October 11: Double Pumpkin Spice Spritz Cookies

For the second dessert treat in my 4-part series, I’m sharing my double pumpkin spice spritz cookies. They’re called double pumpkin because they’re pumpkin shaped and pumpkin flavored. Double double the fun. (Speaking of double double, here’s one of my family’s favorite songs to listen to in October. I like it because of its connections to Macbeth. My kids like it because it’s from Harry Potter.) 

These cookies – the inspiration for which I found on the Diethood blog--offer a seasonal twist on the classic spritz that are sure to excite. The original cookie was in the shape of a leaf. I would’ve been happy to replicate it exactly but I don’t have the OXO cookie press with the leaf shape disk. I stressed over it a couple minutes and texted my mom a picture of the disk shapes I *do* have with my Wilton brand cookie press to see which she thought would be the best substitution. She was like, "Of course the pumpkin!" And, as is often the case with moms, she was right! 

Double Pumpkin Spice Spritz Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2¼ cups (270g) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1. Combine butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer; beat until combined and fluffy (about 4 to 5 minutes.) Add the vanilla and the egg and beat until incorporated.

Early in the mixing process

Fluffy and light after 5 minutes 

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and pumpkin spice. (My flour was lumpy so I ended up sifting it after whisking to remove the leftover lumps.)

3. Add the dry ingredients to the fluffy butter with the mixer on low, continuing to mix until combined. 

4. Divide your batter evenly into 3 smaller bowls. (I used my kitchen scale to ensure everything was equal. I had 8 ounces of batter in each bowl.) 

Divide batter evenly into three bowls

5. Add food coloring to tint your batter. Gel works best because of the color concentration and low moisture level. For the red, I used 3 drops of red. For orange, 4 drops of orange. For green, 4 drops of green. Mix with a spoon until combined. Add more food coloring for more vibrant colors. (I kind of hate using artificial coloring so I tend to err on the side of less vibrant color. That’s a personal thing, though, so feel free to add more.) 

6. Fill your cookie press with one color of the tinted batter. (All 8oz of my batter fit at once with almost no room to spare.) Fasten the pumpkin disk on the end and prepare plunger/trigger piece (follow directions for your particular model cookie press). 

Pumpkin disk ready to spritz

7. Press the cookies onto ungreased, unlined baking sheets. (Leave about 1 ½- 2 inches of space between each cookie. They don’t spread a ton, but they do spread. Wish I’d known that before…)

Ready...

Set...

Spritz
(yeah, that one lone cookie at the top bothers me, too)

8. When the cookie press runs out of dough, load the next color batter and repeat the process. I didn’t bother washing it out in between colors because I didn’t mind the colors bleeding a bit. I figured that pumpkins can be various shades at the same time, so my pumpkin cookies could be, too. (And if you go with the leaf motif as per Diethood’s recipe, the multiple colors work even better!) 

The lighting is terrible, but these are the red ones

(OPTIONAL STEP) If you want to add sprinkles, now is the time to add them. I didn’t want any on mine so I left them naked.

9. Bake until firm and golden, about 7 to 8 minutes. Allow to sit 2 minutes before carefully removing from trays and transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

See? They spread a bit. That weird cookie at the top is trying to jump ship

Aren't they pretty?

Once cool, you can leave your cookies plain, dip them in melted chocolate (milk or white would both work for these), or even make into sandwich cookies by filling with your favorite frosting. 

Because I was serving these cookies alongside carrot cake sandwich cookies and a sweet apple pie Oreo fudge (not to mention those decadent brownie bites), I left mine alone. But I lined them up in alternating colors to showcase them.

I enjoyed these a lot. The pumpkin pie flavor doesn’t punch you in the face, but it’s still subtly present. The cookies are soft and a little crumbly and pair nicely with a cup of coffee or tea.

The night of the party, these cookies were the slowest to move. I sent my mom a sad text, “I don’t think people like the spritz cookies.” Later, I brought my mom a sampling of all the goodies. After tasting, she said, “I know why people ate fewer of these.” I said, “Oh no. Are they bad?” She said, “No! They’re very, very good. But compared to these flavor bombs,” she pointed at the carrot sandwiches and fudge, “they’re just such a mellow flavor. They’re the antithesis of the other ones. I ate the spritz first and they have a lovely pumpkin flavor, but after eating the others, it’s so subtle, comparatively.” 

See? Lots of spritz cookies remaining

I think she nailed it. On their own, they’re nice. Paired with bolder flavors, they sort of fade to the background. Good to know. Plan accordingly.

So there you have it. The second fabulous recipe and easy as (pumpkin) pie. That's doubly good.  

Pumpkin-shaped pumpkin spice spritz cookies on a pumpkin plate!
Whoa! That's TRIPLE PUMPKIN now. It's getting real up in here.

**I have no affiliation or relationship with any of the brands mentioned or linked in this post. All opinions and experiences expressed herein are my own.**