Today I share these velvet-frosted Vegan Pumpkin Cookies, a home-baked Halloween treat.

Halloween is just over a week away, which makes me kind of sad. How weird is that? Halloween is still eleven days away and I feel like it is almost over. It is so strange how one holiday seems to stretch and pull the entire length of one month nowadays, like a smooth band of sticky vegan caramel, coating a fall honeycrisp apple, stretching its sweet golden ripples around slick green and red marbled skin. Holidays stretch and pull far beyond their singular day. October is for Halloween. November is Thanksgiving. December, is all things Christmas time, and Hanukkah. Holidays should really be called holimonths.

But I am not complaining. I, like most people, love this fall holiday season. Holidays offer the warmth, comfort and familiarity that we all crave. Plus, a full month of spooky fun, pumpkin everything and anticipation for the final day of October is fine with me. So of course, today, pumpkin cookies.

Pumpkin Cookies. I bought a shiny new pumpkin cookie cutter a few weeks ago and have been looking forward to making these cookies ever since. This recipe is super simple and uses vegan ingredients. Loads of pumpkin flavor. Bake my Simple Frosted Pumpkin Cookies for a fall treat..

Who wants pumpkin cookies?

These simple cookies have a moist and soft texture from all that pumpkin. Their sweetness is vanilla-y from the coconut sugar with an accent of spice from the cinnamon and ginger.

These taste like pumpkin pie meets a classic soft sugar cookies. I hope you love them as much as we did!

Recipe Note: As with all "pumpkin puree" recipes always note how "thick" your puree is. Some boxed or canned purees can be watery, while other are very dry. The puree for this recipe was on the thick and fluffy/dry side -- not watery. Pumpkin can be a tricky ingredient. For this recipe I used Farmer's Market canned pumpkin puree. Another good "dry/fluffy" brand is Libby's.

Simple Frosted Pumpkin Cookies

By Kathy Patalsky
Published 10/20/2015

Coconut sugar pumpkin cookies are a simple, delicious fall treat. Sugar glaze and crushed pecans on top. Cinnamon accents throughout.

Ingredients

1 cup pumpkin puree, unsweetened
1 cup coconut sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger powder (optional)
¾ teaspoon salt
⅓ cup virgin coconut oil, melted
1 ⅓ cup all purpose flour
for rolling out: generous amounts of flour, as needed
glaze:
½ cup organic powdered sugar
2-3 teaspoon non-dairy milk
optional: high quality turmeric for orange coloring -- or use natural food coloring
topping:
½ cup raw pecans, crushed

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a baking sheet or line with parchment paper.
Add the pumpkin, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, salt and coconut oil to a large mixing bowl and whip with a spoon until sugar dissolves and mixture is fluffy and silky.
Fold the flour into the pumpkin mixture, until the dough thickens.
Place the dough bowl in the freezer for a half hour to allow the dough to chill for easy rolling.
On a floured surface, roll out the dough to ⅓" thick and cut out pumpkin shapes. Place on baking sheet until ll dough is used. Use as much flour as needed for rolling out dough.
Bake at 375 for 22-25 minutes -- depending on how large and thick your cookies are. My cookies were large and pretty thick. If using thinner or smaller cookies, reduce cooking time as needed.
Glaze: Whip the sugar with the non-dairy milk until thin and silky glaze forms. Add optional orange coloring. (I used Ojio turmeric which has a mild flavor and adds an orange color.)
Allow the cookies to cool at least 20 minutes on a cooling rack before adding the glaze and pecans over top. Glaze will also harden up as it cools and dries out.
Serve! Store leftovers in the fridge for up to a day.

Yield: 10 cookies (depending on cookie cutter size)
Prep Time: 00 hrs. 40 mins.
Cook time: 00 hrs. 25 mins.
Total time: 65 mins.
Tags: pumpkin,cookies,october,holiday,sugar cookies,vegan,dessert