Description
These copycat Pillsbury pumpkin sugar cookies are made with just 4 basic ingredients to create soft, chewy, and quite literally identical in taste and texture vegan slice and bake cookies- no eggs nor dairy required!
Ingredients
Scale
Cookie Dough:
- 1 cup (226 g) vegan butter, room temperature
- 2 cups (240 g) organic powdered sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 2 1/2 cups (313 g) all purpose flour*
- 2-3 pea-sized drop vegan orange food coloring*
- 1-2 drops vegan green food coloring*
- 1 tbsp aquafaba, optional, for stacking pumpkins
Instructions
- Prep: Measure out all ingredients, except for the food coloring. Read through all instructions before beginning. If you don’t have a pumpkin cookie cutter, see below instructions for making these cookies without a cookie cutter.
- Make the dough: In a large bowl, use a whisk or hand mixer to cream the vegan butter until fluffy, about 1-2 minutes. Then add in the powdered sugar, vanilla extract, baking powder, and sea salt, and mix again until well combined. It will resemble a buttercream frosting. Then add in the flour. I recommend using a hand mixer here to continue mixing the dough on low speed, but you can also switch to use a silicone spatula to fold the flour into the wet ingredients. The flour will take a bit of work to fully incorporate, and that’s okay/normal. It will come together.
- Color the dough: Divide the dough into thirds, then divide one third of the dough .into thirds again (so you have 3 sections in one third of the dough). Remove one third of the third of the dough and place it into a small bowl (this will be for the green food coloring). Then divide the remaining sections of that third of dough for the orange food coloring). The dough in the large bowl should have roughly 2/3 the full batch of dough.
- Orange: To the bowl with the quarter dough, add the vegan orange food coloring. Use food-safe gloves to mix the coloring into the dough like play dough. You can also use a separate spoon or spatula, but it takes a bit more time for the color to evenly distribute. Adjust the color accordingly to your preference.
- Green: To the eighth cookie dough, add the drop vegan green food coloring. Use food-safe gloves to mix the coloring into the dough like play dough. You can also use a separate spoon or spatula, but it takes a bit more time for the color to evenly distribute. Adjust the color accordingly to your preference.
- Wrap and chill the cookie dough: Wrap each cookie dough (vanilla, orange, and green) in separate plastic wrapped discs. Place the cookie dough into the freezer to chill for at least 10 minutes. This makes it much easier to handle.
- Form the pumpkin log: Remove all cookie dough from the freezer. Set aside the vanilla cookie dough to just rest at room temperature. For the orange and the green, we’ll form a log to use our 1.5″ cookie cutter. Take the orange cookie dough and shape it into a long log that’s about 1/2″ wide and 1 1/4″ in height (about 12 inches in length and roughly 4.5-5″ in width). It will look long and semi-flat. Use a rolling pin to roll the top to get it smooth (see video here). Then take the green, and shape the cookie dough into a long log again that’s about 1/2″ thick, and this time, about 1/4-1/2″ in height (about 10-12 inches in length). Line up the green cookie dough along the orange cookie dough, so you have one large log with green and orange cookie dough. To make it easier to stick together, you can brush the tops of each pumpkin with a bit of aquafaba.
- Cut the pumpkin cookies: Take your pumpkin cookie cutter, and start to cut the pumpkin cookie shapes along the log, lining the stem of the pumpkin up with the green, and the orange for the main pumpkin. Place each pumpkin cookie stacked on top of each other (either stacked up tall or lengthwise, lining up- see photos in blog or video). Any scraps, you can reform into a smaller orange and green log, and begin cutting again. You can also use some of the scraps to connect the log all together if the stems need to be lined up more or there are gaps between the orange pumpkin shapes, being careful to maintain the integrity of the pumpkin shape. Once the cookie dough is used up, carefully wrap the log of pumpkin cookie cut outs in one of the plastic wrap pieces, and place into the freezer to chill for 20 minutes.
- Roll out the vanilla cookie dough: While the pumpkin cookies are chilling and setting together, we’ll roll out the vanilla cookie dough. Lay the plastic wrap from the vanilla cookie dough flat. You can take one of the extra plastic wrap pieces from the remaining cookie dough discs and place it on top to roll out the vanilla cookie dough. You’ll roll the dough to be about 12″ by 4-5″ long. Remove the top plastic wrap piece and discard. We’re going to slice the cookie dough a bit to help mold the pumpkin cookies perfectly into the vanilla.
- Finish shaping the Pillsbury pumpkin sugar cookies: Remove the pumpkin sugar cookies from the freezer, and place the log onto the vanilla cookie dough right in the middle, aligning the length of the log with the length of the rolled out cookie dough. Pick up each side of the vanilla cookie dough, and gently wrap the pumpkin cookies, seeing where the dough will overlap. Then use a sharp knife, and slice off the overlapping pieces. Take those pieces and roll them to be two long 12″ logs. Place those logs on either side of the pumpkin stems. Press them into the pumpkins to shape the pumpkins into one large cylinder (so that the stem’s integrity is maintained when we roll it into one large cookie dough log). Then wrap the vanilla cookie dough over the pumpkin sugar cookies, gently rolling the log so that the vanilla cookie dough presses into the pumpkin cookies and forms one large log. Wrap the log again in plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hour in the fridge, preferably overnight.
- While the dough is chilling: Preheat the oven to 375F, and line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Slice the cookies: Remove the cookie dough from the fridge, and slice the cookie log into 1/2″ thick cookie slices. Place the cookies onto the baking sheets, spacing them about 2″ apart.
- Bake: Place the cookie sheets into the oven to bake for 12-14 minutes, or until the edges of the cookie dough are slightly golden. Remove the cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool for 5-10 minutes before enjoying.
- Enjoy! Enjoy your copycat Pillsbury pumpkin sugar cookies, and store any leftover unbaked cookie dough for up to 2 weeks well wrapped in the fridge or 3 months frozen in the freezer!
Notes
Food coloring: See blog post for tips on different vegan food colors.
Pumpkin cookie cutter alternative: This is the specific pumpkin cookie cutter I use. If you don’t want to purchase a pumpkin cookie cutter, you can also roll the the orange cookie dough into a large 12″ oblong log (semi-flat cylinder, similar to the shape of a pumpkin). Take a skewer and press it into the top of the oblong log. Then roll the green cookie dough into a 12″ long log. Place the green cookie dough where the indent of the skewer is. Then wrap the cookie dough in plastic wrap again and freeze.
Gluten free: Use King Arthur Measure for Measure gluten-free flour.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 large cookies
- Calories: 311
- Sugar: 19.7 g
- Sodium: 51.9 mg
- Fat: 15.6 g
- Saturated Fat: 9.6 g
- Carbohydrates: 40.1 g
- Fiber: 0.7 g
- Protein: 2.9 g
- Cholesterol: 40.7 mg