and blotted pumpkin until smooth. Set aside.
- Whisk the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice together in a large bowl. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together with a large spoon or rubber spatula. The dough will be very soft. Fold in 1/2 cup white chocolate chips, if using. The chips may not stick to the dough because of the melted butter, but do your best to combine.
- Cover the dough and chill for 30 minutes or up to 3 days. Chilling the dough is a must for this recipe.
- Remove dough from the refrigerator. Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- Shape & coat the cookie dough balls: Scoop the dough, about 1.5 Tablespoons of dough per cookie, and roll each into balls. Mix the coating ingredients together, and then roll each cookie dough ball generously in the cinnamon-sugar coating. Arrange cookie dough balls 3 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Using the back of a spoon or the bottom of a cup/measuring cup, slightly flatten the tops of the dough balls. (Without doing so, the cookies may not spread.)
- Bake for 11–12 minutes or until the edges appear set. The cookies will look very soft in the center. Remove from the oven. If you find that your cookies didn’t spread much at all, flatten them out gently with the back of a spoon when you take them out of the oven. If desired, press a few white chocolate chips into the tops of the warm cookies. This is only for looks.
- Cool cookies on the baking sheets for at least 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. The longer the cookies cool, the better they taste! The flavor gets stronger and the texture becomes chewier. I usually let them sit, uncovered, for several hours before serving. Chewiness and pumpkin flavor are even stronger on day 2.
- Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: You can make the cookie dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Allow to come to room temperature, then continue with step 4. Baked cookies freeze well up to 3 months. You can also freeze the cookie dough balls for up to 3 months before baking. It’s best to freeze them without the cinnamon-sugar coating. When you are ready to bake, remove the dough balls from the freezer, let sit for 30 minutes, preheat the oven, and then roll in the cinnamon-sugar topping. Here are my tips for how to freeze cookie dough.
- Pumpkin: Squeeze as much of the moisture out of the pumpkin puree as you can before adding it to the cookie dough. I simply squeeze the puree with paper towels. See photo in the post for a visual. This will help produce a less cakey cookie. Less moisture is a good thing here! Measure 6 Tablespoons AFTER the pumpkin has been squeezed/blotted. Do not use pumpkin pie filling.
- Pumpkin Pie Spice: You can find pumpkin pie spice in the baking aisle of most grocery stores or make your own homemade pumpkin pie spice. If you don’t have either and want to use individual spices, use 1/4 teaspoon each: ground ginger, ground nutmeg, ground cloves, and ground allspice. This is in addition to the 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon—you will still add that.
- Chilled Dough: If you are chilling the pumpkin cookie dough for longer than 30 minutes, the cookie dough will likely have to sit on the counter at room temperature for at least 15 minutes before scooping/rolling because it will be quite cold and solid. The amount of time it needs to sit at room temperature depends on how long the dough has chilled. If I chill my cookie dough for around 24 hours, I let it sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
- Bigger Batch: Cookie recipe can easily be doubled by doubling each ingredient. Chill the cookie dough for 45 minutes.
- White Chocolate Chips: Feel free to leave these out or replace with chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, or cinnamon chip morsels.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
Keywords: pumpkin snickerdoodles, white chocolate pumpkin snickerdoodles
I made a double batch of these for a CSA fall potluck yesterday, and they went over BIG! These are the BEST pumpkin cookies I have ever had. Two things I did tweak…didn’t have enough white chips, so I added a little coconut into the mix. Will definitely do THAT again! And I also cannot do nutmeg (my daughter has allergies), so I used a little ginger as the replacement. Thanks for a great chewy pumpkin cookie. Bravo!
Hi Sally!! These cookies look amazing (: Does it matter if the pumpkin purée is fresh or canned? I have a mini pumpkin at home and was wondering if I could use it to make these. Thanks!
Hi Ava – either canned or fresh pumpkin puree is just fine.
You’re right about these disappearing quickly! I made a batch a couple of days ago and they’re already gone! I’m making another batch tonight to send to my friends up north (where it actually feels like fall unlike here in Texas.) I can’t wait to make more of these once it gets cooler! Great recipe Sally 🙂
I made these cookies last night as a birthday gift to a friend (she is obsessed with pumpkin) i’m not huge on pumpkin flavors but these cookies were AMAZING. i brought the leftovers into work and everyone loved them. thx for the great recipe.
These are in the oven right now — my kitchen smells great on this rainy fall day. Had some mini cinnamon chips so I threw them in too. Thanks for the recipe — I will have some lucky co-workers tomorrow!
Phenomenal. My husband proclaimed them the best cookies ever, and he’s usually “meh” about pumpkin desserts. I took 2 dozen to work this morning…it’s 10am and they are all gone. WOW.
Oh, and GF flour worked just fine for me.
I just had to leave a comment saying THANK YOU for these cookies! They are, in a word, AMAZING. I’ve tried a few pumpkin cookie recipes, and none were as incredible as these. I only wish I had taken your advice and made a double batch the first time around! 😉 Will be making many more!
xo
I just made these and wow. just wow. haha (can you tell i love all things pumpkin… and baking) i have been searching for a pumpkin cookie recipe that doesn’t taste like cake and this is it. Thanks so much for sharing!
These are absolutely incredible! I made them for my family this afternoon… I’m pretty sure we’ve already eaten half. They are so light (but do not have a cake consistency) and filled with flavor. I am usually not a fan on pumpkin flavored foods, but these cookies are fantastic. This is definitely my go-to cookie for Fall now. Awesome recipe! Thanks!
