Vegan pumpkin cookies is this Halloween special! Pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin scones....it's everything pumpkins in October and November!
A couple of years ago when my eldest was in pre-school I made these vegan pumpkin cookies for his class snack. A rotation system for bringing snacks to school was in place then and each student had to provide snacks to the class for 2 days once in few months.
The first day I made him these vegan brownie cupcakes which was a huge hit with the kids and the teachers and I was told that they were eagerly waiting for the next snack I was going to bring.
It was almost close to Halloween and I had some canned pumpkin puree left and wanted to make a recipe using it. That was also the time when I had bought The Taste of Home Baking Book. Found this pumpkin recipe in that book and the original recipe by itself was vegan, so I didn't have to worry about egg substitution. The only change I made was I used Earth Balance vegan butter alternative instead of the shortening used.
The eggless pumpkin cookies came out very well. If you like your cookies to be soft and chewy, you should try this recipe. The recipe also had instructions for frosting, since I was baking them for kids I omitted it. I didn't want them to become hyper-active in the class later.
You can simply add chocolate chips to this recipe instead of raisins or bake these vegan pumpkin chocolate chip cookies recipe or try this easy pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.
If you tried this Vegan Pumpkin Cookies recipe, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below!
💌 Save This Recipe!
We'll email this recipe post to you, so you can come back to it later!
We will also add you to our email list. Unsubscribe at any time.
Recipe
Vegan Pumpkin Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
Ingredients for Cookies:
- ½ Cup Shortening (I Used Crisco All)
- 1 Cup Sugar
- 1 Cup Pumpkin Puree (Not Pumpkin Pie Filling Simply Canned Pumpkin Puree Or You May Also Choose To Buy Fresh Pumpkin And Cook It)
- 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract (I Use Trader Joes Pure Vanilla Flavor Alcohol Free)
- 2 Cups All Purpose Flour
- 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon (I Made It ½ Teaspoon)
- A Dash Salt
- 1 Cup Raisins
Ingredients For Frosting:
- 2 Tablespoons Butter (Vegans Can Use Earth Balance Or Any Other Soy Products)
- 1 And ½ Cups Confectioner's Sugar
- 2 Tablespoons Milk (For Vegan Version Use Soy Milk Instead)
- 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Instructions
Procedure for cookies:
- Preheat the oven at 350F for 15 minutes.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream shortening and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add pumpkin and vanilla.
- Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
- Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and mix well.
- Fold in raisins.
- Drop by teaspoonfuls (I used ½ tablespoon measurement to scoop the dough) 2 in. apart onto greased baking sheets.
- Bake the cookies for 12-14 minutes or until lightly browned. Mine took exactly 14 minutes for the batch which I baked in an aluminum baking sheet. The dark non stick baking sheet batch began to brown at 12 minutes itself. So watch closely.
- Remove to wire racks to cool.
Procedure for frosting:
- Melt butter in a small saucepan.
- Stir in the sugar, milk and vanilla until smooth.
- Frost cooled cookies.
My Notes
- Since this was my first experience with shortening, when I began to cream it with sugar, I was sure that the cookies would not bake properly because it did not cream like softened butter and sugar. Shortening is more solid than butter, even at room temperature, so even after creaming it with a hand-held electric mixer for more than 7-8 minutes, it was sort of in a semi-solid state. Or maybe that's what is light and fluffy; I do not know. I proceeded with the recipe, but the cookies did not bake well enough.
- I think using freshly prepared pumpkin puree or adding more liquid (like milk/soymilk), or using canned pumpkin, would make the cookies even lighter and crispy. I used the canned puree, which is solid packed, so it does not have enough moisture. Already, the creamed mixture did not release any moisture, and the pumpkin puree was also solid, so the cookie dough was stiff. I was literally praying that the cookies should come out properly or I would have to run out to the store at 9 in the night to get something for the kids next day. Fortunately it came out well. Since I have not tasted pumpkin cookies before, I don't have anything to compare with. But we liked it very much. As I have mentioned earlier, the cookies were chewy and not crispy.
Mat says
First off thanks for the recipe. I am marking these for work for tomorrow aka Halloween.
This recipe is great the texture is on point. I sub the raisins for vegan chocolate chips. I also was going to add a hint of nutmeg but I had none so I through in a bit of allspice.
Madhuram says
You're very welcome Mat.
Lakshmi says
Hi, Can I use oil instead of the shortening and sub 1 cup wheat flour and 1 cup APL (instead of 2 cups APL)?
Madhuram says
Yes it should work Lakshmi.
Anh says
Hi!
I tried to make this recipe for my friend. This was the first time I tried to make vegan cookies... Well I have few questions:
1) Does the batter really turns out very sticky rubbery before baking?
