These cookies are soft, chewy, and perfectly spiced. Rolled oats give a bite to these cookies, and they don’t fall apart when dunked in warm milk (they also work as breakfast cookies). Pumpkin spice is an aromatic blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. This provides warmth and flavor to the cookies. You can even make this simple spice blend at home, which would have stronger flavors than store-bought ones.
Soft melt-in-the-mouth cookies There is no creaming of butter, so a hand whisk or spatula will do the job The cookie dough doesn’t need chilling; just mix, scoop, and bake. Generously flavored with pumpkin spice
With similar ingredients, you can also make a Pumpkin Baked Oatmeal, that has pumpkin, oatmeal, pumpkin spices, shredded apples, and maple syrup. This makes a nice breakfast option. Baking is science. The quality and quantity of ingredients used make a big difference. Instead of getting into the details of baking science, let’s talk about these cookies. Cookies need to be soft, chewy, and melt in the mouth. To get chewy cookies: But when you use fruit or vegetable puree, the recipe needs further adjustment. Fruit and vegetable purees introduce a lot of moisture to the dough, which in turn results in cakey cookies. The cookies will look more like muffin tops. After numerous tries, I had to give up on banana cookies because, no matter how many tweaks I made, the cookies turned out to be cakey. But these pumpkin oatmeal cookies came out really nice and chewy.
less moisture –> Less cakey, chewy cookies
Canned or homemade, pumpkin puree has lots of moisture and water. The best way to remove the moisture is to cook the puree down until almost all the water has evaporated. This step not only reduces moisture, but the pumpkin flavor also intensifies.
Scoop and bake: Use a medium cookie scoop to scoop out the dough. Place it in a cookie tray, 2-3 inches apart. With the back of the spatula, slightly flatten the dough balls. Bake it in a preheated oven until the edges have settled and have turned golden brown. Cool: Remove them from the oven and let them cool. Remember, they will continue to set while cooling down.
Let the cookies cool down on the baking tray for 10 minutes before shifting to a cooling rack. These cookies reheat really well. So you can freeze the cookies for up to 2 months in zip-lock bags.
