Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Pumpkin Cookies

How is tomorrow Thanksgiving? It's unbelievable how fast time is flying by. This break is a working one for me--time to catch up on my homework. I am happy to report that I am speeding through the work at an impressive pace. I knocked out my Spanish and anthropology work, am nearly finished with all my stupid math work, and have a start on my work for Minority Voices. Which is reading the second half of Angels in America and writing a paper about it, so it's not even torturous. By the time class rolls around on Monday, I will definitely be ready to tackle the final stretch of the semester.

I am still sick (my plans to drink copiously last night were thwarted by this mystery illness!) so I'm crossing my fingers that I will feel better tomorrow when I get up so that I can go on a run as planned and then enjoy a feast! We are going to the in-law's house for dinner and then my family's house for desert tomorrow. I just finished making pumpkin cookies to bring!

As much as I love cooking, I don't really like baking, and I don't do it often (except that time I made my own wedding cake. That was crazy!). My sister sent me this recipe last year, though, and I loved it so much that I decided to make them an annual tradition. They're quick and easy!
The recipe comes from here. Below is the recipe with my variations:

Pumpkin Cookies
(makes about 20 cookies)

2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup canned pumpkin pie mix*
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

For the icing**:

1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 Tbsp melted butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
milk, as needed (approx. 2 Tbsp)
cinnamon


Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350˚

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in a large bowl, preferably with a hand mixer, until smooth. Combine wet and dry ingredients. The batter will be more doughy than regular cookies, almost like bread dough.

Roll dough into little 1.5 Tbsp balls and flatten on a cookie sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the bottoms are nice and brown. Cool completely.



You'll want to wait until the cookies are cool to make the icing, because it hardens if you let it sit. Mix the sugar, vanilla, and butter in a bowl. Add milk a little bit at a time until it's drizzly consistency. If you'd like, add a shake of cinnamon to make it yummier (a little goes a long way!). Cram the cookies onto a baking sheet and drizzle the icing on with a spoon. Let it sit until the icing sets, probably 30 minutes or so.



They are so good. They're a little different than a regular cookie, but hard to describe. The cookies themselves aren't too sweet, so if you don't have a huge sweet tooth, leave the icing off.



*This makes life much easier. If you are dumb and want to use plain canned pumpkin, you will need to add sugar and spices. Refer to original recipe.
**I used this much icing for a double batch of cookies and had some left over. The original recipe calls for double this icing recipe for one batch of cookies. Ridiculous.

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