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
Hello Sally,
I wanted to know if I could add a 1/4 teaspoon of Pumpkin Pie spice to the cinnamon sugar coating for the snickerdoodle cookies would that work/taste good?
Hi Jessica, definitely! That would be delicious.
Love these, I browned the butter, used dark brown sugar, and instead of cinnamon and sugar for the coating I used sugar mixed with pumkin spice….delicious
★★★★★
Turned out wonderfully!
★★★★★
LOVE the combination of flavors! My only problem is that my husband keeps sneaking bites of dough while it chills!
★★★★★
Just made these for the 2nd time the first time I didn’t squeeze out any of the moisture of the pumpkin and although they were still amazing they didn’t flatten out too much and they were cakey. Just made them again following the patting out of the moisture and omg they came out 10 times better super crispy on my edges and soft in the middle. I love this recipe!!!
★★★★★
Easy recipe and full of flavor!
Tried them without while chocolate chips– they DEFINITELY need them because they are much better with them.
Not my favorite recipe- maybe added too much pumpkin spice- but very enjoyable and festive cookie for Fall.
★★★★
Made those today following your metric measurements (with German 550 flour and self-made pumpkin puree from oven-roasted pumpkin) and they turned out perfect. Will definitely make those soon again!
★★★★★
If you live in a higher elevation, make sure to add plenty more flour. I’m at 5,000 feet and these turned out horribly as is. More so than normal if I forget to add more flour.
★★
So tasty and easy to make! Great cookie for fall 🙂
★★★★★
These are the yummiest cookies! I love them in the fall and all year around too. My husband who claims he doesn’t like “pumpkin things” loves these and requests them all the time! 5 stars.
★★★★★
Wonderful texture! Soft, chewy, and so flavorful! Perfect for Thanksgiving!
★★★★★
These look fantastic! If I wanted to make these into a bar cookie what size pan would work best and how long would I bake it for?
Hi Rachael! I recommend an 8 or 9-inch square baking pan. Start with 20 minutes and keep an eye on them until the edges are lightly browned!
I made these for our senior lunch program and they were a HUGE hit! Thanks for a great recipe.
★★★★★
My husband’s FAVORITE cookie. These and your apple cider donuts are my favorite things about fall.
★★★★★
My adult daughter and I made these together for the first time last month. They were really easy and absolutely amazing! Im glad we made a double batch! Thanks so much for including the gram wts. It’s so much easier to measure the ingredients that way! Especially weighing out the pumpkin vs Tablespoons! I’ve been asked to bring them to our family Halloween party and for Thanksgiving too! Every recipe I have tried has been excellent, from chicken to scones, pumpkin Bundt cake, cornbread, ham and cheese pockets, soft pretzels! Every one is a winner! Thanks for being consistently excellent!
★★★★★
I made these cookies the other day and they were AMAZING! Definitely a good fall cookie
★★★★★
These taste amazing!! My only problem is with the directions. I’m not sure if I made my cookies too thick but they were quite normally sized and it took much longer than 10 minutes to cook them thoroughly. Otherwise these are great!!!
★★★★
Would anything need to be adjusted if you omit the white chocolate chips? Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE white chocolate… just want a slightly simpler cookie 🙂
I made these today to give to family/friends and they are absolutely amazing! I will be making the pumpkin chocolate chip recipe tomorrow to add to the batch.
Hi Sally! I love all of your recipes! Last night, I made these pumpkin snickerdoodles and my husband and I both found them quite cakey! When I baked them for 10 minutes, I felt like they needed a bit more time in the oven as they were still too soft (I baked them for a total of 13 minutes and let them cool for 10-15). Anything I can do differently to get a chewier texture next time?
Hi Michelle! The cookies will be soft regardless, but we want them to be a little more chewy than cakey. So I recommend blotting the pumpkin with a paper towel before adding to the cookie dough. This will remove some moisture so all you get is that delicious pumpkin flavor.
Loved this recipe but despite significant blotting with a couple of rounds of paper towels my cookies are still more cakey than chewy.
Any other recommendations?
★★★★
Hi Laura, they’re going to be soft cookies and that’s just the nature of pumpkin. (Just not as cakey as, say, a muffin.) My recommendation would be to add a little more melted butter next time, perhaps 2 extra Tbsp.
These are SO delicious but I tried freezing the cookie dough balls and am having difficulty getting those to turn out as well? I’ve cooked them from frozen for 11 min and then also tried thawing for an hour and cooking but either way they just seem mushier and not cooked through. Any other tips!?
Hi Rachel, It sounds like you might just need to add an extra minute or two to your bake time – try checking them after 12-13 minutes instead of 11. You can also bake the cookies and then freeze them if you have better luck that way!
My 10 year old son followed the recipe and had an amazing turn out! Great instructions and they taste great. I was concerned with it not having egg but they turned out light and fluffy.
★★★★★
I live in Kore and I have never in my life, tried a snickerdoodle. I wonder what it tastes like because everybody says they are delicious. I can’t decide what to make! Your white chocolate pumpkin snickerdoodle( perfect for fall) or plain snickerdoodles because I’ve never tried one and want to taste the original.
Thanks
Sounds like you might need to make both! 😉
Hi Helen! Cream of tartar is usually used in traditional snickerdoodles– helps with leavening and adds a little tang. It’s not necessary in this pumpkin variation though.
Haha – yes, SO good on day 2! 🙂