Gluten Free Pumpkin Cookies
These gluten free pumpkin cookies are soft and cakey, wonderfully spiced treats with a sweet white icing. Sink your teeth into them!
- Prep time
- 15 min
- Cook time
- 14 min
- Yield
- 22 servings
- Difficulty
- HARD
Ingredients
- 5 oz canned pumpkin puree (at room temperature)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1 tbsp unsulphured molasses
- 9 tbsp unsalted butter (melted and cooled)
- 1 egg (at room temperature, beaten)
- 2+1/4 cup all purpose gluten free flour blend ((See Recipe Notes))
- 1 tsp xanthan gum ((omit if your blend already contains it))
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1+1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
- 1 tbsp lukewarm water ((plus more by the teaspoon if necessary))
Instructions
- 1
Preheat your oven to 325°F. Line rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper and set them aside.
- 2
In a large mixing bowl, place the pumpkin puree, granulated sugar, brown sugar, molasses, melted butter, and beaten egg. Mix until very smooth, working out any lumps in the brown sugar.
- 3
Add the flour blend, xanthan gum, salt, baking soda, and pumpkin pie spice, and mix until fully combined. The cookie dough will be very soft, but will thicken as it stands.
- 4
For easier scooping and shaping, chill the dough in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes.
- 5
Scoop the slightly chilled dough into portions about 1 1/2 tablespoons in volume (a heaping #50 scoop or two teaspoons will work well).
- 6
With wet hands, shape the mounds of cookie dough into rounds, then press into disks about 1/2-inch thick.
- 7
For the roundest cookies, moisten the bottom edges of a 2½-inch round cookie cutter, place it over each disk of raw dough, and move around in concentric circles to help round out any misshapen edges.
- 8
Place the cookies in the preheated oven and bake for 14 minutes or until top springs back when pressed very gently in the center. The cookies should no longer glisten on top, as if wet.
- 9
Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool for 10 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- 10
In a medium-sized bowl, place the confectioners’ sugar. Add the water, and mix until smooth. It will form a very thick paste.
- 11
Add a bit more water, and mix until smooth and well-combined. The icing should be bright white and opaque but thickly pourable.
- 12
If you’ve added too much water, balance it by mixing in more sugar. It’s much easier to thin with a few drops of water than to thicken with more sugar, though, so proceed carefully.
- 13
Dip the tops of the cooled cookies into the sugar glaze by inverting them into the bowl of icing, and bob up and down a few times to make sure the icing adheres.
- 14
Let excess icing drip off, then twist the cookie as you return it to a right-side up position to try to prevent the glaze from dripping off the side. Return the cookies to the wire rack to sit until the icing is fully set.