This the best gluten-free pumpkin cookies recipe with chocolate chips and brown sugar icing. Make it with canned or fresh pumpkin puree.
We had extra pumpkin leftover from another recipe that we made the day before so we wanted to try to make something else with the extra pumpkin. We had a big cousin party the other evening and ate dinner and dessert together. It was perfect cause I was in charge of the dessert. So I decided to make these wonderful quinoa pumpkin cookies with chocolate chips.
They turned out great and all of the kids loved them! Their favorite part was the icing, they loved putting their icing on their own cookies right before eating them. It was a fun way to involve the kids. The cookies tasted good without the icing but adding that on brought the cookie to a whole new level! These cookies are like little melt in your mouth pillows. So soft and fluffy!
I generally use canned pumpkin puree for recipes like this, partly because of the consistency. Canned pumpkin is generally thicker than homemade. I wanted my one cup of pumpkin to equal your one cup of pumpkin, as far as consistency and water content go. Plus, it's easier to use a can of pumpkin.
Although, it's not that hard to bake pumpkin. You can also use any kind of winter squash puree in place of the pumpkin puree. My mom actually prefers squash to pumpkin in all of her recipes that call for pumpkin.
Pumpkin is really popular in the fall - restaurants and stores have pumpkin-flavored everything. Of course, this is totally fine with me! I sure love pumpkin myself so it's fun to come up with new recipes to take advantage of pumpkin season! We also have additional gluten-free pumpkin recipes on our blog including quinoa pumpkin muffin with a cream cheese filling and streusel top or quinoa pumpkin pancakes that you might enjoy if you liked these cookies! Enjoy the pumpkin coma!
Recipe
Gluten-Free Pumpkin Cookies Recipe with Chocolate Chips and Brown Sugar Icing
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 18 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Cuisine: Gluten-Free
Description
I love this gluten-free quinoa pumpkin cookies recipe with chocolate chips and brown sugar icing. Sometimes I leave off the icing to make them faster and less messy or other times I leave the brown sugar icing on because it complements the nutty taste of the quinoa flour.
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Butter (softened)
- 1 Cup Brown Sugar (lightly packed)
- 1 Cup Pumpkin Puree
- 1 ½ tsp Vanilla
- 1 Egg
- 1 ½ Cups Quinoa Flour *
- ½ Cup + 2 Tbl Gluten-Free Oat Flour *
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- ¼ tsp Real Salt *
- 1 Tbl Tapioca Flour * or Arrowroot Starch *
- 1 ½ tsp Cinnamon
- 1 Cup Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips
Optional Brown Sugar Icing
- 3 Tbl Butter
- ½ Cup Brown Sugar
- 2 Tbl Milk
- ¾ Cup Powdered Sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Place the softened butter and brown sugar in a mixing bowl and beat together for several minutes, until light and fluffy.
- Beat in the pumpkin puree, vanilla, and egg.
- In another bowl, whisk together the quinoa flour, oat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, tapioca starch, and cinnamon.
- Add to the butter/pumpkin mixture, mixing until just combined. Add the chocolate chips, mixing just to distribute.
- Scoop rounded spoonfuls ( I use a 2 tablespoon scoop) 1 ½" apart on the prepared baking sheets. Scoop out about 2 tablespoons batter per cookie for small cookies and 4 tablespoons batter for large cookies.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes. Cookies should be set on top but still very soft. You will need to bake them longer if you make large cookies. Let cool on the baking sheet. Remove to a wire rack.
- Top with Brown Sugar Icing
- Store cookies in an airtight container.
Brown Sugar Icing Instructions:
- Melt the butter over medium/high heat in a medium sized saute pan.
- When butter starts to foam and brown slightly, giving off a nutty aroma, remove from heat.
- Mix in the brown sugar.
- Place the mixture in a bowl and whisk in the milk until smooth.
- Add the powdered sugar, mixing until smooth .
- Allow to sit for about 5 minutes to thicken slightly.
- Drizzle over the tops of the cooled cookies.
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Leigh Anne
I love pumpkin cookies. I'd leave off the icing for myself!
Tara L
These look fabulous! The topping makes it look really good, yum pumpkin!
Brittney Minor
These look delicious!
Abby I
I adore pumpkin! love that we can combine Quinoa with this. Awesome recipes, looking forward to trying them!
Dana
These look so good! Too bad we are sugar free. I love pumpkin things. I might have to try to alter your recipe to come up with our own lower carb version. But they look absolutely delightful!
Rebecca
I thought the same thing about the sugar. Never fear, my husband is diabetic and we both eat pretty much no sugar so we definitely plan on developing more recipes that are sugar free. It's pretty hard. Right now we're trying to figure out what, if any, sugar substitute my husband can handle. We're going to start with coconut sugar, honey, raw honey and stevia and go from there. We've always just had no dessert so this is a whole new world trying to develop recipes that are good and sugar free. Oh, we haven't published it yet but we made barbeque sauce for chicken the other night with no sugar and it turned out good. Just follow us and we'll be posting it here in the next week or so.
mary tegtmeyer
I can't use sugar. My son is type 1. I'm on the edge. I really love your commitment to having a wonderful life and sharing with others thanks.
Suzanne
I would agree! I'd like to find more desserts that use very little sugar. It's hard but doable. I love pumpkin and so do my kids so I might have to try it as an extra special treat!!!