Recipe:
Source: https://www.vkusnyblog.com/recipe/tykvennoe-pechene-s-shokoladom-i-orehami/Notes on ingredients:
Pumpkin purée. To make it, blend cooked pumpkin with a blender. You can do this three ways: roast, boil, or cook in the microwave. I usually roast it – this gives the purée a more concentrated pumpkin flavor and less excess moisture.
Butter. In this case it’s better to use butter with 80% fat or higher.
Sugar. The recipe uses two types of sugar – regular white and brown. You can use only brown sugar, substituting it for the white on a 1:1 basis. Cookies made with brown sugar will be more aromatic. If you happen to have muscovado sugar, replace part of the regular brown sugar with it – it will be much tastier.
Regular white sugar alone will technically work fine too.
Flour. For cookies it’s better to use flour with a low protein content – regular all-purpose (higher grade) or cake flour. Strong bread flour is not suitable here.
Eggs. The recipe uses an egg yolk, but when making a double batch you can replace it with a whole small egg, 1:1 by weight. For reference – one medium yolk weighs about 20 g.
Starch. You can use either cornstarch or potato starch. The substitution is 1:1.
Spices. Ginger and cinnamon are the classic pair for pumpkin baking. If you have a ready-made pumpkin pie spice mix, you can use it instead of cinnamon and ginger separately.
Fillings. My favorite option is dark chocolate and walnuts. You can also use hazelnuts, cashews, pecans, or even peanuts if you like their flavor in baking. Dark chocolate can be replaced with milk or white chocolate. You can also add dried cranberries or cherries.
Now to the preparation.
Melt the butter and let it sit for 5 minutes.
In a bowl, mix all the sugars.
Pour in the warm (not hot) butter, add the pumpkin purée, egg yolk, and spices. Stir. Warm butter will help the sugar dissolve already during dough mixing, which will positively affect the texture of the finished cookies.
Gradually add the flour sifted together with the starch, baking powder, and baking soda, and knead the dough. It should not be too stiff – at first it may even seem a bit too soft to shape into cookies. Add the chopped chocolate and nuts.
Mix.
Portion pieces from the dough about 2 tbsp each (I find an ice cream scoop convenient), shape them into balls and place them on a lined baking sheet.
It’s important to leave plenty of space between the balls, because they will spread while baking, and if there isn’t enough room the cookies will stick together. A standard 30 x 40 cm baking sheet comfortably fits 12 cookies.
Put the cookies in a preheated oven at 180°C and bake for 10 minutes with convection, until the edges are browned. The center will remain soft.
Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the cookies rest on it for 5–7 minutes. They will settle a bit – that’s normal and intended. Then carefully lift the cookies off the sheet with a spatula and transfer them to a rack to cool.
Serve.
Enjoy your tea!
Cookies keep well in a tightly closed container at room temperature. Although fresh and slightly warm they taste best.
This pumpkin cookie recipe with chocolate and nuts was tested and prepared by chef Tatyana Nazaruk – author of Vkusny Blog.
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