This one’s gonna be a quickie. This pumpkin chocolate chunk cookie is the result of too much time on Pinterest. It happens to the best of us. The entire landscape over there is all apples and pears and toffee and caramel and pumpkin in more forms than you can possible imagine. Pumpkin fritters, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pancakes, donuts, waffles…you name it, we’re shoving pumpkin in it. Never mind the fact that it’s still warm out and I’ve yet to see a single brown leaf blowing down the street.
As I sat in my tank top and bare feet, the curtains billowing in a warm breeze, I scrolled through pumpkin in it’s many forms and I realized I could sit there no longer and do nothing. It just felt wrong. Much like those girls in the 60s that couldn’t dance at the Beatles concerts. I wanted to dance. I wanted to tango with brown butter and bread flour, brown sugar and spices. I couldn’t even wait to write the recipe up in a proper Word doc as I’m known to do. I knew I needed my aforementioned partners brown butter and brown sugar…and I also needed other members on my dance card such as cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. I knew that my one true love, dark chocolate, had to be in chards. Like Edward Scissorhands I was manically cutting and chopping piles of chocolate bars. More than seemed right, but not quite seeming enough. This cookie, she was ready quick. Within the blink of an eye. With my hair disheveled and flour on my cheeks, I shoved one in Stella’s mouth and she said, ‘it tastes like fall!’ Each satisfied face and furiously eaten cookie only fueled me to make more. Piles were forming on cooling racks, some getting zipped in little baggies for school lunches, sheets were going in the oven and some were getting shoved on the top shelf behind the Mason jars only for me. Yep, I was getting greedy. I couldn’t be stopped.
This is not a crispy cookie…nary a crispy area to be found. It’s soft, chewy, toasty, warm and 25 shades of fall. Come and get us cashmere sweaters. We’re calling you. Put the chardonnay and rosè and sauvignon blanc to the back of the fridge. Dust off the pinot and the syrah. That’s right, pour me a double. Let’s talk about carving pumpkins and corn mazes. Kids in costume and trick or treaters running down the street on a chilly night. We’re ready fall. Bring it.
Let’s bake betches.
***This post was done in conjunction with this week’s Weekly Meal Planning | week two post. Go check it out!
Spiced Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Cookies
3 Dozen-Ish Cookies, depending on your cookie size
INGREDIENTS
- 8 tablespoons (113 g or 4 oz) unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup (165 g) brown sugar, packed
- 3/4 cup (150 g) granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup (67 g) olive oil or sunflower seed oil
- 1/3 cup (81 g) pure pumpkin puree (don’t get pumpkin pie filling)
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 tablespoon (13 g) real vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups (203 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups (203 g) bread flour*
- 2 teaspoons (10 g) baking powder
- 2 teaspoons (4 g) cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon (5 g) baking soda
- 1 teaspoon (6 g) sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon (1 g) nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon (.5 g) cloves
- 1 1/2 cups (255 g) dark chocolate, coarsely chopped or chips
- Sea salt flakes (don’t use regular salt) to sprinkle on the tops (optional)
*You can use 3 cups of all-purpose flour and omit the bread flour completely. Your cookie will lose some height, but that’s fine. It will still be delicious.
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Make sure you have a rack in the top third of the oven. Cover a baking sheet with a silpat or parchment paper.
- Put 4 ounces/1 stick of butter in a small sauce pan and melt over medium heat. Once melted, crank up the heat to medium high. Stand by, stirring and watching. This isn’t the time to go and put your dry ingredients together. Watch yer butter. Small golden bits will start to settle on the bottom of the pan. Once this happens, take it off the heat and pour into a medium, heat-safe bowl to cool a bit.
- Add the brown sugar, granulated sugar, sunflower seed oil, pumpkin puree, eggs and vanilla to the browned butter once it has slightly cooled. Whisk together until thoroughly blended.
- In another medium bowl, whisk together the bread flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, sea salt, cloves and nutmeg.
