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Vegan Pumpkin Cookies
October 29th, 2008 Madhuram Posted in Cookies, Egg Free, Food Blog Events, Vegan Baking | 
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Hi, everybody! Hope you all had a wonderful and safe Deepavali! I’ve been very busy for the past couple of days. Last week it was my son’s turn to provide snacks for his classmates at pre-school. It was for 2 days actually. So I baked Eggless Brownie Cupcakes using flax seed meal (I’ll post it shortly) and vegan pumpkin cookies. The next day was my husband’s birthday and I baked a cake for him. All this baking really made me very tired and nauseous. I realised that too much of anything is not good. I really wonder how people work in bakeries!
If this was not enough, I had a presentation in my son’s school about Diwali on the 27th. My mother suggested sharing some traditional sweets and snacks with the kids. So she prepared Coconut Burfi and I helped her in preparing the Maida biscuits. I don’t know the actual name for the maida biscuits, it’s mixing all purpose flour, salt, crushed cumin and black pepper and making it into a dough, just like making chapathi dough. Then divide the dough into small balls, roll each ball as thin as possible and cut them into small diamonds using a knife and deep fry them.
As for the coconut burfi, I asked my mother to follow Anjali’s recipe. We usually prepare burfis from fresh coconut, which is a big process. You have to grate the coconut without the skin etc. But her method looked so simple using store bought dessicated coconut. So my mother first tried a little and we were definitely skeptical about the taste, but to our surprise it came out very good and tasted like the traditional coconut burfi. The only change my mother made was she powdered half the measurement of coconut and kept the other half as it is, which gave a good texture to the burfis. Also she used cardamom powder because we did not have the kesar masala milk extract. So she went ahead and prepared a big batch of burfis for the school. Thank you very much Anjali for this simple yet tasty recipe, everybody in the school liked it.
Now let’s see the recipe for the pumpkin cookies I was talking about. I got this recipe from The Taste of Home Baking Book. The original recipe by itself was vegan, so I didn’t have to worry about egg substitution. The cookies came out very well. If you like chewy pumpkin cookies, 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.
Frosting (Optional)
2. Add pumpkin and vanilla.
3. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and mix well.
5. Fold in raisins.
6. Drop by teaspoonfuls (I used 1/2 tablespoon measurement to scoop the dough) 2 in. apart onto greased baking sheets.
7. Preheat the oven at 350F for 15 minutes. 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.
8. Remove to wire racks to cool.
For Frosting:
1. Melt butter in a small saucepan.
2. Stir in the sugar, milk and vanilla until smooth.
3. Frost cooled cookies.
2. I think either using freshly prepared pumpkin puree or adding some more liquid (like milk/soymilk) if using canned pumpkin would make the cookies even more light and crispy. I used the canned puree and it’s solid packed, so it does not have enough moisture. Already the creamed mixture did not release any moisture and the pumpkin puree also was 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.
This is my entry for the following events:
1. AFAM – Pumpkin hosted by me.
2. AWED – American hosted by DK.
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November 8th, 2009 at 7:45 am
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.”
October 12th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
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.
August 19th, 2009 at 2:37 am
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.
July 24th, 2009 at 1:51 am
Do you shoot all these tasty pics yourself& =)
My husband takes the pictures.strong>
February 28th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Cute, simple, crowd pleaser and delicious
December 21st, 2008 at 9:34 pm
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.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:34 am
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.
November 4th, 2008 at 12:21 am
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.
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Vegan pumpkin cookies look so tasty! Thanks for sharing so many great eggless recipes.