October 14: Pumpkin Cinnamon Chip Cookies

 Pumpkin Cinnamon Chip Cookies

This will likely come as a surprise to no one: I love baking. But something you may not know is one of my fave things to bake is cookies. It could be the built-in portion control (though it's hard to eat just one) or the portability (have you ever tried taking a slice of frosted cake to go? Not a good plan) or the sheer variety (so many cookie flavors...mmmmmmm). I don't know and don't much care.

Like this big blue guy, me love cookies.

Cookie Monster pic from fanpop.com

True story: It was cookies -- this recipe, in fact-- that helped me get over the hump of a lifestyle change that began three years ago in July and, among other things, resulted in my losing 53 pounds. I had begun cooking at home instead of eating out all the time and also started to work out routinely. It was difficult at the beginning to get myself primed for that and to get in the habit of not snacking constantly as I'd been doing while I was both pregnant and then living through the absolute most stressful period of my life. I cut my calorie intake massively and, at the beginning, felt deprived. But I made these cookies and would treat myself to two for dessert on days I worked out. I started working out daily just to earn the cookies. (A recent trip to Kohls' fitness clothing department would suggest I'm not alone in this.) By the end of the weeks it took me to polish off the batch (at which point they'd begun to go stale), my body was used to eating an appropriate amount of calories and working out! And I haven't looked back. Hurrah!

Anyway, that was another day, another cookie.

Today, though, in the spirit of the season, I'm featuring a pumpkin cookie. It's another recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction and you can find it on her blog. Here is Sally's recipe complete with specific step-by-step instructions, measurements, tips, and, as always, beautiful photos.   

What I love so much about these cookies (for which you can also use chocolate chips if you can't find or don't prefer the cinnamon chips) is that they're chewy and so flavorful. I like pumpkin pie, but it's far from the top of my must-have flavor profiles. I'm not among the crowd crying out to PUMPKIN FLAVOR ALL THE THINGS!!! Yet these cookies? I LOVE. (Truth be told, I love them even more with the chocolate chips. I made a single cookie in the batch with chocolate chips and it was fab! Again, that's just a preference thing. You can't go wrong with either chip.) 

So here's how these came together. 

Melted butter (which, apparently, helps make them chewy! Sally is so smart!), pumpkin puree, white and brown sugars, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pumpkin pie spice, vanilla, and the chips of your choice will all make their way into the bowl.

Mix by hand. (No need to even dirty a mixer! Boo-nus. What? I haven't made that joke in at least an hour!)

 The batter; the cinnamon chips are in there, but they blend in with the pumpkin-y color of the puree. 

Bonus: you can lick the bowl when you're done because these babies are egg-free

Refrigerate for 30 minutes. (It helps keep the cookies from spreading too much when they bake.)

Scoop, roll between your palms, and coat in some cinnamon sugar. 

When I bake, I always use an OXO cookie scoop so my cookies are uniform in size. For this recipe, I used the medium scoop which is about 1.5 tablespoons of dough.

A fancy collage (with effects!) I made on picmonkey.com showing the scooping, rolling, coating process of my cookies

Arrange on your Silpat-lined pan (seriously, buy these for yourself; Silpat mats are kind of ridiculously overpriced, but they're amazing. I got two for Christmas of 2013 and sort of covet two more. I'll need to call Santa again.) Press the cookies down a little with your palm so they aren't as round. This will also help reduce over-spreading.

Then pop those in a 350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes (I went with the full 10). Take them out and let them sit on the pan for 10 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool the rest of the way.

Mine made 20 cookies.

Here they are, all beautiful for their photo shoot outside my house.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Chip Cookies

Gold-detailed haunted house plate, HomeGoods; Leaf charger, HomeGoods

Make these. Then eat them in your car. On your way home from the gym, perhaps.