- Add the flour mixture to the brown butter mixture and mix until barely combined. Add in the chocolate chunks and continue to blend until just combined. Smell. It’s divine. Why isn’t this a fragrance?
- Use roughly two tablespoons of dough and gently futz into a ball. Don’t overwork your dough.**
- Bake for 11 minutes. They will appear slightly undone, that’s perfect. They will appear puffed and then they will collapse on themselves. Yes, all the hallmarks of a Displacedhousewife cookie. This is what gives them their character wrinkles. Love that.
- Let the pumpkin chocolate chunk cookies cool for about five minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer to the cooling rack. Sprinkle with sea salt flakes if you’re feeling it. Now eat one. They’re amazing, right? I’m in love.
**Normally, at this point in the instructions, I would have you put the dough in the fridge for a spell. Likewise there is zero freezer time for the dough balls prior to baking. This dough doesn’t need either of those steps to maintain its gorgeous shape. Yay…quicker cookies!
On My Mind
- This post was done in conjunction with this week’s Weekly Meal Planning | week two post. Go check it!
- MORE COOKIE RECIPES: Chocolate Marshmallow Sea Salt Cookies, Dark Chocolate + Tart Cherry Cookies, Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, Chai Spiced Oatmeal Granola Cookies, Brown Butter Muscovado Snickerdoodles, The Best Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Ever, Loaded Aloha Cookies, Smoked Salt Double Chocolate Rye Cookies, Double Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies, Bomb Chocolate Chip Cookies, Breakfast Crack Cookies, Holy Shit S’more Cookie, Bi-Curious Peanut Butter Cookies, Classic Snickerdoodles, Giant Salted Dark Chocolate + Olive Oil Cookies…
- I’ve been obsessed with documentaries…go watch Love Crimes of Kabul. I’d love to know what you think. It’s a pretty fascinating peek into the lives of women in Afghanistan…something we don’t see much of.
- I have two scone recipes with which you could use up your leftover pumpkin. One is my Petite Pumpkin Scones and the other is a copycat adjacent Starbucks Pumpkin Scone Recipe.
- You’ll be hearing from me again on Wednesday as I have THREE, yep, THREE recipes getting posted. I know. It’s exciting. This week is my collaboration/sponsorship/Instagram takeover with the California Strawberry Commission on Wednesday. I have THREE recipes coming out on Wednesday. One recipe is a gorgeous Strawberry Freekah Salad (you’ll die). Another is a Strawberry Cardamom Torte that will be your favorite go-to dessert when you want to dazzle (and it’s the easiest thing you’ve ever made). Lastly, I’m sharing a recipe for some DELICIOUS Strawberry Balsamic Brownies…that we later made into sundaes. It seemed the only natural thing to do. I hope you guys will take the time to pop over to Instagram, follow @castrawberries and like + comment on my posts this Wednesday. Super excited to work with them!!
- Completely fired up to have my work included in these two articles: my Citrus Tacos in this Taco Roundup and my beer-crust pizza in this collection of Labor Day BBQ Recipes.
- Have a fabulous start to your week!! xoxo
–Rebecca xoxo
Hi Rebecca, I bought The Cookie Book Decadent Bites yesterday, I realize you always mix butter with natural oil, is there any particular reason on doing that. I would think Butter will have most balanced flavor? And natural oil will make the cookies a bit oily?
Hey Cherlene!
I apologize for the delay in getting back to you! Thank you so much for buying the book — I hope you are enjoying it!!! I love to mix my fats — butter gives lots of flavor and oil gives a soft texture. Your cookies shouldn’t be oily. Make sure you really mix the fats/wet ingredients together and you should be all good! Let me know how it goes!!
R xoxo
Hi
Do you mean the small Trader Joe’s chocolate bars or the 1 pound bars?
Hi Erika! I’m so sorry it took me a bit to get back to you!! So I’m referencing the bars that are towards the exit of TJs and they’re about 2.5/3 ounces each? I don’t have them in front of me…but they definitely aren’t the 1 pound ones…they’re the smaller candy bar-size ones. I hope this helps. Have fun baking!! xoxo
Made these for a Halloween party at work to RAVE reviews. Perfect soft and fluffy texture!
