I’ve had this recipe for Iced Pumpkin Cookies for years. Years. I always use extra spices & add chocolate chips. I almost never bother with the icing. I really should just type up my own recipe.

This time, I really monkeyed around with it. I substituted in a 1/2 cup of wheat flour and a 1/2 cup of Splenda to accommodate my diet, and I used Ener-G egg replacer so the Boy could also enjoy a cookie. This last substitution was especially important since was the very first thing he’s “helped” me bake — and by this I mean he wore his own apron for all of 5 seconds, played with funnels and spoons, watched stuff churn in the stand mixer, and enjoyed licking batter from my fingers.

Nothing better than the scent of two dozen pumpkin cookies filling the house

So, here’s the final recipe:

2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. wheat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. butter (softened)
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. Splenda
1 c. canned pumpkin
1-1/2 tsp. Ener-G egg replacer (prepped according to package directions)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 c. chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

• In a medium-sized bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients (flour thru salt on the list above)
• In another bowl, cream together the butter, sugar & Splenda
• Add the pumpkin, egg replacer (stirred into 2 tbsp water, as per package directions), and vanilla to butter/sugar mixture. Blend until creamy and smooth.
• Add dry ingredients and mix until evenly blended.
• Finally, add chocolate chips and stir gently by hand until evenly distributed.
• Drop tablespoons full onto prepared baking sheets (I lined with parchment paper, but you could also spray with cooking spray). Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Makes 24 cookies.

These cookies came out perfectly. With no noticeable difference from previous versions made with full sugar and eggs. They are always fluffy and a bit cakey, which I think comes from the pumpkin. They clock in at 136 calories per cookie… which isn’t great, but isn’t bad when you consider they are pretty sizable and filling. The Little Mister ate them for lunch on Friday. And the Boy had them for snack AND dessert – definite winners!

Chocolatey Oaty Goodness

I used the same recipe (from Baking Illustrated) for these as I used for the Loaded Oatmeal Cookies from last week — with a few obvious and not-so-obvious changes. For one, I used 1-1/2 cups chocolate chips, rather than the nuts, fruits, and veggies that went into the other cookies. I also omited the nutmeg, as suggested by BI. The next time I make them I will probably put the nutmeg back in because I just like the way the nutmeg enhances the flavor of the oats, and I think it might make a more complex, flavorful cookie.  As they turned out, I thought these were good — but more like extra filling, extra chewy chocolate chip cookies.  I felt like the flavor of the oats took a backseat to the chocolate, and I wonder if just that little bit of extra spice might create some more balance.

One cookie tray went splat: light butter or oven placement?

Less obvious:  The recipe calls for 2 sticks of butter, and I wanted to see what would happen if I tried to “lighten” up the recipe.  So, I used 1 stick of regular, unsalted butter and one stick of light butter.  The light butter was salted, so I also decreased the amount of salt I added into the cookies by about 1/2.  This was my first time using light butter, and I was surprised by how different it is in texture.  When I tried to soften the butters in my microwave before creaming them, the light butter melted completely while the regular butter merely softened up a bit.  I’m not sure how much this difference affected the final product.  Taste-wise, I don’t think they were any different.

Some of the cookies were more crumbly than my last batch of oatmeal cookies, but I think that may have had more to do with oven placement than anything else. It seems like the cookies that start out on the middle oven rack — further from the heat source — spread and flatten rather than puffing into a voluptuous, full-figured cookie.  I had a very similar problem last time.

I do think all of the cookies, regardless of their flatness or fullness, got very crumbly after a few days (one person called them “trail mix cookies”), and I wonder if this has something to do with the different fat. Maybe next time I will experiment with using light butter exclusively.  We’ll see.

Well, no, in fact I hadn’t.  But I was intrigued.

I started by checking out the recipes for oatmeal cookies in Baking Illustrated, How to Cook Everything, and The Joy of Cooking.  No carrots anywhere.  So, I searched the trusty internet and found several Carrot Raisin Oatmeal or Oatmeal Raisin Carrot or Oatmeal Carrot Raisin, etc. etc. — all of them just different enough, none seeming as fundamentally sound as the BI version (there’s just something about all their testing and explanation that wins me over). So, I decided to make their cookie, with the tiniest substitution — instead of 1-1/2 c. of raisins, I added a 1/2 c. each of raisins, shredded carrots, and chopped walnuts.

These cookies are knobbly & yummy!

The result is a hearty but balanced oatmeal cookie.  Although I normally like my baked goodies pretty bare bones, these cookies felt just right.  I actually think splitting the large helping of raisins into smaller helpings of the three different ingredients insured that no one flavor would overwhelm the cookie or outshine the oats.  I also really like the BI instruction to add nutmeg, rather than cinnamon.  It is, as they suggest, a much more subtle spice than I’ve come to expect from oatmeal cookies.

I may have overcooked them a wee bit, as some of the cookies were a little dry (especially around the edges) and a little less chewy than I would have liked. Honestly, I’m not sure if its timing or my cookie sheets that should be blamed.  On one of my sheets the edges looked brown at the 22 minute mark, so I pulled those immediately and left the other cookies in for a few more minutes, moving them to the lower rack.  After another 2 minutes, I removed the second sheet, even though the edges still didn’t look really “brown” to me. Well, those second cookies — the ones with not-so-brown edges — were much more moist and chewy than the cookies that came off of that first sheet and came out of the over sooner.  Its hard to say whether its the fault of a shoddy cookie sheet (my higher quality cookie sheet gave me the better cookies, even though those were in the oven a little longer) or if maybe being on the bottom rack (as the recipe suggested) was too much.  Next time I make these, I’ll mess around with how long each sheet stays on the bottom or middle to see if it makes any difference.  I have a feeling I might need to suck it up & buy another, nice cookie sheet.

They're gigantic! Each cookie is like a mini-meal.

P.S. Did I mention they’re HUGE.  I mean look at them.  I think it they almost look like scones in this picture.  The Little Mister compared their size to muffin tops.  One cookie is at least the equivalent of two “regular”-sized cookies (whatever that means), and soooo filling!!  I did calculate that each individual cookie has just under a tablespoon of butter (not to mention all the sugar!), but I’d say that’s balanced out by all the good nutrition you get from the carrots, raisins, walnuts, and oats.  I think these cookies are like a well-balanced meal!  I’m pretty sure these are going into my regular repertoire of goodies — I can’t wait to make them again.