Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies
Incredibly chewy oatmeal cookies made with pumpkin spice and pumpkin butter.
Thought I’d bring you an oatmeal version of my beloved pumpkin cookies! These cookies have been a big hit on the site for years now and I myself make them for neighbors/school events, etc every year. I have a gluten free pumpkin cookie recipe which is adapted from those and uses oat flour but for these I simply wanted to add oats to make it more like an oatmeal cookie. These are sooo chewy! Perhaps even more so than the originals.
Recipe Origins
This is a slight variation on my chewy pumpkin cookies; the bigger changes I’ve made is doing away with browning the butter and adding oats. The oats are briefly toasted with some butter to bring out their flavor. Otherwise, the recipe is mostly the same.
Recipe Ingredients
Butter: unsalted or salted butter (just reduce the added salt if using salted). And cold is fine, we’re melting it for the cookie dough.
Oats: Old fashioned rolled oats.
Sugar: fine granulated.
Brown sugar: light or dark brown sugar.
Pumpkin spice: you can make your own by combining cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.
Vanilla: pure extract.
Leavening: just baking soda, this will make the cookies spread nicely.
Salt: fine sea salt. If using table salt, halve the amount added.
Egg yolk: from a medium or large egg, reserve the white for another use.
Pumpkin butter: this is pumpkin puree that has been cooked down along with sugars and spices. Use storebought; Trader Joes sells a small jar for $3 which I use often but recently I’ve been using McCutcheon’s which is great. You cannot sub in plain pumpkin puree here, it has more water and will give the cookies a completely different texture.
Flour: all purpose flour, of a medium or medium high protein content.
How to make Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies
Toast the oats with butter: in a large frying pan, and just until they are fragrant. I got into the habit of toasting my oats when I developed these oat flour oatmeal cookies and haven’t really dropped it since. Toasting brings out more flavor in the oats and prevents them from having a too dense texture in the cookie. Set aside to cool.
Heat the butter to melt, then add the sugars and spice and whisk. Then heat again: this melts some of the sugars, and brings the spices to life. Whisk well.
Whisk in the egg yolk until the mix becomes thick and shiny.
Add in the pumpkin butter, whisk to combine.
Switch to a rubber spatula and add the baking soda and flour, stir until no flour bits are visible.
Stir in the toasted, buttered oats.
Cover and chill in the fridge for at least an hour, this will firm up the dough and allow the flour to hydrate.
When ready to bake, prep two cookie sheets by greasing then lining with parchment paper.
Portion the dough into 2 tablespoons per cookie.
Optional: pour a quarter cup of oats in a small bowl and roll the cookie dough balls in it to coat.
Bake until golden on the edges, puffed in the center. Gently drop the cookie sheet on the counter to deflate the cookies. Let cool then enjoy!
Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies Recipe
Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
Toasted Oats
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 115g g or 1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
Cookie Dough
- 113g or ½ cup butter unsalted (melted)
- 100g or ½ cup brown sugar light or dark
- 100g or ½ cup fine granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons pumpkin spice or cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 egg yolk
- 145g or ½ cup pumpkin butter
- 195g or 1 ¾ cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- Toasted oats from above
Method
- Set the tablespoon of butter in a large frying pan over medium low heat. Once it melts, add the cup of oats. Toss until the oats are fragrant, just a few minutes. Set aside to cool.
- Set the butter in a heat proof bowl. Use the microwave to melt it, then whisk in the sugars and pumpkin spice. Return to the microwave for another 45 seconds. Add the vanilla and salt and whisk very well, at least 30 seconds.
- Add the egg yolk and whisk until the mix is shiny and cohesive. Whisk in the pumpkin butter. Switch to a rubber spatula and add the flour and baking soda, stir until no flour bits remain. Lastly, stir in the butter toasted oats. Cover the bowl and set in the fridge for at least an hour (overnight is ok too but you’ll want to let the dough soften at room temp for a while so it’s easier to scoop).
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Use a disher to portion the cookies into roughly two tablespoons of dough per cookie. Be sure to leave enough space between each dough mound as these will spread, I usually can do six cookies per pan. Optional: roll the cookie dough balls in some extra oats to coat.
- Bake until the edges are golden and the middles have puffed up and cracked, and don’t look wet in the center, about 12-14 minutes. When you take them out of the oven, drop the pan on the counter (not too forcefully, just a gentle drop), this will deflate the cookies and they will settle into flatter cookies with cracks. Let cool then serve.
- Store leftovers in a container - the more airtight the container the chewier and softer the cookies get. If you want them to crisp up a bit, just cover them gently.
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