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Soft and scrumptious Gluten Free Pumpkin Cookies recipe made with browned butter, pumpkin puree, and warm Fall spices. Topped with a decadent cream cheese frosting and dusted with more spice. A festive seasonal treat that everyone will love!
What Makes This Recipe Great
These soft and chewy Gluten Free Pumpkin Cookies are the seasonal treat you’ve been waiting for! Topped with the most wonderful cream cheese frosting, these cookies are perfect for Fall and Thanksgiving.
The pumpkin flavor really shines through, thanks to browned butter, pumpkin puree, and pumpkin spice. The taste, the texture, everything about these cookies is pumpkin perfection!
Even better, this easy 20-minute recipe uses simple ingredients and can be frozen for later use. Make a double or triple batch and have them all season long.
Serve these gluten-free cookies at any festive Fall gathering. Kid-friendly and adult-friendly, they really are the perfect seasonal dessert!
Watch a Short Video of This Recipe
Ingredient Notes
Gluten Free Pumpkin Cookies
- Unsalted butter
- Light brown sugar or coconut sugar
- Granulated sugar
- Egg yolk
- Vanilla extract
- Pumpkin puree: Use canned pumpkin puree. Make sure it’s plain and unsweetened and not a can of pumpkin pie filling.
- Gluten-free flour blend: I like Bob’s Red Mill because it contains xanthan gum, which is a key ingredient in the texture and structure of gluten-free baking.
- Pumpkin pie spice: This is a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, allspice, and ginger. You can make your own, but it’s also easy to find as a spice blend in stores.
- Baking soda
- Sea salt
Cream Cheese Frosting
- Cream cheese: Place on the counter for about an hour to bring it to room temperature before making the frosting.
- Butter: You’ll need the butter for the frosting to be softened to room temperature.
- Vanilla extract
- Powdered sugar
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Add butter to a saucepan over medium heat. Melt then cook for 6-8 minutes while stirring often. The butter begins to foam and turn golden brown. Once the foam reduces and you see brown milk solids at the bottom, pour into a large mixing bowl.
- Cool the browned butter for about 10 minutes, then add in brown sugar, granulated sugar, egg yolk, and vanilla extract. Whisk until smooth.
- Add the pumpkin puree to the wet ingredients and whisk to combine.
- In a separate bowl, stir together the dry ingredients: gluten-free flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, and sea salt until combined.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir until just combined.
- Scoop the pumpkin cookie dough into rounded tablespoons and roll into balls. You can use a small cookie scoop for this if preferred. Place them on the parchment-lined baking sheet and use your hands to flatten slightly. Make sure they are about 2 inches apart.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until the edges are golden and the centers are puffed up. Cool for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Make the cream cheese frosting: Add cream cheese, butter, and vanilla extract to a bowl, and use an electric mixer to beat until smooth. Slowly add in powdered sugar until smooth and spreadable. You can add a bit more water if you want a thinner consistency for drizzling.
- Frost or drizzle the cookies with the frosting. You can sprinkle the top with cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice if you want.
Expert Tips
- Make sure to cool the cookies completely on a cooling rack before frosting, or the frosting will melt off.
- Do not skip on browning the butter. It gives the cookies a much deeper and bolder elevated flavor.
- You can fold in chopped nuts or chocolate chips to the batter if desired.
- To make these pumpkin cookies dairy-free, swap the butter for vegan butter and the cream cheese for dairy-free cream cheese (Kite Hill brand makes a great cream cheese alternative).
- To make the frosting, use an electric hand mixer or stand mixer for best results.
Storage Tips
- To store, refrigerate in a single layer for a few hours so the frosting can harden, then stack them in layers in an airtight container with parchment paper in between them for 3-4 days.
- To freeze, I recommend freezing the cookies unfrosted for best results, but you can freeze frosted cookies if you want. Freeze in a single layer on a baking sheet for 2 hours, then transfer to a freezer bag or container (add parchment paper in between layers if frosted). Store for up to 2-3 months
- Thaw them overnight in the fridge. If unfrosted, make a fresh batch of cream cheese frosting and frost before serving.
More Gluten-Free Pumpkin Recipes
Gluten Free Pumpkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting
Soft and scrumptious Gluten Free Pumpkin Cookies made with browned butter, pumpkin puree, and warm Fall spices. Topped with a decadent cream cheese frosting and dusted with more spice. A festive seasonal treat that everyone will love!
Video
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, or coconut sugar
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling
- 1¼ cup gluten free all-purpose flour, I used Bob's Red Mill
- 1½ tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 4 oz cream cheese, 1/2 brick, at room temperature
- 2 tbsp butter, at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Add butter to a saucepan over medium heat. Melt then cook for 6-8 minutes while stirring often. The butter begin to foam and turn golden brown. Once the foam reduces and you see brown milk solids at the bottom, pour into a large mixing bowl.
