Happy autumn! I’ve really gotten into the swing of fall baking, and after batches of recipe experimentation I’m ready to share the perfect, keep-its-shape, slightly crispy, pecan pumpkin spice buttery goodness cut-out cookie recipe.
A little twist on the usual roll out cookie, they pair nicely with vanilla royal icing and are ideal for decorating and gifting (Not to mention just snacking!).
You can find my go-toroyal icing recipeHERE, and if you’re feeling like adding a little chocolate, you can find mychocolate royal icing recipe HERE.
I’ll be sharing a little how-to for the mini fall cutters near the end of the post as well, where you can find links to all the tools you’ll need, as well as some decorating tips and tricks.
The cookie cutters I used from Williams Sonoma are so adorable and are actually originally designed as pie punches (to cut out pie crust shapes for a decorative edge).
You can find the cutters HERE, along with so many other beautiful bakeware, cookware, kitchen and home related items. I was thrilled to be asked to partner with Williams Sonoma – it’s hands-down one of my favorite places to shop, so of course am so excited to be sharing some of their things with you. Thanks to them for sponsoring this post!
The plunger cutter style made the raw cookie dough so easy to work with! If you’re not familiar with them, the plunger mechanism is used to easily push the dough out of the cutter, and can also be used to emboss the cookie with lines if you choose (if you don’t want them don’t push on the plunger while cutting your cookie shape out). Such clean lines every time, I love these!
You could leave your cookies undecorated and still have that little added touch with the embossed details.
Or decorate with icing – These sweet shapes are perfect for fall, Thanksgiving or any time really. More on decorating later, first the recipe!
Pecan Pumpkin Spice Cut Out Cookie Recipe
Print Recipe
Pecan Pumpkin Spice Cut Out Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar. lightly packed
- 1/4 cup pumpkin purée or pumpkin pie filling
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp all-spice
- 5 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup pecans, crushed
- 1 tsp salt
Instructions
Cream the butter and 2 sugars together in the bowl of an electric mixer on low to medium speed. (Use the paddle attachment). Mix until thoroughly incorporated – for about one minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a plastic spatula and mix again for a few seconds more. Over mixing the butter and sugar in this step will cause too much air to be incorporated into the dough. If you’d like a light and fluffy cookie, that’s ideal, however the dough will spread more during baking; not ideal if you’d like the cookie to hold its shape.
Add pumpkin purée and eggs while slowly mixing. Add vanilla extract and mix. Scrape down the bowl with your spatula at least once and mix briefly again.
Sift your dry ingredients together. (Flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, all-spice and salt. I do not use baking powder in my cut-out cookies).
Add all of the flour mixture to the bowl. Mix on low speed. When the dough is almost fully mixed, pour in the pecans and mix until incorporated.
Roll the dough out between 2 large pieces of parchment paper. Place on a baking sheet and into the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour.
Roll out the dough further if you need to, and cut out cookie shapes. Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Re-roll scraps and repeat.
Put cookie dough shapes back into the fridge for 10 minutes to 1 hour to chill again. They will then hold their shape better when baked.
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 176°C.
Bake cookies for 8-12 minutes or until the edges become golden brown. The baking time will depend on the size of your cookie.
Let cookies cool to room temperature and decorate!
Notes
Yield: Makes approx. 35 medium sized cookies.
A few quick but easy notes about the recipe, especially handy if you’re new to cut out cookies:
The key to these cookies keeping their shape lies not only in the combination of ingredients (exact measurement in baking is important) and omission of the leavening agent (i.e. baking powder), but in some crucial points in the process. You can find a whole post dedicated to cookies keeping their shapehere.
If you buy whole pecans, you’ll need to make your pieces smaller. It’s simply done by putting your pecans in a ziplock bag, placing the bag between tea towels and then manually crushing them with a meat mallet.
