BAKE: The Great Pumpkin Spritz
- Pumpkin Spice Spritz Cookie Ingredients
- Kitchen Equipment Needed for these Cookies
- How to Make Piped Pumpkin Spritz Cookies
- The Great Pumpkin Spritz Cookies
- 🎃 All Hallowed Halloween and Spooptober Pumpkin Post-Roundup 🎃
These piped pumpkin spritz cookies are fun and festive treats that look much harder to make than they are. Add these pumpkin spice flavored cute little cookies to your Halloween treat bags for friends or coworkers, or brighten up your Thanksgiving desert table with a sweet little nibble that isn’t pie.
They’ll look like you spent all day in the kitchen, but you can whip these up in an hour or so. And unlike most festive holiday cookies, there’s no messy icing and sprinkles or rolling and cutting (and getting flour and powdered sugar everywhere). These are already decorated when you take them out of the oven!
Pumpkin Spice Spritz Cookie Ingredients
Butter
Use unsalted butter, or you may want to reduce or omit the salt in the dough. Use real butter for the best flavor and texture.
White Sugar
Use granulated white sugar for these spritz cookies.
Whole Egg + Yolk
For taller pumpkin-shaped cookies that spread less and keep their piped shape better, use just two yolks instead of the whole egg.
Using one whole egg + one yolk makes wider, more tender cookies with softer edges, like the ones pictured.
Vanilla Extract & Pumpkin Spice Extract
You can flavor these cookies however you like, but this combination of classic vanilla with warm and cinnamon-scented pumpkin spice extract gives these a seasonal flair.
If you don’t have any pumpkin spice extract, you can either use additional vanilla, or flavor these with cinnamon, rum, almond, or butter flavored extract.
Salt
A pinch of salt adds flavor and balances the sweetness. Don’t skip it (unless you are using salted butter).
Milk or Half and Half
You’ll mix in just enough milk or cream to thin the dough enough to pipe easily (without bursting the bag) but not so much that the cookies don’t hold their shape. You’ll need more milk if you make the dough with 2 egg yolks vs one whole egg and one yolk.
I used one whole egg in the dough, and about two tablespoons of half and half. The dough should still be pretty stiff, but looser… like very thick mashed potatoes, or deviled egg mixture, but thinner than play-dough.
Orange and Green Food coloring
After mixing in the cream, I divided the spritz dough before coloring it. Scoop out about a cup of the dough to a smaller bowl (maybe a quarter of the batch) to dye green for the pumpkin tops (any extra you can pipe into flat “shell” shapes or squiggles to make leaves and vines).
I used about a 1/4 tsp of powdered professional orange food coloring in the main dough but you can also use liquid regular or natural food coloring (use a mix of red and yellow if you don’t have orange coloring pre-mixed). For the green dough for the pumpkin stems, vines, and leaves, I used about 9 drops of standard green food coloring.
Kitchen Equipment Needed for these Cookies
Sturdy Piping Bag:
This spritz dough is thick, so plastic piping bags won’t cut it. Pick up a couple lined canvas Ateco piping bags and you’ll be set for your cookie and cake decorating needs for years. Two bags will make piping these cookies quicker, as you won’t have to wash the bag between piping the orange and green dough.
They’re hand-washable and have a sturdy metal grommet to hang them up to dry. To wash them, just use dish soap and water, and turn them inside out if you want to be sure you got them clean. Once they’re completely dry, fold and stash them in your baking drawer.
You can sanitize the piping bags with a very diluted bleach water bath after washing them if you’re concerned, but as long as you clean them well and never fold and put them away wet, they’ll last an average baker for a very long time.
To fill the pastry bags, put the star tip in the end and grasp the piping bag about halfway up, then fold the top edges back over your hand like a cuff. Now you can use a sturdy spatula to fill the piping bag with dough.
Plastic bench scraper:
One of these is useful for squeezing the last bits of dough from the pastry bag as you pipe the cookies (lay the piping bag flat on the counter, and use the bench scraper to push the dough towards the tip).
Don’t use a metal bench scraper, and be careful, as if you use too much pressure you can cut or tear your pastry bag. You can also use a sturdy plastic spatula or wooden spoon handle.
Large Star tip(s) :
I used an Ateco 822 large open star tip for the orange pumpkin dough and a smaller 829 open star tip for the green stems, leaves, and vines. You can get both and eight other tips in this bundle or use a similar size and shape tip to these.
Stand Mixer:
A stand mixer with a paddle attachment makes creaming the butter and sugar, incorporating the dry ingredients, and getting a uniform color in your cookie dough a breeze, so if you have one, use it! But if you don’t…
(or) Large Mixing Bowl and Sturdy Spatula or Hand Mixer:
You can definitely make these by hand or with a hand-held mixer. Soften the butter and cut it into chunks so it’s easier to cream together well with the sugar before adding the egg yolks (or yolk + whole egg).
How to Make Piped Pumpkin Spritz Cookies
mix spritz cookie dough:
- Cream softened butter either by hand or with the paddle attachment of a mixer until smooth, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add sugar.
- Continue creaming the butter and sugar together, stopping a few times to scrape the sides and horn of the bowl (if applicable), until the mixture is light and fluffy.
