Nestle Old-Fashioned Soft Pumpkin Cookies

Just past Halloween. Not quite to Thanksgiving. It's the perfect time of year for pumpkin cookies! After all, they have all sorts of fall flavor - and they're not as spice-heavy as Christmas cookies.

Let me explain:

Before we go on: How great to do those tomatoes look?

Here are some images of the recipe (which can also be found here):

Note: If you didn't watch the video, I feel I should point out that I used Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour in these.

Can you see the gluten-free flour in there? 

Honestly - these are not hard to make!

I opted to make these in a bowl by hand, instead of getting out the mixer. It probably would have been equally as fast either way - and this way I didn't have to keep scraping down the sides and dealing with the gunk on the beater.

Dry ingredients went together, first:

Can you believe it? I think this is actually kind of an interesting dry ingredients photo!

 A quick whisking, and...

Yep. Boring, again.

In another bowl (in my case, a really nice, big pottery one), I creamed together the butter and sugar.

Okay. I won't lie - this step would have been easier with the mixer.

Now for the really wet ingredients - one of which really didn't want to come out of the corners of my measuring cup.

I'm not really sure what that looks like. Maybe a dual-star nebula of some kind? 

The one thing that will never be quite the same mixing by hand (instead of using an electric mixer) is the "blend until no lumps are left" idea. After a good mixing, this still had lumps of softened butter.

I wasn't quite sure if I was okay with that, so I switched over to a whisk, which did get it a little smoother, but not much:

Finally, the dry and the wet ingredients got to play together in the same bowl.

It feels a little weird adding it in in stages (that's usually something you do for cakes), but when you realize that you normally add flour "a cup at a time" this makes more sense.

One caution: as the batter gets thicker, it will want to stay on the inside of the whisk. Bashing the whisk against the side of the bowl will put inertia on your side and help you get it out of there. It may, however, also result in some "backsplash."

Not gonna lie - it smelled a lot better than it looked at this stage.

Finally, all of the flour mixture is in, and the batter/dough smooths out.

And, c'mon - is that color not exactly what you think of when you think of pumpkin?

I used my small scoop, and was able to get 2 dozen on each greased cookie sheet. If you do the "rounded tablespoon" called for in the recipe, you'd probably only want to put about 15 or so on here.

You may notice that one photo is missing from this set: the "in the oven" photo. I was good this week and didn't open the door to take any pictures! Aren't you proud of me?

I did use the recipe guidelines of the sides of the cookies being "firm" when they're done. There was a pretty significant change in the cookies when that happened, so it was worth testing with your fingers.

These do need to rest - twice. Once on the pan for a couple of minutes to finish setting up before being moved to a rack, and again on the rack until they're cool so that you can glaze them and the glaze won't just melt and run off.

Speaking of the glaze... The ingredient list for it is in the final step of the actual recipe. (Not a great way to do it, but... oh, well.)

Yes, I decided to add in some cinnamon (which isn't in the recipe). I just thought it would go better with the cookies than a plain sugar glaze.

I've never made a glaze using melted butter, so that was a new experience. It turned out well, and it stayed a little softer than most of my glazes usually do.

Due to the camera angle, that butter pan looks huge! In reality, it's only about 3 inches across - while the bowl is about 12 inches.

It's funny how you kind of forget how much color cinnamon and vanilla extract have in them. But 4 cups of pure white powdered sugar went beige/tan pretty fast when it all got mixed together.

Quick poll: Would a spoon or a straw be your preference when faced with a bowl like this? 

I don't have any great secret for how I glaze cookies like this. I just kind of drizzle the glaze off the spatula as I go back and forth. Sometimes that works better than others. (Check out the wrap-up video - and the eventual outtakes - for examples...)

I did double the recipe, but - still - I got a lot more cookies than I expected.

So, how did they taste - even with the gluten-free flour? Let's find out:

Oh, and if you want to see what happens when I get ahead of myself (or forget what I'm talking about, or get distracted by something shiny), I may have a treat for you in the coming weeks.

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Looking for something to fill the fall food void? Wondering what to bring as a side dish to the office Thanksgiving potluck? Trying to find the perfect food for a New Year's party? Let me know and I'll see what I can do!