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These pumpkin spice hazelnut cookies are covered with a sweet maple glaze and strike a great balance between hardy and delicate. All the delicious warm fall flavors come through wonderfully and make these cookies the perfect treat for a fall afternoon!
Our aspen leaves have turned to gold, the vegetable garden is put to bed and the elk bulls are bugling outside. (Have you ever heard elk bugling? It’s wonderful and hilarious at the same time). Anyway, all that means one thing, namely that it’s time for the season’s first cookies!
Rather than thinking up something from scratch I adapted a recipe from America’s Test Kitchen here and added some chopped hazelnuts, maple extract (for the glaze) and, of course, pumpkin pie spice.
How to make pumpkin spice hazelnut cookies:
You start this recipe by whisking together 2.5 cups all-purpose flour, 3/4 cup granulated sugar and a 1/4 teaspoon salt.
Next you beat in 16 tablespoons softened, unsalted butter.
You keep the mixer going until the dough turns crumbly. That’s your cue to add 2.5 teaspoons pumpkin spice, 3 tablespoons chopped hazelnuts and 3 tablespoons softened cream cheese. Cream cheese is a fairly unusual ingredient in cookie dough but it works very nicely. It doesn’t make the cookies taste tangy, it just adds richness and gives the cookies a nicely tender texture.
That’s all there is to it for the dough, now you just wrap it up and let it rest in the fridge for half an hour. After that you’re ready to roll it out, cut out the cookies and bake them for 10 to 12 minutes.
How to make the maple glaze:
There is cream cheese in the glaze for these cookies as well and here you can taste it just a little bit. Mostly though the cream cheese adds great texture to the glaze and the predominant flavors are sweetness from powdered sugar and intense maple flavor from maple extract. You simply whisk all ingredients together and drizzle the glaze on the cookies once they’re cooled.
Recipe Tip:
To avoid adding additional flour to the dough, I recommend rolling it out between two sheets of plastic wrap.
How to serve the cookies:
I suggest you serve these cookies along with a cup of hot chocolate (or a mocha) topped with this Pumpkin Spice Ganache:
More delicious cookie recipes:
- Vanilla Bean Cookies
- Spiced Linzer Cookies with Dulce de Leche
- Linzer Cookies with Ginger Cardamom Raspberry Jam
- Cardamom Meringue Cookies
- The Best Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
Pumpkin Spice Hazelnut Cookies
Ingredients:
For the cookies:
- 2.5 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cups sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 16 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
- 2.5 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- 3 tablespoons cream cheese at room temperature
- 3 tablespoons chopped hazelnuts
For the glaze:
- 1 tablespoon cream cheese
- 1.5 cups powdered sugar
- a few drops of maple extract
- 1-2 tablespoons milk
Instructions:
For the cookies:
- Whisk together flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a standing mixer.
- Cut the butter into chunks and slowly beat into the flour/sugar mix.
- Continue to beat until the dough starts to get crumbly, then add the spice, 3 tablespoons of cream cheese and the nuts. Mix a little more, until everything is well combined.
- Bring the dough together by hand, form into two discs, wrap them each in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Roll out the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap, cut out the cookies and bake on a parchment-lined cookie sheet in a 375-degree oven for 10-12 minutes.
For the glaze:
- Whisk remaining tablespoon of cream cheese together with powdered sugar, maple extract and milk and glaze the cookies with it.
- If you feel like it, make another batch of glaze without the maple extract and drizzle on top.
Nutrition
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