Frosted Pumpkin Cookies
By: Meg B
Published: Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - 7:30pm

Ingredients




Cookie Ingredients (makes 24-26 cookies):

1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons blackstrap molasses
1 teaspoon plus 3 drops vanilla extract
3/4 cup plus 1 TB pumpkin puree
2 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon Ener-G egg replacer
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 1/2 tablespoons vanilla soy milk
Frosting Ingredients:

4 tablespoons Earth Balance Margarine, room temperature
2 ounces reduced fat cream cheese (¼ of an 8 oz. package), room temperature
2 cups to 2 & ½  powdered sugar
1 teaspoon plus 4 drops vanilla extract

Preparation

1 Cookie Method: 2 Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper (or just cook one sheet at a time). 3 Cream together shortening and sugar in stand mixer. 4 Beat in molasses and vanilla until well combined. 5 Blend in the pumpkin puree. The shortening will likely still leave tiny chunks and that is okay. 6 Mix the rest of the ingredients together in a bowl, then slowly add it to the pumpkin mixture. Beat until well combined and pretty stiff. 7 Scoop out onto cookie sheets at least an inch or so apart. Wet your fingers with a little water, then press the cookies down to about 1/2 inch thickness. This helps keep them from getting too tall. 8 Bake on middle rack about 12 minutes, but possibly longer. Use a toothpick to check the doneness. As soon as you remove them from the oven, slide the cookies onto a cooling rack to stop them from cooking more or getting crunchy on the bottom. 9 Frosting Method: 10 Blend all ingredients together until nice and smooth. If it isn't thick enough, add more powdered sugar a few TB at a time until you reach a thick, yet smooth consistency. 11 Wait until the cookies are nice and cooled before frosting otherwise the frosting will melt and drip off the cookies. Let frosted cookies sit uncovered for about 30 minutes to help the frosting set. Then cover with plastic wrap to keep the cookies moist.

About


Hints:
    *  You can use fresh pumpkin puree, but I just bought a can of organic pumpkin puree. Be sure to check the label to make sure that pureed pumpkin is the sole ingredient. Some come spiced for pumpkin pies.
    * Taste the cookie batter to see if you want to add more spices before you bake them.
    * Use a stand mixer if you have one because the cookie dough gets very dense and becomes hard to stir by hand.
    * If you decide to make whoopie pies, be sure to flatten the dough on the cookie sheet really well because this batter makes for poofy cookies.
    * I used some vegan ingredients that may not be on your shelves, like Earth Balance margarine, Ener-G Egg Replacer, and Silk vanilla soy milk, but you can just replace these with your favorite brand of butter or margarine, 1 egg, and plain milk of your choice. I am just writing exactly what I used in the cookies and frosting.
    * You could make other flavors of frosting by adding extracts other than vanilla, but the vanilla goes great with these cookies.
    * I used a 1 & 1/2 TB cookie dough scooper