Rebeccah — Yes!! That’s what I like to hear!! I’m so glad that you loved them!! xoxo
Would these be good to ship?
Hi Rick — Yes, I think these would ship great!!
R xo
Made a batch of these last night and they were incredible!! Quick to whip up, perfectly soft and spiced and yeah, that smell is kind of intoxicating. Thanks for the recipe!
Lauren — This is so good to hear! I’m so glad you liked them…I was just thinking about making a batch myself!! xoxo
Hey girl! These were so much easier to make than I thought. My only question/concern – my dough is definitely less like cookie dough and not as able to run into balls – it’s definitely a little more soupy. I cut the recipe in half, does that matter?
Hey Addie! Hmm…soupy doesn’t sound quite right. The only way that cutting it in half would affect the outcome would be if the measurements weren’t exact. You could try putting the dough in the fridge (wrapped in plastic wrap) for 30+ minutes. That could help firm up the dough. Since the dough is soft, you might also want to put the dough balls in the freezer for a stint prior to baking, to help keep spread to a minimum. Please let me know how they turned out!! My guess on the soupiness is that there was too much butter or oil OR not enough flour in there when you halved it? But I’m just guessing!!! Good luck!
Why thanks Kate — that’s so sweet of you to say!!! I was so happy/surprised when that happen. Her photo was AMAZING!!! I oved it. I’m so glad it brought you here!! I’m going to check out your site now!! Lots of love.
Rebecca
xoxo
i’ll leave the comment here, since this was my entry into your site (thanks food52 and instagram!) but, really, it applies everywhere: you are hilarious. i have thoroughly enjoyed the past (mumblemumble) minutes (hours?) i have spent clicking around on your site, reading stories and delicious sounding recipes. you are awesome. the end.
Don’t tell anyone but… I’m so ready for anything pumpkin spice! ;) These cookies are everything!
Hey Laura!! I was ready for fall too…until it got really cold this morning and then I was like…hmmm…maybe a couple more weeks of summer wouldn’t be too bad!! xoxo
YEEEEEES! Love Fall! Love pumpkin! Love cookies! Could eat these year ’round no problem. Pinned!
Wishing I had a huge stack of these right now with my coffee….now, that’s what I call a good start to the week ;)
Have a good one!
Hey Dawn! I wish I could share!! Thanks so much for pinning and have a great week!! xoxo
These sound absolutely, fabulously fall Rebecca! I’ve already seen Christmas decorations out in a store or two, so I guess it’s appropriate to hop on the fall bandwagon! (with my shorts and flip flops on of course!) Can’t wait for your upcoming recipes!
Thank you Mary Ann!! I truly love summer (berries…tomatoes…flip flops…)…but I’m excited for fall and winter too!! Especially fall…I love the pears, apples and, of course, pumpkins!! I hope you’re enjoying this long weekend!! xoxo
I agree with Stella this cookie tastes like fall and I can’t even taste them. I can’t believe how fast this year flew by but I’m not complaining, this is the time of year where I let up on my strict diet and indulge a little, these cookies fit the bill. I enjoy anything and everything pumpkin, you could say I’m semi-obsessed with it and who doesn’t love chocolate chunk cookies! Beautiful Beautiful Beautiful
I seriously can’t believe how fast the year has gone by. But, I’m not complaining either…it’s been a good one. This is a great cookie to splurge on…I’m totally biased…but I promise!! xoxo
Holy cookie heaven up in here!! These look beyond fabulous! Even my clinging-to-all-things-summer self is swooning hard core over these pumpkin spiced and chocolate studded beauties! These look perfectly soft and absolutely delicious… Makes me almost ready to embrace fall, and trust me that is saying A LOT! Pinned!! Cheers, friend!
Thanks so much Cheyanne!!! I feel the same way…want to hang onto summer. But these spices get me every time!! xoxo