I've seen some great pumpkin recipes lately and I started baking some of them this past weekend. First up was pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I've never heard or tried pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, but it sounded delicious.
I saw quite a few recipes, and I decided to try one on allrecipes.com submitted by Jennifer. While the recipe got really good reviews, I had trouble with the recipe as written. The cookies ended up tasting good, but I had to make some changes.
Here are some things I learned from this recipe. First, if you are expecting a more "autumn" spice type flavor, this recipe is not it. I enjoyed this recipe, but its definitely a more pure pumpkin taste.
Another thing is I felt that the amount of chocolate chips the recipe called for completely overwhelmed the pumpkin flavor. My first batch tasted just like regular cakey chocolate chip cookies and I couldn't taste the pumpkin at all. So on my second batch, I only used half the amount of chocolate chips.
Finally, the cookies didn't spread much during baking. So my first batch came out quite ugly. The cookies were dropped onto the baking sheet just like the directions called for, and they finished cooking looking the same way. So afterward, I ended up flattening and smoothing the cookie dough to look how I wanted the finish cookie to look. The original recipe calls for the baking soda to be dissolved in milk. I think that also caused the cookie batter not to spread as much.
Here is the recipe with my modifications (adapted from allrecipes)
Ingredients
- 1 cup canned pumpkin
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 egg
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1cup semisweet chocolate chips
Directions
- Combine pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil, and egg. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, ground cinnamon, and salt. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well.
- Add vanilla, chocolate chips.
- Shape and flatten dough on cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for approximately 10 minutes or until lightly brown and firm. The cookie dough should be almost the same size and shape as the finished cookies as the batter does not spread much.
Normally, I like the taste of cookies best when they first come out of the oven. However, the pumpkin cookies tasted better the next day after the cookies had cooled and the pumpkin flavor had time to set in.
The cookies are soft, cakey, with a mild pumpkin cake/bread taste.