- Cool the browned butter for about 10 minutes, then add in brown sugar, granulated sugar, egg yolk, and vanilla extract. Whisk until smooth.
- Add pumpkin puree and whisk to combine.
- In a separate bowl, stir together gluten free flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and sea salt until combined.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir until just combined.
- Scoop dough by rounded tablespoons and roll into balls. Place them on the parchment lined baking sheet and use your hands to flatten slightly. Make sure they are about 2 inches apart.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until the edges are the golden and the centers are puffed up. Cool for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Make the cream cheese frosting: Add cream cheese, butter, and vanilla extract to a bowl, and use an electric mixer to beat until smooth. Slowly add in powdered sugar until smooth and spreadable. You can add a bit more water if you want a thinner consistency for drizzling.
- Frost or drizzle the cookies with the frosting. You can sprinkle the top with cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice, if you want.
Notes
Expert Tips
- Make sure to cool the cookies completely on a cooling rack before frosting, or the frosting will melt off.
- Do not skip on browning the butter. It gives the cookies a much deeper and bolder elevated flavor.
- You can fold in chopped nuts or chocolate chips to the batter if desired.
- To make these pumpkin cookies dairy-free, swap the butter for vegan butter and the cream cheese for dairy-free cream cheese (Kite Hill brand makes a great cream cheese alternative).
- To make the frosting, use an electric hand mixer or stand mixer for best results.
Storage Tips
- To store, refrigerate in a single layer for a few hours so the frosting can harden, then stack them in layers in an airtight container with parchment paper in between them for 3-4 days.
- To freeze, I recommend freezing the cookies unfrosted for best results, but you can freeze frosted cookies if you want. Freeze in a single layer on a baking sheet for 2 hours, then transfer to a freezer bag or container (add parchment paper in between layers if frosted). Store for up to 2-3 months
- Thaw them overnight in the fridge. If unfrosted, make a fresh batch of cream cheese frosting and frost before serving.
Nutrition
Serving: 1cookies, Calories: 157kcal, Carbohydrates: 20g, Protein: 1g, Fat: 8g, Saturated Fat: 5g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.4g, Monounsaturated Fat: 2g, Cholesterol: 31mg, Sodium: 77mg, Potassium: 26mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 14g, Vitamin A: 725IU, Vitamin C: 0.2mg, Calcium: 18mg, Iron: 0.4mg
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Tried this recipe?Leave a comment below or tag @whatgreatgrandmaate!
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My roommates and I made these together and they turned out DELICIOUS. I added a little more flour since the dough looked wet. We had to make a second batch a few days later.
Yay!! I’m so glad this was a repeat recipe for you. Truly makes me so happy. Thank you so much for leaving a review!
These cookies are absolutely delicious! I tweaked the recipe slightly by not adding the white sugar and increasing the spices. I’ll definitely make them again. Many thanks for your recipe.
Yay!!
Everyone who tried them loved these cookies, I will definitely make them again! I followed the recipe with some modifications, which I’ll comment on below:
-I doubled the ingredients in the recipe to make more cookies. My batter was a bit more wet than the batter in the TikTok video, so the cookies ended up being a little flatter/more spread out. But that may be due to some careless measuring on my part, and I still got amazing results!
-Browning my butter took a lot longer than 8 minutes. Causes May Include: I’ve never done it before, I used a small saucepan instead of a skillet, I was browning twice the amount of butter in the recipe, I stirred it too much, and/or the heat was too low? Once I stopped stirring so much and turned the heat up a little, it gradually developed the brown solids at the bottom. Not a huge fan of having to clean the sticky solids off the bottom of my saucepan, but browning the butter really did take the flavor to the next level!
-I used standard (i.e. not gluten free) all-purpose flour. It worked perfectly!
-I baked the cookies on a baking sheet without parchment paper. No issues there!
-I did not use an electric mixer to mix the frosting. The frosting was still delicious, but I do regret not having used a mixer. There were some visible chunks of sugar in it and it wasn’t as whipped/light as it may have been otherwise.
Thank you so much for leaving a detailed review! And yes, more butter means it’ll take longer to brown. I’m so glad you enjoyed these pumpkin cookies.
So good!! Missing a step in the recipe though to mix wet+dry ingredients, but I figured it out! When I made them, the batter was very loose so I let it sit for 5 mins and it thickened slightly. The cookies were a little more flat than I anticipated. Next time I will put the batter in the fridge to firm up for about 30mins-2hours so the cookies come out taller and less flat. Amazing recipe, so good after being chilled in the fridge!
So sorry about that! I just updated the instructions. So glad you enjoyed the recipe. And yes – you can definitely chill the dough, it’ll also make the cookies a bit chewier as well. So glad you enjoyed it!