Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Servings: 12 cookies
These pumpkin cookies, combine baked pumpkin with comforting autumn spices and dark chocolate.
INGREDIENTS LIST
Pumpkin puree
- 1 small Pumpkin such as Hokkaido (or butternut squash)
Cookie dough
- 100 g butter (at room temperature)
- 140 g light brown sugar
- 60 g caster sugar
- 2 tsp honey (or golden syrup or corn syrup)
- 100 g pumpkin puree
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract or 1/2 tsp of vanilla paste
- ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda / baking soda
- ¼ tsp fine sea salt
- 1½ tsp cinnamon powder
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- 190 g plain flour (all-purpose (BL55))
- 100 g dark chocolate (whole bar chopped or chips)
Preparation
- Pumpkin puree: wash and peel the pumpkin, then dice it into roughly 1cm squares. Place them in a saucepan with enough water to cover them and cook for 12 minutes until soft and a piece can be crushed easily with a fork.Drain off the water using a colander and place the pumpkin back into the pan avoiding adding any extra water. Gently dry fry the pumpkin for 5 minutes to remove as much of the moisture as possible. Be careful not to let it burn. Leave to cool, then puree, using a fork or a small hand blender until creamy.Alternatively, cut the pumpkin into 6 cm pieces and place in a hot oven for 30 minutes at 190°C / 170°C fan / 375°F / Gas 5. Once baked use a fork or place them in a blender to puree it.
- Cookie dough: in a medium sized bowl, cream the butter, and the sugar together until light and fluffy. Approx. 3-4 minutes. Add the vanilla, honey and the pumpkin puree and mix to incorporate.
- Sift the flour, salt, spices and baking soda into the bowl and mix together until the crumbs just start to come together, then add your choice of chopped chocolate or chips and mix in gently.
- Optional: for best results, I like to place the raw cookie balls in the fridge prior to baking for at least 30 minutes or overnight if possible. This allows the dry ingredients to absorb the moisture from the wet ingredients more, especially as we have added pumpkin puree which is moist.
- Shaping: using a 6 cm/3 tbsp ice cream scoop or a spoon, scoop out 12 balls of cookie dough onto a plate or tray lined with a piece of baking paper, that will fit in your fridge. If you want to have smaller cookies, divide the balls in half to get double the quantity or you can use a 4 cm/1 tbsp scoop. Optionally, you can add some more chocolate pieces to the top of each cookie for that bakery-style look.Freezing the dough: at this stage, the dough can also be frozen for baking another day.
- Preheat the oven to 190°C / 170°C fan / 375°F / Gas 5.
- Remove the balls of cookie dough from the fridge and place them on a baking tray lined with baking/parchment paper. Leaving 5 cm/2" space between to allow for spreading. I like to push down on the balls to flatten a little into a puck shape so they can spread more easily. I usually fit 6 pieces per baking tray and bake in two batches.
- Baking: bake for 12-14 minutes, until browned around the edges. For half size cookies bake for 8-10 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and let rest on the baking tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool. If your cookies have puffed up too much, you can use the back of a spoon or the flat spatula to gently press down on them.
- Getting perfectly round uniform cookies: after removing the cookies from the oven and while they are still hot, simply use a large cookie cutter over the top of a cookie, using a circular motion to give the cookie a rounder shape.
