This has been the most popular pumpkin recipe on this site since 2021. Readers make these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies when they have somewhere to be. A bake sale table, a Thanksgiving plate, a tin for the neighbors. Donna sells them at her church’s fall bake sale and says they go first. Kiana has made them every fall for three years running.
One thing to know before you start: these are soft and cake-like on purpose. They are closer to the pumpkin cookies you remember from a school bake sale than to a chewy chocolate chip cookie.
Read Before You Start
The batter will look wrong. It isn’t! This is a thick, scoopable batter, not a dough you can roll between your hands. Do not add flour to fix it. Extra flour is how you end up with dry, bready cookies instead of soft ones.
Ingredient Notes
Sugar: There is no brown sugar in these, and that is not an oversight. Brown sugar carries extra moisture, and this batter is already holding a full cup of pumpkin.
Oil, and the butter question: Readers have baked them with butter instead of oil and short on pumpkin, and they still came out soft. Nicole, a reader who tried the swap, said they needed an extra three to four minutes in her oven.
If you want add-ins: chopped walnuts or dried cranberries fold in at the same time as the chocolate chips without changing anything else.
One cup of pumpkin is not the whole can: A standard 15-ounce can holds about 1 ¾ cups, so you’ll have ¾ cup left over. That’s exactly what my pumpkin ice cream takes, down to the tablespoon. Or use 2/3 cup for my pumpkin roll and the last spoonful in a pumpkin spice latte.
Don’t Skip This Step
After the chocolate chips are folded in, walk away from the bowl. When you first mix this batter, it’s so runny that it almost pours. That’s because the flour hasn’t had time to soak up all the liquid from the pumpkin yet.
Give it 20 minutes and it thickens into a scoopable batter that holds its shape as it bakes. If you skip this step, you’ll get thin cookies instead of puffed ones. Use the wait to preheat the oven and line your baking sheets!
How To Know They’re Done
The tops tell you when these cookies are done. The cookies go into the oven looking shiny and wet.
They’re done when the tops turn matte all over, with no shiny spots left, and spring back when you press one lightly. If any part of the top still looks glossy, give them another minute.
Don’t wait for them to brown. These cookies stay pale on top. By the time they turn golden, they’re overbaked and dry. Pulling them out too early causes the opposite problem: gummy centers and tops that turn sticky as they cool. If that’s happened to your cookies before, they just needed another minute or two in the oven.
Make Ahead and Freezing
These are built for baking ahead. Scoop the batter into balls on a lined sheet, freeze until firm, then move the frozen balls to a freezer bag.
They keep for three months. Bake them straight from the freezer and add a minute or two to the bake. No thawing.
Baked cookies freeze too. Cool them completely, bag them, and they keep about three months.
Storage Instructions
These keep on the counter for about four days in an airtight container. The one thing that goes wrong is sticky tops. These cookies are so moist that they give off moisture in the container, and it lands right back on top of them.
Two ways to prevent it. Make sure the cookies are completely cool before you pack them up. Pick one up and feel the bottom. If it’s still warm, wait. Then put a paper towel in the bottom of the container and another one on top of the cookies. The towels soak up the moisture so the cookies don’t.
Don’t store them in the fridge. It dries them out.
This recipe was originally published in August 2021.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 cups flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup canned pumpkin
- 8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Combine sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a medium-sized bowl, and mix.
- In a separate large bowl, add all wet ingredients: egg, vanilla, pumpkin, and oil. Mix until well combined.
- Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.
- Fold in chocolate chips.
- Let batter set for 20 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Scoop heaping tablespoons of cookie dough onto a greased baking sheet.
- Lightly wet the tips of your fingers to pat down the cookie batter, then carefully place 3-4 extra chocolate chips on the tops of the cookies before baking to make them look prettier.
- Bake for 10 minutes (time may vary with different ovens).
- Remove from the oven and let cool on a cooling rack.
Video
Notes
- Watch out when you are at the grocery store that you buy pure pumpkin puree and not canned pumpkin pie filling.
- Make sure not to overmix the dough or your cookies will flatten out too much.
- Use a layer of parchment paper for easier clean-up instead of just greasing the pan.
- Oven temperatures vary and may need to be recalibrated periodically to ensure they are accurate. Make sure to keep a close eye on your cookies as the suggested baking time approaches.
- Make sure not to underbake your cookies or they will come out raw in the middle. Overbaking will result in cookies that are not soft.
Nutrition
Comments
Victoria says
They look delicious!😊
Wanda Anderson says
What size can of pumpkin.
Layne Kangas says
Hi, Wanda – you’ll need one cup of canned pumpkin for these cookies. Enjoy!
Elaine Lloyd says
They all look delish 😋😋😋
Nicole Falk says
Yummy cookies! I am sharing because I’ve seen many comments asking about butter. I had no oil so I tried butter… it worked, but I did have to bake them an extra 3-4 minutes (in my oven… yours might differ?). But they are yummy!!
Delma Dominguez says
Just make your pumpkin cookies with chocolate chips, l followed the recipe exactly and they came out Delicious and fluffy and No going back 😉 definitely a keeper recipe in my family , thank you in Fontana, California 👍
Kiana says
I love this recipe, I’ve been using it around fall for the last three years and they are so delicious. I get tons of compliments and am always happy to share this recipe! Thanks for my favorite!!
Donna says
This is one of my favorite go-to recipes for Fall bake sale cookies at our church. They are soft, delicious cookies that sell out immediately. It is definitely a keeper. THANK YOU for sharing.
Gayle says
This is a very forgiving recipe. I did several changes, partly cuz I didn’t have quite enough pumpkin and they still turned out great. I also used partly regular flour and partly white whole wheat flour. I’ll do it per the recipe next time!
Laurie says
I’ve always made pumpkin cookies for Thanksgiving. I put currants in mine. My family always fight over them.