

These Vegan Pumpkin Cookies remind me of fall. Kind of rough around the edges, hazy golden-orange color, cozy, rustic and infused with loads of pumpkin personality – plus a few surprises. Those surprises in these bumpy, blissful cookies include nutty pecans, rolled oats and vegan dark chocolate chips. Give your usual favorite cookie craving a fall makeover by adding in pumpkin!..

OK, side note .. PicMonkey .. have you tried this? So fun!..

..Since I have a tendency to cram TONS of photos in my posts – these PicMonkey collages are quite helpful. Instagram + PicMonkey .. ah, my version of procrastination heaven 🙂

Pumpkin Cookies. The awesome thing about Pumpkin Cookies is that you can really tweak any favorite cookie recipe to include pumpkin. The texture will be different – in a moist – dense – wonderful sort of way. But you could easily update your favorite chocolate chip walnut cookie, peanut butter cookie, ginger cookie, oatmeal raisin cookie, vanilla chocolate chip holiday cookie or even snickerdoodle cookie to use pumpkin.

Pumpkin is quite moist and fibrous, so it partially acts as a vegan egg replacer from the denseness it creates. But most importantly, because pumpkin adds loads of moisture you can use less oil or vegan butter (or even omit it altogether.)

Cookies. Just one more way to get your pumpkin fix this fall.

Nutty Pumpkin Chip Cookies

vegan, makes 18-22 cookies

dry:

1 1/4 cups rolled oats

1 1/4 cup whole wheat or spelt flour (subbing optional)

1 cup sugar, organic

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 Tbsp baking powder

wet:

1/3 cup water + 1 tsp flax seeds + 1 tsp chia seeds* (flax/chia egg)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup pumpkin puree (canned or homemade – unsweetened)

1 tsp cider vinegar

2-4 Tbsp virgin coconut oil (unrefined), melted (or sub veggie oil)

* seeds – you can choose just one seed if needed

fold-in:

1/2 cup pecans (or walnuts)

3/4 cup vegan chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Add dry ingredients to large mixing bowl. Stir in wet ingredients. Fold in the “fold ins” until the dough starts to form. into a moist ball.

*flour note: you can substitute with a wide variety of flours – note that you may need to modify liquid to flour ratio just a tad depending on your variety. White flours may need a splash less liquid that heartier flours like whole wheat.

3. Place dough in the fridge or freezer until it firms up a bit – usually 15 minutes will do it.

4. Spoon cookie dough or roll into balls and place onto parchment paper lined or coconut oil greased baking sheet(s).

5. Bake at 375 for about 12 minutes – more or less depending on cookie size and how chilled your dough was. cookies will bind a bit as they cool – so once the edges being to slightly firm up and brown, the cookies are done.

Same dough / different technique. You can either chill the dough first, or just simply spoon it onto your baking sheet in messy clumps. The round balls were my cookies when I chilled the dough. I also tried them without chilling first..

This clumpy version of the cookie is what they look like when you do not chill the dough – spooned cookie dough still in a wet, soft form.