The best way to celebrate fall and the beginning of pumpkin spice season is by turning on your oven and baking pumpkin-spiced cookies.

These cookies are a seasonal twist on the classic chocolate chip cookie. They’re adapted from my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe ever, the chocolate chip cookies in Chloe’s Vegan Desserts. I replaced half of the butter in the original recipe for pumpkin and added in a bunch of quintessential fall spices. It makes the cookies a smidge healthier and adds some flair to them.

The whole recipe came about this past week when a few of my friends and I decided to bake together in the community kitchen. We made pumpkin muffins and had leftover pumpkin… so we decided to add it in to the cookies we’d planned on making. The cookies turned out really well!

Fun fact, we had to open the canned pumpkin with scissors and a knife because we couldn’t find a can opener, and we had to mix the cookie batter in a saucepan because we couldn’t find a mixing bowl. The cookies still turned out.

I hope you like these cookies as much as we did, and I hope you can mix them in a regular bowl! Let me know if you make them!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Chloe Coscarelli’s regular chocolate chip cookies in Chloe’s Vegan Desserts

Makes 40 cookies

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp cornstarch OR 2 Tbsp more flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
½ cup vegan butter, softened (I use Earth Balance)
½ cup pumpkin puree
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cardamom
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (I used Trader Joe’s semisweet )

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
Cream together the butter, pumpkin, and sugars.
Add in the water and vanilla. Beat the mixture, in a stand mixer or by mixing rapidly by hand, until it is light and fluffy (for around 2 minutes).
Mix in the flour one cup at a time.
Mix in the baking soda, salt, and spices. Mix until batter is just combined.
Add in the chocolate chips. More is better!
Roll the cookies into inch balls on a cookie sheet and bake for 9-10 minutes.
Flatten the cookies when they come out of the oven by slamming the pan hard down onto the counter once or twice.
Let the cookies cool for a few minutes, then enjoy!