Soft and Puffy Pumpkin Spice Cookies — The Smell That Survives

Halloween week. I bought too much candy. I always buy too much candy. The Kenwood neighborhood used to be full of kids — Anna, Peter, Elsa, the Bergman kids next door, the Larsons across the street, the Andersons three doors down. We had thirty trick-or-treaters in the 1990s. We had fifteen in the 2000s. We had eight last year, mostly because of COVID. I bought enough for thirty anyway. The neighborhood has changed. The young families have moved to the suburbs — to Hermantown, to Esko, to Cloquet — where the houses are bigger and the schools are newer and the mortgages are cheaper. The Kenwood houses are filled with retirees, with empty-nesters, with widows. With me. I got six trick-or-treaters this year. Six. A baby in a pumpkin costume (parents trying their hardest), three middle schoolers in lazy costumes (sweatshirts pulled up over their heads, claiming to be "hoodies"), and two little girls dressed as Frozen characters who I don't have the heart to tell are out of date because the movie is from 2013. I gave each of them four pieces of candy. I'm eating the rest myself, slowly, throughout November, when the dark comes early and the candy in the bowl is the small consolation of a woman alone in a quiet house. Sven was uninterested in Halloween. He used to bark at every trick-or-treater. Now he sleeps through the doorbell. The vet says this is normal for a thirteen-and-a-half-year-old golden retriever. I know it's normal. I miss the barking anyway. I made pumpkin soup. The proper kind, from a real pumpkin (a sugar pumpkin from the co-op, roasted in the oven until the flesh was soft and sweet, scooped out and pureed with onion, garlic, ginger, coconut milk, vegetable stock, salt, pepper, a touch of nutmeg). Topped with a swirl of cream and toasted pumpkin seeds. Served with crusty bread. The soup was orange and silky and warming. I ate it at the kitchen window. The lake was gray. The maples were past peak. A few stragglers in costumes were walking down the street. The street lamps came on at five-thirty now. The Damiano Center on Thursday: I brought a pumpkin pie in addition to the soup. The Halloween treat for people who do not get trick-or-treated. Gerald ate two slices. He said, "My mother used to make pumpkin pie." I said, "Where was your mother from?" He said, "South Dakota. She died when I was nine." I did not know that. We have served soup together for years and I did not know that. I asked, "What do you remember?" Gerald said, "The smell of the pie, mostly. And her singing in the kitchen. That's it. The smell and the song." The smell and the song. The two things that survive. The two things that food can carry. I made him take a whole pie home. He cried a little. I pretended not to notice. Scandinavian decorum. Friday: I baked pumpkin bread. The whole house smelled of cinnamon and clove. Sven was unimpressed. The street outside was quiet. The candy bowl is going to last me until December at this rate. The smell and the song. Whatever survives, survives. I will keep making the pies.

The pumpkin bread I made on Friday filled the whole house with cinnamon and clove — and that smell, more than anything else this week, reminded me of what Gerald said about his mother: the smell and the song. These soft and puffy pumpkin spice cookies carry that same warmth in every bite, and they’re what I’ll be baking through November while the candy bowl slowly empties and the lake outside goes from gray to grayer. If you’ve got a sugar pumpkin and a quiet kitchen, this is exactly where to start.

Soft and Puffy Pumpkin Spice Cookies

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 13 min | Total Time: 28 min | Servings: 24 cookies

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup pure pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons cinnamon sugar (for rolling: 2 tablespoons sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon cinnamon)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven. Heat your oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Whisk dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves until evenly combined.
3. Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl using a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2–3 minutes.
4. Add wet ingredients. Add the pumpkin puree, egg, and vanilla extract to the butter mixture. Beat on medium speed until fully incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. The mixture may look slightly curdled — that’s fine.
5. Combine. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low speed just until a soft dough forms. Do not overmix.
6. Roll in cinnamon sugar. Scoop the dough by rounded tablespoons. Roll each ball briefly in the cinnamon sugar mixture to lightly coat, then place on the prepared baking sheets about 2 inches apart.
7. Bake. Bake for 11–13 minutes, until the tops are set and the edges are just barely golden. The cookies will look soft — that’s exactly right. Do not overbake.
8. Cool. Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. They firm up slightly as they cool and remain wonderfully soft and cakey.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 115 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 4g | Carbs: 18g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 85mg