Hi Sally,
I made these cookies last week…. These are AMAZING!!!! I’m in love with a cookie…. I have made your snickerdoodles (so good) and your pumpkin choc chip ones from last fall (sooo goood) BUT these are definitely the BEST!! The pumpkin & the white chocolate work SO well together & as if that wasn’t enough there’s a cinnamon & sugar coating!!! I can’t say enough good things about these cookies. I made mine slightly larger, 2 tbls each and baked for the full 10 minutes & they turned out PERFECT! Will be making these a lot! Thank you sooo much for the recipe…….:)
I substituted butterscotch chips for the white chocolate, and these were amazing! Thanks for sharing the recipe!
I’m not exactly sure what I did but mine were more cakey. Any suggestions. The flavor was amazing though
These were delicious. Perfect for getting into fall. They make your house smell absolutely amazing too.
Hey Sally! I made these a couple weeks ago and they were a HUGE hit! Instead of using 1/2 a cup of white chocolate chips, though, I used 1/4 cup and 1/4 cup of Kraft Caramel Bits… The result was a raging success!! I encourage you to try it!
Thanks!
just recently made these last night, brought a couple dozen to work today and they are almost gone! :O it’s pretty upsetting actually. This is the third cookie recipe I’ve made from your blog and have to say all three have turned out wonderful! thanks sally 🙂
These are the BEST pumpkin cookies I’ve ever had! No eggs definitely does the trick! I LOVE pumpkin but never really liked pumpkin cookies because they were alway too cakey. I took them to our small group last night and was told they were dangerous. 🙂 Thank you for coming up with the perfect pumpkin cookie!
I made these last night and just had to bring these to work. I teach preschool with all women. They were a huge hit! Three women I work with said they were actually the best cookies they had ever eaten! I absolutely loved them as well. I can’t wait to make them again! To anyone reading, I would recommend using actual white chocolate instead of white chocolate flavored morsels. In my opinion, it makes a big (delicious) difference. Thank you for this recipe!!!
Hello Sally! This is kind of a silly question but which cookies do you prefer and why- these Pumpkin Snickerdoodles or your Chewy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies? I don’t know which one I want to make and it’s either one or the other! Thanks…:)
Hi Angie – I don’t think I could choose! I love them both. The pumpkin chocolate chips are easier since you don’t have to roll each individual cookie into the cinnamon sugar mixture, which takes a few extra minutes.
I made these yesterday for a baby shower at work today, and need to stop looking at them on my desk, they’re so delicious, I’d eat all of them by myself If i could!!! I made a double batch, gave some to a friend and my mom then brought the rest in to work. I was so excited to share these! I ran out of cinnamon after I added it to the dry ingredients, but then a light-bulb went off “ah ha, use pumpkin pie spice with the sugar to roll them before baking” genius!!! So good and loved that my pregnant self could eat all the cookie dough I wanted without worrying about raw eggs! This one is a keeper!
These are delicious. My daughter said they are better than regular snickerdoodles.
These cookies are delicious!! I halved the granular sugar (used organic cane sugar), and would consider using a bit less on the outside of the cookies. Also used coconut oil instead of butter. My boyfriend has been RAVING about them all night 😀
I made these cookies for my roommates and myself last week and they were gone two minutes after taking them out of the oven! Soooooo delicious.
WOW that’s all I can say I made a double batch and they were gone just like that and not even a week later I am making a quad batch cause everyone wants some. ..these are amazing. Oh and BTW on the first double batch I only got 2. These are a definite make in my house every time. Thanks…
Hi Sally! First of all, I just want to say that I love all these great recipes that you perfect. This is the first time I have tried a cookie recipe of yours, and the cookies are AWESOME. They are sooo chewy, and they really do taste better on the second day! The only little thing I changed was that I added a little extra allspice and also added a little ground clove. The cookies came out great and I definitely encourage any skeptics to just try the recipe!
Hi Sally! I made these last night and they were delicious! Just the right amount of pumpkin flavor. I pushed the balls down with the back of a spoon before baking and they turned out perfect! Seriously, some of the prettiest cookies I’ve ever made. Thanks!
Love love love these cookies! So does my husband so much that he doesn’t want to share with anyone LOL!! By far best pumpkin cookie recipe I’ve seen! Thank you for sharing with us!
BEST COOKIES EVER!!! EVERYONE LOVED LOVED THEM. I usually don’t repeat a recipe but I will be making this one again ASAP. Love Love Love them, ya did it again Sally <3
Sally these are amazing! I love your blog! I think I have made just about every cookie recipe on your website and some of your breads and cakes ( I have made your lemon blueberry layer cake 3 times it is so delicious!) and this one might be the best. Like you, I love pumpkin and I thank you for sharing this and all your other wonderful recipes. They have definitely enriched my life 😀 Congratulations in advance on your upcoming marriage! I hope you have an incredible day and I wish you and Kevin all the happiness in the world. I can’t wait to see the pictures!
OH MY HEAVENS!!! I made these twice in 2 days, they were SUCH a big hit. I was told they were the best cookies they’ve ever had by a few people. Thank you for the best pumpkin cookie contribution to the world!
Wow!!! Made these a few days ago.. Unbelievable!!! Obviously I had to bring most of them to work so my boyfriend and I didn’t eat the whole batch.. (I’m sure you can relate!) my co-workers inhaled these in minutes! Another winning recipe, thanks Sally!!