Soft Pumpkin Cookies With Cream Cheese Frosting and a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice to finish them off. The perfect fall treat!
Try these next: Pumpkin Snickerdoodles, Pumpkin Créme Brûleé, and Healthy Pumpkin Bread!
Pumpkin Cookies With Cream Cheese Frosting
One of the most popular pumpkin recipes on my site is my soft-baked pumpkin chocolate chip cookies—they’re delicious and impossible to resist. But if you’re like my son and not a big fan of chocolate, you need a pumpkin cookie that’s just as good, without the chocolate.
That’s how these cookies came to be! My son loves cream cheese frosting, and I knew these cookies would make his day. What I didn’t expect was for them to become my new favorite cookie too. They’re that good!
They’re thick, chewy, and full of the best flavor and spice.
Ingredients
- Flour: Spoon into measuring cup and level off for an accurate measurement.
- Baking soda and baking powder: Help the cookies rise and stay soft.
- Cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice: Adjust the spice to your flavor preference.
- Salt: Don’t skip it! It makes the other flavors pop!
- Brown and white sugar: Sweeten the cookies and add moisture.
- Unsalted butter: Use softened butter for smooth mixing.
- Canned pumpkin: Use pure pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling.
- Egg: Binds ingredients in pumpkin cookies with cream cheese frosting together.
- Vanilla extract: Use pure vanilla extract for a richer flavor.
Cream Cheese Frosting
Over the years, I’ve tested browned butter, maple, and glaze frostings for my Pumpkin Cookies, but cream cheese frosting is the undeniable favorite with family and friends!
- Cream cheese and butter: Here are some tips on bringing them to room temp.
- Powdered sugar: Makes the frosting sweet and smooth.
- Salt: Just a little to balance the sweet.
- Vanilla: Adds more flavor.
- Optional pumpkin pie spice: Make your own pumpkin pie spice or grab from the store.
How To Make Pumpkin Cookies With Cream Cheese Frosting
- Mix Dry Ingredients: Combine all dry ingredients in one bowl.
- Cream Butter and Sugars: In another bowl, mix together wet ingredients.
- Combine Mixtures: Mix the wet and dry ingredients together.
- Scoop Dough: Place the dough onto a lined baking sheet and flatten slightly.
- Bake: Cook in a preheated oven until just set.
- Prepare Frosting: Beat together cream cheese, butter, and sugar until smooth.
- Frost Cookies: Frost cooled cookies and enjoy. Store leftovers in the fridge.
Storage
Can You Freeze Pumpkin Cookies With Cream Cheese Frosting?
Yes, but it’s best to freeze the dough, not the baked cookies. Drop dough balls onto a sheet pan, freeze until solid, then store in an airtight container or bag with parchment between layers for up to 3 months.
Baked pumpkin cookies (unfrosted) will last 3-4 days in an airtight container at room temperature or up to a week in the fridge.
Don’t freeze the cream cheese frosting; make it fresh when ready to serve.
More Amazing Pumpkin Treats
- Pumpkin Granola great on a yogurt bowl
- Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars with a streusel topping
- Healthy Pumpkin Bread readers favorite
- Pumpkin Carrot Cake with cream cheese frosting
- Pumpkin Overnight Oats prep in minutes
Pumpkin Cookies With Cream Cheese Frosting
Equipment
- Parchment paper or silicone baking mat
- Mixers electric or stand
Ingredients
Cookies
- 2-1/2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1-1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar lightly packed
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter softened, not melted
- 1 cup canned pumpkin not pumpkin pie filling
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 4 ounces cream cheese softened
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter softened
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- pumpkin pie spice optional
Instructions
- Line a large sheet pan with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat to avoid burned cookie bottoms. Preheat oven to 350℉.
- Add flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and salt to a large bowl; whisk to combine and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, cream together butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until smooth and creamy. Add 1 cup pumpkin, egg, and vanilla. Beat until mixture is creamy. Add in dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Avoid over-mixing.
