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Celebrating autumn pumpkins with these easy Soft Pumpkin Sugar Cookies with Cinnamon Brown Butter Frosting. Made with maple, spiced pumpkin butter, double the vanilla, and a little bit of chocolate. These cookies are soft, pumpkiny, and perfectly sweet with wonderful pumpkin flavor. They’re generously glazed with a sweet, thick, and creamy cinnamon brown butter frosting. The secret is simple – pumpkin butter. It keeps these cookies incredibly flavorful. Fun to bake, delicious to eat, these cookies make for a great homemade gift!
Cookie season is upon us and I’m starting a little early. It’s crazy to me that Tuesday is November 1st, but since I can’t slow time down, I’m embracing the season! I can already feel the holiday craze – cookie recipes are needed!
It seems I say this every year, but it feels like Thanksgiving is often overlooked. I get it, Christmas is my thing too. But I try my best to at least have fun with Thanksgiving recipes. So we’re starting just a few days early with these pumpkin spice cookies!
These are the perfect November cookie – though they’re great for Halloween too!
I made these just this weekend. If you follow daily, you know that we’ve had lots of cozy weather – and snow, so baking was welcomed. As with most of my holiday desserts, I always fear they might not turn out. But it’s the sweets that I make on a complete whim that I often end up loving most!
Sometimes not thinking too hard about an idea and just acting on the excitement is the best course of action. And that’s what I did with these. I had a lot of fun with them, and well, they’re pretty delicious too. I made them with my favorite pumpkin butter, which truly makes these cookies extra special.
The steps
Thankfully, if you want to bake these up tonight or this weekend for your Halloween parties, they’re easy.
As usual with most cookies, start out by beating the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer. I love to use brown sugar for an added depth of flavor. Next, beat in the maple and pumpkin butter, lots of vanilla, and an egg.
Next comes the dry ingredients the cinnamon and nutmeg are key. Once you mix everything in you’ll have yummy pumpkin sugar cookie dough.
Roll out the dough, cut, and bake on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. There’s absolutely nothing fancy here.
Whenever I make any kind of cut-out cookie, I always like to roll out the dough, cut the cookies, and then freeze the cut cookies on a baking sheet for a few minutes. This ensures that the cookies hold their pumpkin shape.
Also, If you don’t want to roll out the dough, drop tablespoon size scoops of dough balls onto a baking sheet and bake away.
Now the frosting, it’s beyond delicious, and easy to make. Just butter, powdered sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Simple, yet delicious.
Drizzle the frosting over each cookie, then, if you like, decorate with chocolate and cinnamon sugar. Doesn’t get easier, but looks so cute once finished!
Make these tonight, for Halloween weekend, and then, again for Thanksgiving. The perfect sweet, soft pumpkin cookie!
Looking for other sweet pumpkin recipes? Here are my favorites:
Cream Cheese Swirled Cinnamon Pumpkin Coffee Cake
Pumpkin Butter Chocolate Chip Blondies
Pumpkin Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Vanilla Chai Pumpkin Latte Cupcakes
Cream Cheese Swirled Cinnamon Pumpkin Butter Bread
Lastly, if you make these Soft Pumpkin Sugar Cookies with Cinnamon Brown Butter Frosting, be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Above all, I love to hear from you guys and always do my best to respond to each and every comment. And of course, if you do make this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram! Looking through the photos of recipes you all have made is my favorite!
