There is nothing quite like a fresh out of the oven baked good to help chase the chill of winter away, so on when the temperatures start getting cold, we love to bake something so that we can warm the house up. With two little boys in our house, one thing that is always welcome are cookies, be it chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin or snickerdoodles. While we love a good cookie, sometimes its is fun to make something different, which is why we came up with our Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodle Whoopie Pies.
We had been thinking of treats we could take to some of the upcoming festivities we would be attending, and we wanted to make something that would be a little more exciting than plain cookies. A couple of years ago we had made some whoopie pies for a party we had attended and all of our friends raved about how they loved them, so we decided that maybe we needed to try to recreate the magic and make whoopie pies. We wanted to make something seasonal to fit in with the holidays, so we chose a cookie that was full of spice, a pumpkin spice snickerdoodle.
Our pumpkin spice snickerdoodles started out as your regular snickerdoodle cookie that we dressed up with pumpkin spice. Pumpkin spice is a great mixture of the classic warm baking spices that are found in the fall and winter, full of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice and ginger. Pumpkin spice makes its appearance in the early fall, and reaches its peak right around Christmas, so making a pumpkin spice snickerdoodle definitely fits the season!
We recently made a cocktail that paid homage to another great holiday cookie, the Ginger Snap, which had lots of great holiday spice flavors in it. In the Ginger Snap, we used amaretto, which gave a unique nutty sweetness to the drink that really brought out the spices. With the pumpkin spice snickerdoodles full of these same spices, we figured an amaretto filling would be the perfect filling for our Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodle Whoopie Pies.
The amaretto filling brings a subtle nutty flavor and sweetness, the almond flavor brightening the cinnamon and nutmeg flavors from the pumpkin spice coating of the snickerdoodles. We made our amaretto cream frosting with real amaretto liqueur (in you haven’t noticed, adding spirits to things is kind of our thing!) but if you wanted to make this for kids or non drinkers, you just as easily could use almond extract to give the filling the same flavor.
Our Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodle Whoopie Pies were a big hit at our house, the soft spicy cookie and the sweet creamy filling combining to make a delicious sweet treat. These are going to be on our holiday party menu soon! Cheers!
Ingredients
- 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 large eggs
- Coating: 2 Tbsp sugar
- 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- Cream Filling: 2 1/2 - 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1 Tbsp milk
- 1/4 cup Buttered Brown Sugar Simple Syrup
- 3/4 oz amaretto or almond flavored extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- In an electric mixer cream together the butter and sugar for 3 minutes until fluffy.
- Add eggs one at a time, mix well after each.
- Reduce speed to low and add in flour mixture. Continue mixing until just combined.
- Mix together the coating, the sugar, pumpkin pie spice and cinnamon in a small bowl.
- Shape the dough into small balls, 1 inch size or so.
- Roll each in the coating mixture and place 2 inches apart on the baking sheet.
- Press down flat with the bottom of a glass.
- Bake 12-15 minutes until the edges are golden.
- Rotate pan halfway though cooking.
- Allow to cool on the sheet before removing to a cooling rack.
- While cookies are cooling, start on the filling.
- Combine all ingredients with a mixer, until thickened, not runny, and place between 2 cookies. Serve.
I hear, read and watch around the holidays “snickerdoodles” and have never had one. I think I should add it to my holiday baking list this year. I find your twist on the classic recipe enticing.
Oh you should! Such an underrated cookie! Hope you can try them out!
These look so good! It makes me want to use the ancient oven in my homestay lol.
Thank you! That might make for an adventure!
Doesn’t matter what you call them these look delicious and can’t wait to make them.
Thanks so much! Enjoy!
these sound delicious! need to have my in-laws whip them up for me 😉
-Stefanie
http://www.thestylesafari.com
Haha, that’s how to do it!
These look so yummy for a cold fall afternoon!
Thanks, we agree!
The love whoopee pies! Making them pumpkin spice?? So yummy!
Thanks, we thought it was a great new twist!
These look delicious! Santa just might get a dozen! Thanks for sharing!
http://www.shaylaclay.com/blog
My kids would die over this!! Going to try making these this weekend!
Hope you got to try them out!
This looks delish! Snickerdoodles are my fave!
Right? This is a great new twist!
These look amazing! I love snickerdoodles and can’t even imagine how delicious the addition of pumpkin spice would be!
xo Ashley
Thanks! We thought it was a great twist! Hope you get to try them out!
Thanks, we thought it was a great holiday twist!
Omg! This recipe looks delish! Just in time for the holidays! Who can go wrong with pumpkin spice snickerdoodle?! Yummy!
That’s what we thought! Hope you try them out!
These sounds delicious, never tried to make whoopie pies but I need to give these a try.
Thanks, hope you do!
Wow! Do these look fab! I’m trying to decided what kind of cookies to make for some visitors — these are on my list – pinning!
Thanks so much, these would be perfect for visitors! They are easy and chewy!
These look amazing! I love the flavor combination of Snickerdoodle and Pumpkin Spice. Plus, it’s a great alternative to the traditional “Whoopie Pie”. I’m looking forward to trying these soon!
Thanks so much! We thought it was a great change, and we have family members that don’t like chocolate, so they can enjoy them, too!
Pumpkin spice whoopie pies! OH MY! Now I have to make these. 🙂
Haha, I know, right?! I said, why didn’t I make these earlier?!
I love the sound of this, I would love to try this recipe.
Hope you do, they are great!