(Experiment 288) Pumpkin Oatmeal cookies

Summer is packing up its warmth and heading out, and autumn is moving in with its usual mix of rain and cold. Ugh, depressing.

The good news is autumn also brings apple and pumpkin picking season. And pumpkins aren’t just for carving jack-o-lanterns on Halloween. You can turn them into soups, pies, and even cookies, way more versatile than people give them credit for.

I highly recommend you make double batch as they freeze really well.

Print Recipe

(Experiment 288) Pumpkin Oatmeal cookies

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups flour All Purpose
• 1 1/2 cups quick-cooking rolled oats
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 113 g unsalted butter softened
• 50 g sugar you can reduce if you want especially if you add chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 cup pumpkin puree you can replace with applesauce
• Optional: 1/2 cup chocolate chips or dry raisin

Instructions

• First let’s make the pumpkin puree
• Cut the pumpkin , remove seeds and cut it down in pieces and add them into an oven-safe container with water. 400F around 30 mins.
  
Alternative : You can also blast them in the microwave for ~10 mins.
• Once they are cooked, cut the skin and put the flesh into a bowl. Use a hand mixer and blend it all together
• I did 3/4 of a medium/large pumpkin and it gave me about 12 cups of puree. You can freeze whatever you don’t use to make some more cookies during the cold months.
• Combine the flour, oats, baking soda, and salt in a mixing bowl and reserve
• In your stand mixer, cream the butter
• add the sugar slowly
• add oil + vanilla
• Add the egg + pumpkin puree
• Add all the dry ingredients from step 1
• Tip: Before you turn on the mixer, cover with a clean dishcloth, this will prevent having flour all over your kitchen)
• If you opted for it ,you want to add chocolate chips
• Your final mix should look somewhat similar to this
  
• Cover a pan with parchment paper and drop some of the mixtures in each corner + 2 in the middle. Make sure they don’t touch each other. I would recommend not to make them higher than 1/2″ .
• Cook at 375F for 18-25 mins. Don’t over bake. Once you take them out they will keep cooking for a little while.
• Let them cool, optionally find some testers for quality insurance. If it’s positive, start doing batch number 2.

Notes

Once the cookies have cooled off, you can wrap them in plastic film in freeze them. They will keep good for 2-4 months. To unfreeze them, 15-30 seconds in the microwave works, or just leave them at room temperature for a couple of hours.