- Add the salt, the egg, and the egg yolks, one at a time, and the vanilla and pumpkin spice extract.
- Scrape the sides of the bowl and mix again until the mixture is well-emulsified.
- Add the flour, one cup at a time, mixing only a few seconds between each addition, stopping to scrape the sides and paddle of the mixer.
- If mixing by hand, fold the flour gently in to the wet ingredients. Mix until well combined.
- Preheat the oven to 350℉ (180℃ or gas mark 4).
color & pipe pumpkin cookie dough:
- Divide dough into two bowls- remove about ¼ of the dough to dye green for the stems, leaves, and vines, and add orange coloring to the larger portion of the dough (or use a mix of red and yellow coloring until the desired shade is reached).
- Mix just enough to incorporate the dye. Too much mixing will make tough cookies.
pipe the spritz pumpkins & vines:
- Add a spoonful of dough to your piping bag fitted with a large star tip (½” diameter open star tip is a good one to start with) and check the consistency.
- If the dough is too stiff to pipe easily, you can add up to a few tablespoons of milk to thin the dough slightly.
- When the consistency is right, fill your piping bag(s) no more than two-thirds full and pipe your cookies.
- Get your cookie sheets ready and line them with nonstick silicone baking liners or parchment paper so the cookies don’t stick to the sheets and break.
- If you have multiple bags and tips you can fill both, or do one color at a time and wash the bag between batches.
- Pipe the orange dough first, holding the piping bag perpendicular to the cookie sheet to form pumpkin shapes, then top them with smaller dabs of green dough to make stems.
- Use up any leftover green dough by piping flat leaves and squiggly vines to make stem shapes.
bake the pumpkin spritz:
- If you are using decorative sugar or sprinkles, add these to the cookies before baking, so that they will stick to the dough. Not all sprinkles are heat-resistant, so test on a few cookies to make sure. Colored sugar should be fine and adds some sparkle.
- You can also leave them plain, and decorate them with royal icing after they have baked and cooled, or just enjoy them as they are, which is already quite fancy!
- Bake for 9-12 minutes, or until the cookies are just set to the touch but not browning.
- Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes, then use a thin metal spatula to transfer to wire racks to cool.
- If you are doing a big batch and need to reuse cookie sheets, make sure the sheets cool between batches before piping more cookies.
The Great Pumpkin Spritz Cookies
Equipment
- sturdy pastry bag
Ingredients
- 8 oz butter (2 sticks/16 tbsp)
- ¾ cup white sugar
- 1 large whole egg
- 1 egg yolk
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp pumpkin spice extract (substitute cinnamon, rum, almond, or butter flavoring, or more vanilla)
- 2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
- 1-3 tbsp milk or cream
Instructions
mix spritz dough:
- Cream softened butter either by hand or with the paddle attachment of a mixer until smooth, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add sugar.
- Continue creaming the butter and sugar together, stopping a few times to scrape the sides and horn of the bowl (if applicable), until the mixture is light and fluffy.
- Add the salt, the egg, and the egg yolks, one at a time, and the vanilla and pumpkin spice extract. Scrape the sides of the bowl and mix again until the mixture is well-emulsified.
- Add the flour, one cup at a time, mixing only a few seconds between each addition, stopping to scrape the sides and paddle of the mixer. If mixing by hand, fold the flour gently in to the wet ingredients. Mix until well combined.
- Preheat the oven to 350℉ (180℃ or gas mark 4).
divide & tint dough:
- Divide dough into two bowls- remove about ¼ of the dough to dye green for the stems, leaves, and vines, and add orange coloring to the rest (or a mix of red and yellow coloring until the desired shade is reached).
- Mix just enough to incorporate the dye. Too much mixing will make tough cookies.
pipe spritz pumpkins & vines:
- Add a spoonful of dough to your piping bag fitted with a large star tip (½" diameter open star tip is a good one to start with) and check the consistency.
- If the dough is too stiff to pipe easily, you can add up to a few tablespoons of milk to thin the dough slightly. When the consistency is right, fill your piping bag(s) no more than two-thirds full and pipe your cookies.
- Get your cookie sheets ready and line them with nonstick silicone baking liners or parchment paper so the cookies don't stick to the sheets and break.
- If you have multiple bags and tips you can fill both, or do one color at a time and wash the bag between batches.
- Pipe the orange dough first, holding the piping bag perpendicular to the cookie sheet to form pumpkin shapes, then top them with smaller dabs of green dough to make stems.
- Use up any leftover green dough after adding stems to your "pumpkins" by piping flat leaves and squiggly vines to make stem shapes.
- If you are using decorative sugar or oven-safe sprinkles, use these before baking so they'll stick to the dough. You can also leave the cookies plain, or decorate them with royal icing after they have baked and cooled.
bake piped spritz pumpkins:
- Bake for 9-12 minutes, or until the cookies are just set to the touch but not browning.
- Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes, then use a thin metal spatula to transfer to wire racks to cool.
- If you are doing a big batch and need to reuse cookie sheets, make sure the sheets cool between batches before piping more cookies. If you pipe the dough on hot cookie sheets, they will spread too much.
Notes
Nutrition
🎃 All Hallowed Halloween and Spooptober Pumpkin Post-Roundup 🎃