Use the best quality butter you can find. Higher quality butter has less water content, and therefore spreads less during baking. When creaming your butter and sugars, mix only until just incorporated. Traditionally, creaming the butter and sugar means whipping it until it becomes light and fluffy, but doing this will incorporate too much air for this cut-out cookie… perfect for cakes and cupcakes though. Also chill your cookie shapes to almost the frozen point (even frozen works if you have the time) before baking.
These cookies will be frozen to keep them as fresh as possible for Thanksgiving. Find a post on freezing cookieshere.
If you’re baking a little closer to Thanksgiving than I am, here’s a post for you on theshelf life of cookies.
Such a simple recipe to make and the perfect palette for sweet cookie designs. You can find the icing recipe, tips and tools I used below, if you’d like to make them too.
Mini Thanksgiving Cookie Tutorials
Cookie Decorating Basics
Here are some posts which take you through cookie decorating basics:
{Video} How to Outline and Flood Cookies with Royal Icing
{Video} How to Dry Cookies Decorated with Royal Icing
Royal Icing
You can find my favoriteroyal icing recipe here. The consistency of icing is key for easy decorating.Click hereto see a YouTube video on finding the right icing thickness.
Complete Guide to Royal Icing PDF
You can also find myComplete Guide to Royal Icing Consistencyhere.
Decorating Items
What you’ll need (These are Amazon affiliate links):
- Piping Tips – PME #1.5,PME tip 2.5, PME ST50
- Piping Bags
- Couplers
- Americolor Gel Colors
- Scribe ToolorToothpicks
- White or Brown Sanding Sugar
- Coffee Filter
Cookie Designs
All the icing consistencies are medium, unless mentioned otherwise. You can find myComplete Guide to Royal Icing Consistencyhere.
Apple Cookie
- Outline the red apple shape using tip #1.5, then immediately add the white detail using tip #2.5. Let set for a minute.
- Pipe the apple stem using tip #1.5 and let set for a minute
- Pipe the green leaf using tip #1.5 and you’re done!
Apple Slice Cookie
- Outline the red apple exterior using tip #1.5, then immediately add the ivory middle using tip #2.5. Also immediately add a green dot onto the ivory base.
- Drag a toothpick or scribe tool through the top and bottom of the green dot to drag the icing upwards and downwards.
- Pipe two brown dots for “seeds” and immediately drag a toothpick or scribe tool through the dot in one direction, to create the seed shape.
- Pipe the apple stem using tip #1.5 and let set for a minute
- Pipe the green leaf using tip #1.5 and you’re done!
Pumpkin Cookie
- Outline and fill in three sections of the pumpkin using tip #1.5 and let set for a few minutes.
- Pipe and fill in the remaining two sections of the pumpkin and let set.
- Pipe a brown stem, place the cookie on a coffee filter and sprinkle sanding sugar on the stem.
- Using thick green icing and tip #1.5, pipe the pumpkin vine details.
- Pipe the leaves using thick green icing and tip #ST50 and you’re done!
Acorn Cookie
- Outline and fill in the top of the acorn using tip #1.5 ,place the cookie on a coffee filter and sprinkle sanding sugar.
- Pipe and fill in the bottom section of the acorn using tip #1.5 and pipe small lines on the wet base using tip #1.5 and you’re done!
Leaf Cookie
All mini leaf cookies follow the same decorating pattern, only with different colors.
- Outline the exterior using tip #1.5, then immediately add the middle colors using #1.5 tips.
- Drag a toothpick or scribe tool through the surface of the icing to drag the icing upwards towards the leaf tips. Let the base set for a few minutes.
- Pipe the leaf veins using tip #1.5 and you’re done!
Such a simple recipe to make and the perfect palette for sweet cookie designs – have fun making these too! Please feel free to reach out with questions or comments in the comment section below, or you can find me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube and Twitter.
Happy baking!
xo,
Marian
p.s. Love, love, love the new fall apron that Williams Sonoma shared with me! Such a pretty, classic design and such good quality! (100% cotton). You can find their aprons HERE.
p.s.s. And these spatulas! Aren’t they gorgeous!
p.s.s. Lastly, more pics, was having too much fun photographing as usual. Hope you don’t mind. xo
