Pumpkin Cream cheese Cookies

I like pumpkin, but pumpkin pie just doesn’t do it for me. I don’t know why, I like pumpkin pie, but it isn’t my favorite thing – however I am a fan of pumpkin cheesecake. So when I came across a pumpkin cookie with a cream cheese icing I was sold. It was also great as I needed some snacks to have around the house thanksgiving weekend. I found the recipe when I was checking out the new recipe sight Tasty Kitchen and decided to try it (with a few adaptations).

Ingredients:
For Creme Pies
1 1/2 cups All-purpose Flour
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Sugar
1 cup Pumpkin (15 Oz.)
½ cup Vegetable Oil
1 whole Eggs
½ teaspoon Baking Soda
½ teaspoon Baking Powder
½ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
½ Tablespoon Cinnamon
¼ teaspoon Ground Ginger
¼ teaspoons Ground Nutmeg
1/8 teaspoons Ground Cloves

Cream Cheese Filling
½ a brick of cream cheese (softened – room temperature)
¼ cup room temperature butter
2 cups icing sugar (powdered sugar)
½ tsp vanilla
2 dash(es) Cinnamon
Preparation Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cookies:
1. Beat together brown sugar, sugar, oil and pumpkin. Add eggs one at time, mixing well after each addition, followed by the vanilla.
2. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, powder, and spices.
3. Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined.
4. Using a pastry bag with a round tip, or a big zip top plastic bag with one corner snipped, squeeze out concentric circles of batter, starting from the middle and working outward until the circles are about 2 inches in diameter.

5. Bake until firm - about 11 minutes. Let cool on a rack before assembling.
Cream Cheese Filling:
1. Beat together cream cheese and butter. Add powdered sugar, vanilla and cinnamon.
2. Frost flat side of half the pies and top with another piece.

Enjoy right away, or chill overnight. These keep very nicely in the fridge for at least a few days.

Notes: I used a 96star tip and this made a great thickness of a cookie and nice swirls on the top, however I ended up with some aweful hand cramps from trying to pipe these out. I ended up with about 15 to 20 cookies once assembled.

Reviews:
This cookies were amazingly tasty and started disappearing before I even had them all assembled. They didn’t last long, and it was hard to get your hands on one the next day.
My family is a fan of anything that gives them an excuse to eat cream cheese frosting and they started stealing pre-assembled cookies and heaping on the cinnamon cream cheese frosting.

My father’s creations looked a lot like a heap of icing with a little cookie!