2) It turn out like half way cooked in 12-14mins so I turned it over and baked for few more minutes, guess how it turned out... like a bread cookie..
Is there something wrong I did in the process that's why this recipe turned out like that? What could be the reason of this outcome?
Please help... 🙂
Thank you so much!
Madhuram says
I baked these cookies almost 5 years back and I can't remember the texture of the batter or the cookies. Since we are using cooked pumpkin the cookies are bound to be soft/chewy rather than crunchy because of its moisture content.
Alliecat says
This is a wonderful recipe! I altered it slightly, using a cup of brown sugar verses the white and for the frosting I omitted the milk and combined vanilla, less than a cap full of lemon extract, a dash of nutmeg and confectioner sugar with melted butter. I also added nutmeg to the cookies and instead of raisins I used pecans.
Madhuram says
Thanks Alliecat.
Darija says
Hello. If I was to use butter instead of shortening, should I use melted butter?
Madhuram says
You can use butter at room temperature without melting it.
Genette says
I added 1/2 cup milk to the recipe in hopes of making the cookies crispier. Nope. Not at all crispy. 🙂 But it made it easy to mix and easy to spoon to the sheet. I think of these as "Pumpkin Cake Cookies". My son is allergic to egg, so appreciate your clever help in giving him a holiday treat!
Madhuram says
Thanks for trying the recipe Genette.
Melinda says
Absolutely delicious. Soft on the inside and slightly crisp on the bottom. These are hands down the best pumpkin cookies I've ever made. Period. Thanks so much. Your site is fabulous!
The kids in my son's class loved it too. It's definitely a keeper. Thanks for trying the recipes, Melinda.
Vipul Gandhi says
Can Vegetable shortening be replaced By Butter?
Yes, you could but the texture of the cookies will be different but definitely tastier. Found this in http://www.ochef.com
"One reason you might use shortening in a cookie recipe is that it melts at a higher temperature, so the dough holds its shape longer in the oven, allowing the flour and eggs to set before the cookie collapses and spreads. So it is possible to produce a cookie that does not spread very much. Using butter or margarine (which has a melting point only a degree or two above butter) produces a cookie that spreads out more.
The primary reason you make cookies at home instead of picking one of the hundreds of packages off the shelf at the grocery store is that you can make a cookie that tastes a lot better than store-bought. From the perspective of taste in our opinion butter wins hands down. Vegetable shortening adds nothing to the flavor of a cookie, but virtually all store-bought cookies are made with it. Some people prefer the taste of margarine, however, and this is a democracy, after all."
p.j. says
These taste delicious! I've never baked a vegan recipe before, but I didn't even miss the egg. I did want to say that the tops of my cookies cracked. Can anyone tell me what causes that?
Thanks PJ. Cookies may crack if they are over baked. So try removing the baking sheet 2-3 minutes earlier. Cookies usually continue cooking even after removing it from the oven. So transfer it to the wire rack after 5 minutes.
Body detoxification diets says
i became a Vegan three years ago and i can say that my health have been very very good. meat and dairy substitutes like soy also works well for the body.
Aspire says
Do you shoot all these tasty pics yourself& =)
My husband takes the pictures.strong>
laci says
Cute, simple, crowd pleaser and delicious 😀
diana says
This recipe was really good. Like the notes said, I wasn't comfortable with how dry the sugar/shortening cream looked so I added some soy milk and it looked better. I also added some to the overall dough once I mixed the wet/dry and it helped bring some moisture.
I didn't have raisins so I substituted chocolate chips (crashing the vegan thing) but they turned out goooood!
Thanks Diane for the feedback. I'm glad that you liked the cookies.
Becki says
Hello from Germany! I just made these cookies with a few variations -- turned out great!!
Variations:
instead of Crisco/Shortening -> Sunflower Oil (a high oleic variant good for frying, baking...)
Sugar: brown sugar, about 3/4 c, a bit less than called for (and a bit of "vanilla sugar" instead of vanilla extract, that's the way vanilla is typically sold here in Germany
Flour: (organic whole grain) spelt flour
Spices: cinammon plus ground cardamom and coriander, two favorites of mine (maybe 1/4t each?, cinn. as called for).
Used self-baked pumpkin (first time I'd done that for baking, worked great!).
Raisins I put into about half of them - forgot them at first, taste good without, too ;-).
They're absolutely delicious. My dog - often a picky eater - really likes them too (the little bit she's gotten), and they're healthy!
Thank you much for these. 🙂
Hi Becki, thanks for the feedback and the detailed info. about the variations. I especially like the idea of using sunflower oil, brown sugar and cardamom.
LinQ says
Wow! never thought of cookies that could be made out of pumpkin 🙂
seems you have put lot of efforts for making those new & different cookies,that has really worked out.
Regards,
Vibha.