Pumpkin Cookies With Cream Cheese Frosting

Homemade Pumpkin Cookies are the Best!

With these cookies, you get that unique pumpkin flavor with all those fall spices, and then when it’s paired with that luxurious cream cheese flavor… magic happens. There are so many good pumpkin chocolate chip cookies out there, but the addition of cream cheese frosting makes these just a little more elegant. This pumpkin cookie recipe should be your go-to for every type of fall gathering—Halloween parties, football Sundays, Thanksgiving, class holiday events, and even just lazy fall weekends. They’re fast and easy for a weeknight, but impressive enough to replace even PIE. I mean it! Just be sure to bring along a bunch because they’ll go quickly. How could they not? They’re pumpkin cookies!

Ingredients You’ll Need for These Cookies

How to Make Pumpkin Cookies

Preheat oven, line baking sheets. Whisk together dry ingredients. In a stand mixer cream butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar Mix in egg then pumpkin and vanilla. Mix in flour mixture. Scoop dough out 1 1/2 Tbsp at a time and drop onto prepared baking sheets. Bake until set. Cool completely then frost. For the frosting mix butter and cream cheese until fluffy, then blend in powdered sugar and vanilla.

A Holiday Worthy Recipe

I love these too because they are a great after-dinner weekday treat, but they’re also good enough that you’d love to serve them to company on the weekend as well. This classic cake-like pumpkin cookie is filled with autumn spices that we all look forward to this time of year.

Use 2 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice in place of the spices here if that’s what you have on hand. Don’t use canned “pumpkin pie mix.” It has added sweeteners and spices and wouldn’t work here. Use parchment paper or baking mats, don’t butter baking sheets. Cookies spread more that way. Keep finished cookies cold so the frosting doesn’t soften or melt at a warm room temperature. Let rest briefly at room temperature before serving. Store in a single layer so they don’t stick (like my stack here did :). I like to store in a cookie sheet with a lid. These would also make a great pumpkin chocolate chip cookie if you just swap out that frosting for chocolate chips in the batter instead. Make these even more fun for kids by letting them add their own festive sprinkles or add food coloring to your frosting!