Soft Pumpkin Sugar Cookies with Cinnamon Brown Butter Frosting
Servings: 32 cookies
Calories Per Serving: 204 kcal
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Watch the How-To Reel
Ingredients
Pumpkin Cookies
- 2 sticks (1 cup) salted butter, at room temperature
- 2/3 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/2 cup pumpkin butter
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 egg
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Brown Butter Frosting
- 1 stick (1/2 cup) salted butter
- 2 cups confectioners sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- melted chocolate, for decorating
- cinnamon sugar, for sprinkling
Instructions
- 1. In a bowl, beat together the butter, brown sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Add the maple and beat to combine, then beat in the pumpkin butter. Add the egg and mix until combined. Add the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt, beating until combined.2. Flour your work surface. Divide the dough in half and flatten each half into a disk. Roll out the dough to 1/3 inch thickness. Make sure you are using enough flour or your dough will stick. Cut out the cookies into your desired shapes. Transfer the cookies to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Place the baking sheet in the freezer for 15-20 minutes, until firm. Roll out the leftover scraps, and repeat with the remaining dough.3. Preheat oven to 350°. Bake the cookies 10-12 minutes (for soft cookies) or until golden. Cool on the baking sheet. 4. To make the frosting. Melt the butter in a skillet. Allow the butter to brown lightly until it smells toasted, about 2-3 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool 5 minutes. Whisk in the powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon water, the vanilla, and cinnamon until smooth, adding 1 tablespoon of water to thin the frosting as needed. If the frosting gets too thin, just add a little more sugar, and if it gets too thick, add a splash of water. The frosting should be thin enough to drizzle. 5. Frost each cooled cookie. I used melted chocolate to draw on the pumpkin "leaves". Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon sugar. Store in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
Notes
Pumpkin Butter: if you don’t have pumpkin butter, use 1/3 cup canned pumpkin puree, but blot away any excess water/moisture with a paper towel to remove the added moisture.
Flour: if the dough is feeling too sticky to touch, add 2-6 tablespoons additional flour.
This post was originally published on October 28, 2022
I just made these cookies, followed the recipe exactly (including chilling the dough), and they came out exactly as you said they would! The cookie dough was quite soft so I was dipping the cutter in flour before making each new cut, gently removed the extra dough outside of the cutter while still in place, then used my thin flat metal spatula to pick up each cut-out with the cutter still around them, and then gently released them from the cutter onto the parchment, so I didn’t have any fall apart or lose their shape. I live at high altitude (7k’) and probably should have used half of the baking soda, but they’re still good. I used a different icing that I’ve used before on sugar cookies (it uses heavy cream), so I can’t speak for your icing recipe, but the cookies are light & yummy and will hopefully be a hit at the thanksgiving gathering I’m taking them to on Thursday! I was surprised to see people saying it needed more spices/etc, I think they’re perfect. Perhaps they were thinking these should be more like gingerbread or gingersnap cookies (with molasses and lots of ginger), which I usually find to be too strong. Maybe their taste buds were messed up by covid? I guess we’re all different. Now to find other ideas for the remaining pumpkin butter! Thank you!
Hey Debbie,
Amazing! Thanks a lot for trying this recipe, so glad to hear it turned out nicely for you! Thanks for sharing your notes. Happy Thanksgiving! xx
I made this recipe – the cookies tasted more like a biscuit [texture, too] than a cookie [did the freezer suggestion and everything]. I made the frosting twice – made sure the butter was cool before adding anything to it – it curdled both times – disappointed as we were making these for our community gathering and now don’t know if we want to serve them or not – tried to recover with dip in some clear glaze and sprinkling with turbinado sugar. So surprised as I LOVE your site and your recipes – definite flop in our kitchen.
Hi Rachael,
Thank you so much for trying these cookies and sharing your feedback, I’m so sorry to hear they did not turn out for you! I wonder if you butter was too cool? Again, so sorry you had issues! xx
I’ve tried so many recipes from your site and oh my goodness you never fail to impress my taste buds!!! I love love your recipes!!! I’m a huge fan!!
Aww, thanks so much, Sarah!! I appreciate you trying so many recipes and your kind message! Have a great Thursday! xT
These turned out perfect! I always refrigerate my cookie dough for 24 hours before baking. Took out about 30 min before needed to shape and had no problem with stickiness / wetness of dough.
Always had a problem with cutout cookies keeping there shape – thank you for tip on freezing!
Hope you have a great Thanksgiving!
Hey Samantha,
Wonderful!! I love to hear that you enjoyed this recipe! Thanks so much for your feedback and trying the recipe! Happy Thanksgiving! xT
These were really good!! I agree with the comments about adding extra flour. The frosting was very flavorful and sweet which was a nice balance to the cookie.
Thank you so much for trying out the recipe! Have a great week! xT