Pumpkin Spice Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting

My favourite cookie of all time would never have occurred to me to bake as a cookie. I'd heard of pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bars, and of course the classic pumpkin pie, but this pumpkin spice cookie recipe I came across was something totally different. Even better, this is an easy-peasy recipe that there's just no mucking it up, no matter how hard you try. Bonus: most of the ingredients are stuff you'd probably already have in your kitchen cupboards, so it's not an expensive undertaking. I first baked these just last fall, and they were such a hit with my family on that mid-October night, that I think maybe two or three cookies of the batch lived to see morning, and even those were gone by lunch time. I suspect the cream cheese frosting spread on the cookies while still warm out of the oven were the reason for it. Here's the step-by-step on how to make these deadly cookies... perfectly enjoyable any time of the year, as I'm typing this blog in the beginning of July.

Pumpkin Spice cookies with Cream Cheese frosting

Ingredients:

2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

1 T. pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp. each of baking soda and baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 c. of butter, softened*

3/4 c. brown sugar, packed

1/2 c. sugar

2 T molasses

1 egg

1 c. pumpkin

Optional: 1/2 c. each of raisins and chopped nuts

*Instead of microwaving butter to soften, take it out of the fridge a couple hours before mixing ingredients. This softens the butter without heating it up, which can have not-so-desirable results with the egg in the batter... such as starting to cook it.

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (Farenheit)

1. Combine flour, spice, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

2. Beat together butter, brown sugar, sugar, molasses, and egg until light and fluffy. Blend in pumpkin. Beat in flour mixture until just combined. Stir in raisins and nuts.

3. Drop batter onto greased baking sheets.

4. Bake 10-12 min., or until firm to the touch and lightly browned.

Cream cheese frosting:

Half a package of cream cheese, softened

1 1/4 c. icing sugar

Optional: orange food colouring for a Halloween look

Beat the cream cheese and icing sugar until smooth. It will look crumbly at first, so keep beating on medium speed- it will eventually look like a shiny glaze. Colour with food colouring if desired. Spread on cooled cookies.

Cookies can be refrigerated.