Soft cut-out cookies with crisp edges, flavored with pumpkin pie spice and finished with a simple spiced icing. The dough holds its shape for clean cut-outs, so any Halloween or fall cutter works. Bake them for only a few minutes and ice them once cool.
Cut-out sugar cookies came to North America with German and Dutch settlers, who brought both their cookie traditions and their tin cutters. Pumpkin pie spice, a blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves, was packaged for home bakers to flavor pumpkin pie and has since spread to cookies, breads, and drinks. Here the spice sits in both the dough and the icing, so the pumpkin flavor comes from the seasoning rather than from puree, which keeps the dough firm enough to roll and cut.
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 to 3 cups (300 to 360 g) all-purpose flour, measured carefully
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 cup (227 g) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 3/4 cups (210 g) powdered sugar
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 2 tsp pumpkin spice extract
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Icing: 1 1/2 cups (180 g) powdered sugar
- Icing: 1/8 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- Icing: 2 tbsp (30 mL) warm water
- Icing: 1/2 tbsp (10 g) light corn syrup
- Icing: 1/8 tsp pumpkin spice extract
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, whisk together 2 1/2 cups of the flour, the baking powder, salt, pumpkin pie spice, and cinnamon, and set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream the butter and powdered sugar with a hand mixer, or in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- In a small bowl or measuring cup, beat the egg with the pumpkin spice extract and vanilla.
- Add the egg mixture to the creamed butter and beat on high until completely incorporated, scraping down the sides as needed.
- With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture a little at a time, letting the dough come together after each addition.
- Touch the dough, which should be slightly tacky but not sticky, like Play-Doh.
- If the dough is too sticky, add 2 to 4 tablespoons of flour at a time, up to 3 cups total and never more than 3 cups plus 2 tablespoons, because too much flour makes the cookies dense.
- Gather the dough into a ball and rest it for 10 minutes while you preheat the oven to 400°F (204°C).
- Lightly dust your work surface with powdered sugar and roll the dough to 1/4 inch thick.
- Cut shapes with cookie cutters, dipping the cutter in powdered sugar every few cuts to keep the edges clean.
- Place cookies of the same size and shape together on the baking sheet so they bake evenly, and re-roll the scraps until the dough is used up.
- Add sprinkles now, or leave the cookies plain and ice them later.
- Bake for 4 to 6 minutes, about 6 minutes for a 2-inch cookie and 4 for a 1-inch cookie, until slightly puffed and no longer shiny.
- Rest the cookies on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then move them to a wire rack to cool completely.
- For the icing, combine the powdered sugar and pumpkin pie spice in a medium bowl.
- In a small bowl, stir the warm water, corn syrup, and pumpkin spice extract until the corn syrup dissolves, then pour it into the powdered sugar and stir until smooth.
- The icing should be thick and drip slowly, disappearing back into the bowl in about 12 seconds, so add water a drop at a time if it is too thick or powdered sugar a teaspoon at a time if it is too thin.
- Ice the cookies right away, or cover the icing tightly and use it within a day, stirring again before you start.
Notes
- Rest time: 10 minutes. Undecorated cookies freeze for up to 3 months, but do not freeze decorated ones. Iced cookies keep in an airtight container at room temperature for over a week. No pumpkin spice extract? Use vanilla in its place, raise the pumpkin pie spice in the cookies to 1 1/4 tsp, the cinnamon to 1/2 tsp, and the icing spice to 1/4 tsp.
Decorate day-old cookies, which are sturdier. Pair with coffee or hot cider.
Featured DaTerra product:
Baking Sheet/Cookie Sheet Twin Pack
Cut-outs bake best on a flat, even sheet, and the twin pack lets one sheet cool while the other bakes.
More from our kitchen:
Pumpkin Challah Bread Pudding
Big-Batch Apple Crisp with Cinnamon-Nutmeg Oat Streusel
Dutch Apple Pancake
