Our Pumpkin Cookies with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting is an old family recipe that only gets better with age (and they taste just like pumpkin pie!)

Closeup on a stack of Pumpkin Cookies frosted with Cream Cheese Frosting, the top one with a bit taken out of it.

These Pumpkin Cookies with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting are cookies from Nancy and my childhood.  They are made with love from our mom’s decades-old recipe and taste like a bite of the Holidays.  Cake-y and pumpkin-y with a smear of sweet cream cheese frosting these are great Pumpkin Spice Cookies to make for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or especially a Christmas Cookie Exchange.

Collage image showing the steps for making the Pumpkin Spice Cookie dough.

Step1: In a mixer cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (approximately 3 minutes.)
Step 2: Add the eggs and pumpkin and mix for 3 more minutes.
Step 3: Add the baking powder, salt, and spices together and mix until combined.
Step 4: Add the flour, one cup at a time, and mix just until blended.

Baking Instructions

Collage image showing how to bake the cookies including an image showing how they look before going into the oven and after coming out of the oven.

Step 5:  At this point, you can add the nuts if you like. We did not.
Step 6: Drop a spoonful of the cookie batter (about 1.5 oz.) onto a cookie sheet and use a spoon to flatten it out a bit.  Bake in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for approximately 12 minutes.
Step 7: Here are the Pumpkin Spice Cookies straight out of the oven.  Super cake-y and pumpkin-y.  Mmmm … mmm … good. Allow the cookies to completely cool.

How to Make the Cream Cheese Frosting

Close on a white bowl filled with Homemade Cream Cheese Frosting sitting on a white surface in front of a stack of Pumpkin Cookies.

Step 8: You have a lot of yummy options for frosting these delicious Pumpkin Cookies.  You can use our homemade Cream Cheese Frosting with Cinnamon sprinkled on top (which is what we have done here.) You will find the recipe and detailed instructions on making this yummy Cream Cheese Frosting right here.

If you really love fall spices, you might want to try out our Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting where the Cinnamon is mixed in with the frosting.  Or if you are feeling REALLY adventurous why not try our Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting or our Caramel Frosting?

Frosting the Cookies

Collage image showing the steps for frosting the Pumpkin Spice Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting.

Steps 9-10: To frost the cookies, make a batch of our The Best Cream Cheese Frosting and frosted them using a knife.
Step 11: Finally, add a tiny sprinkling of cinnamon to the top of the Cream Cheese Frosting for a little extra “spice.”

Expert Tips and FAQ’s

Use Room Temperature Ingredients

Both the eggs and the butter should be at room temperature which will help your cookies turn out lighter and fluffier.  For the eggs, room temperature simply means not cold out of the refrigerator. If you forget to take the eggs out before you start making cookie dough you can put the eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5-10 minutes to warm them up.  The butter also needs to be softened to room temperature which means if you touch it you should leave an indentation on the stick of butter. Do not use butter that has been over-softened or melted.  If that happens you should use a different stick of butter or put it back into the refrigerator to let it set up.  We have a whole post about How to Soften Butter, click here if you need more information on how to do that.

Do you need to use a Mixer?

Yes. In our opinion, you need some kind of a mixer to make a good cookie dough. A stand mixer, while expensive, is a great investment if you believe you have a lot of homemade baked goods in your future. An electric hand-mixer also works well and you can probably find one for around $20. You can hand mix cookie dough in a pinch (which is how we did it growing up), but you will really have to use a lot of muscle to cream the butter and sugar, and eggs properly.

Cookie Dough Mixing Tips

Creaming the butter, sugar and then mixing the eggs in is the most important part of the cookie dough mixing process. Creaming is when you fully incorporate the butter and sugar together and add some much needed air to the dough. We recommend creaming the butter and sugar for 2 minutes on medium-high speed and then mixing the butter/sugar/eggs for another 3 minutes at the same speed. Once you add the flour, you want to mix the dough as little as possible. Mix it too much and you will get tough cookies. Mix in the flour on low speed and continue mixing ONLY until the dry ingredients are incorporated into the dough. Make sure you scrape down the sides and the bottom to make sure all the flour has gotten mixed in.

Prepping the Cookie Sheet

We always line our cookie sheets with a piece of parchment paper, it keeps the cookie from sticking to the sheet and from over-browning. You can find parchment paper either in rolls or in pre-cut sheets in most grocery stores, and we highly recommend it. Ideally, you should use at least 2 cookie sheets when baking cookies. You don’t want to add the raw cookie dough to a cookie sheet that is hot out of the oven. The dough will start baking even before you get it in the oven.

Oven Tips

Everyone’s oven is different. We recommend starting with a test bake with a single cookie to help you hone in on the exact baking time for your oven. You should set your timer for 2 minutes less than whatever the recipe recommends. Once the timer goes off, open up the oven and see how your cookie is baking. Make corrections accordingly. Our oven has a hot spot in the back so we always rotate the cookie sheet halfway through the baking time to get a more even bake. Although this may seem like an unnecessary step, it is better to do this than burn a whole tray of cookies.

Storage/Freezing Tips

These Pumpkin Cookies should be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator because of the Cream Cheese Frosting. Take them out about an hour before you serve them. We usually add a layer of parchment paper between each row of cookies in our plastic container to protect the Cream Cheese Frosting.

Closeup on a stack of Pumpkin Cookies with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting sitting on a white surface in front of a display of Pumpkins.

Did you Make This Recipe? Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @twosisterscrafting on Instagram so we can see it!

And don’t forget to follow us on PinterestFacebook, and Instagram!

Pumpkin Cookies with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Yield 3 dozen cookies
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes

Our Pumpkin Cookies with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting is an old family recipe that only gets better with age (and they taste just like pumpkin pie!)

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup Butter (Sweet Cream Salted)
  • 1 cup Granulated Sugar
  • 1 cup Canned Pumpkin
  • 2 Large Eggs
  • 4 teaspoons Baking Powder
  • 1 teaspoon Salt
  • 2 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon Ginger
  • 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
  • 1 Cup Chopped Walnuts or Pecans (optional)
  • 1 batch of The Best Cream Cheese Frosting

Instructions

Pumpkin Spice Cookies:

  1. In a mixer cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
  2. Add eggs and pumpkin and mix well.
  3. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and spices together and fold into cookie batter.
  4. Mix until well blended.
  5. Drop a spoonful of the cookie batter onto a cookie sheet and flatten slightly with a spoon.
  6. Bake in a 350 degree oven for approximately 12 minutes.
  7. Allow to cool.
  8. Frost with The Best Cream Cheese Frosting or Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting.
  9. Sprinkle cinnamon over the frosting.

Did you Make this Recipe? Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @twosisterscrafting on Instagram so we can see it!