Ingredients
- 3/4 cup peanut butter
- 1/2 cup butter (unsalted and softened)
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup brown sugar (packed)
- 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Grab a baking sheet and lightly hit it with nonstick spray or parchment paper.
- In a large stand mixer (or with an electric hand mixer if that’s your vibe), cream together peanut butter, butter, sugar, and brown sugar. Once it’s combined and smooth, toss in the pumpkin puree and mix until it’s creamy and all comes together.
- Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, sift together your flour, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. Then slowly add that into the wet batter, scraping down the sides as you mix.
- Roll your dough into 1-inch balls. Place them on the baking sheet and use a fork to press a crisscross pattern on top.
- Bake for 10 minutes, or until the cookies just start to turn brown. Don’t overdo it—these guys can get hard fast. Once they’re done, let them cool on the pan or a wire rack for 10 minutes, then serve and enjoy.
Nutrition
Notes
Pro Tips for Perfect Pumpkin Peanut Butter Cookies
- Use room temperature butter, not melted. Softened butter creams with the sugars to create an airy, structured dough. Melted butter skips that process and gives you cookies that spread too thin and bake up flat and greasy.
- Do not overbake. Ten minutes is the window. These cookies go from perfectly soft to dry and hard quickly. The edges should look barely golden while the centers still look soft. They will firm up perfectly on the pan as they cool.
- Use pure pumpkin puree, not pie filling. Pumpkin pie filling has added sugar and spices that will completely throw off the flavor balance and sweetness of these cookies.
- Measure flour correctly. Spoon flour into the measuring cup and level with a knife. Scooping from the bag packs the flour and can add up to 20 percent more than the recipe calls for, resulting in dry, cakey cookies.
- Dip the fork in sugar between presses. If the fork sticks to the dough as you make the crisscross pattern, a quick dip in granulated sugar solves it immediately and adds a tiny sparkle of sweetness to the top of each cookie.
- Bake one sheet at a time in the center of the oven. After years working in restaurant kitchens, I always bake one tray at a time for cookies. The center rack gives even heat distribution on all sides for consistent results.
Fun Variations to Try
- Add mini chocolate chips. Fold half a cup of mini chocolate chips into the dough right before rolling. Chocolate and pumpkin and peanut butter together is absolutely outrageously good. A dark chocolate drizzle over the cooled cookies is also incredible.
- Pumpkin peanut butter blossoms. Roll the dough balls in granulated sugar before baking, skip the fork press, and the moment they come out of the oven press a chocolate Hershey's Kiss into the center of each one. A perfect fall version of my Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies that looks stunning on a Halloween cookie tray.
- Pumpkin spice cookie sandwich. Make the cookies slightly larger and sandwich two together with a dollop of cream cheese frosting or vanilla buttercream in the middle. The cream cheese frosting works especially beautifully with the pumpkin spice flavor profile.
- Add Reese's Pieces. Fold in half a cup of Reese's Pieces candy. The peanut butter chocolate candy against the pumpkin spice cookie is a combination that nobody sees coming and everyone loves.
- Brown butter version. Brown the half cup of butter in a saucepan until nutty and golden, then chill until solid before creaming with the peanut butter and sugars. The brown butter adds a toasty richness that takes these cookies to a completely different level.