- Optionally, chill dough: Cover tightly and chill dough for 30 minutes up to 10 hours. Chilling is not necessary but makes dough easier to work with and intensifies flavors.
- Use a 1 tablespoon measuring spoon to scoop balls of dough and place them onto the lined sheet pan. Try to smooth or round the balls, but it's okay if they're a bit bumpy (chill in the fridge for additional time if needed for easier rolling). Leave 2 inches of room for each cookie (I only bake 8–10 cookies at a time) and flatten balls of dough slightly.
- Bake for 8-12 minutes (9 minutes is perfect for my oven!), watching carefully to avoid overbaking. I like these slightly underbaked and soft, but the tops shouldn’t be shiny/wet looking at all. Remove and allow cookies to stand for another 3–5 minutes on the sheet pan before removing to a wire cooling rack.
- Meanwhile, make frosting. In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the room-temperature (not melted) cream cheese and butter until creamy, about 2 minutes, at medium-high speed. Add powdered sugar, salt, and vanilla. Beat until soft and creamy. Avoid over-beating or you’ll get whipped frosting.
- Generously frost cooled cookies and if desired, sprinkle them with a little pumpkin pie spice.
Video
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Everyone loved these cookies. Easy to make and keeps nicely in the fridge.
So happy to hear Katie! Thanks! 🙂
Omg omg they are the best cookies ever, my fiancé is the picky person in the entire world, and he love love love these cookies, thank you so much for this great recipe ❤️❤️😍😍
Yay! What a compliment, thanks so much Isabel! 🙂
Everything was perfect. I only had to cook them a little longer because I like my cookies a little bigger so I have more decoration space. I also found that if you put in 6oz of cream cheese it gives it less of a powdered sugar taste, and more of a homemade cream cheese frosting taste. 10/10 will make again!
I am so happy to hear this William! Thanks so much! 🙂
Love this recipe! I am guilty of swapping sugars and using alternative flours in the vain of making bake goods a little more nutritious. However this time, I opted to throw that out the window and celebrate Fall with this recipe sans substitutions! These came out delicious. We didn’t get around to icing them before most were gobbled up. But they were plenty sweet for our three sweets-loving boys without the icing. I like pumpkin spice flavors so I was little heavy-handed with the pumpkin pie spice and it came out great. We added chopped pecans to the tops of the last half of the batch and found it helped to flatten out the cookie by preventing it from sticking to your fingers when you were shaping
I am seriously so happy to hear this Andrea! I’m so glad you guys enjoyed these so much! Thanks for your comment! 🙂
Does the icing dry? Can you stack the cookies in a container to transport or do they have to stay in a single layer? If so, how long does it usually take?
The frosting stays soft and the cookies are fairly soft so I wouldn’t recommend stacking these cookies; I think they’d end up sticking together
Hello these cookies sound wonderful. I have one question do you think I could make these into cookie bars instead of drop cookies? I’ve done this succesfully with other kinds of cookies just wondering, I need to bring these with me to a party and because of time restraints I thought it would be faster… thanks.
I wish I could be of more help but I’m really not sure with this recipe. My initial instinct is that it wouldn’t work super well, but I’m not sure without personally testing. Sorry to not have a great answer for you
I looked everywhere for a recipe for pumpkin cookies. The grocery store I go to makes them from scratch. These are very close to them. Thank you for sharing!
So happy you found these and enjoyed! 🙂
best cookies i’ve ever made! great recipe that i highly recommend. my family and friends loved them.
Yay! So happy to hear that! Thanks so much Emma! 🙂
Hello! Could I make these cookies using a pumpkin shaped cookie cutter? If so what size? Thanks!
Sorry not this recipe! They won’t cut out nicely, they spread and are very cake-like (think like a muffin top!)
These are like a cookie steak – so rich, filling and delicious. I gave them at Thanksgiving to family and colleagues and they were a hit with both kids and adults. We’re about to make more right now.