Spiced Pumpkin Dunking Sticks

Well, its finals time, which means I’m hunting for just about anything to do other than study. A friend of mine recently sent me looking at the Better Homes and Gardens holiday cookie recipes, and I must say a lot of them look pretty appealing. I didn’t want to go to the store, so I picked a recipe I already had all the ingredients for (believe it or not I did have a spare can of pumpkin sitting around). When it came to piping them out, the website’s instructions said to pipe them out into a corkscrew motion, which I found to be impossible. The dough is far too thick for any kind of piping. Instead I rolled the dough into logs with my hands into logs about 4-5 inches long and 1 inch thick, and baked them like that, which worked fine. I also didn’t have a lemon, so I used orange juice in its place in the glaze. I thought these cookies were ok, but a friend I gave them to raved about them.

 

Spiced Pumpkin Dunking Sticks

Makes About 20

1 cup butter, softened 

½ cup sugar 

1 tsp ground cinnamon 

¾ tsp baking powder 

½  tsp ground nutmeg 

½ tsp ground ginger 

¼ tsp salt 

¼ tsp ground cloves 

1/3 cup canned pumpkin 

1 egg 

1 tsp vanilla 

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Beat the butter on medium speed in an electric mixer for 30 seconds. Add the sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, nutmeg, ginger, salt, and cloves, and beat until fully combined.

2. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the pumpkin, egg and vanilla and beat until combined. Add the flour and beat in on low speed until combined. This might be a strain on your mixer, so you may have to beat in the last of the flour by hand.

3. Using a wide tip, pipe the dough using a corkscrew motion, making cookies about 4 to 5 inches long. If you can’t make this work (which I can’t), just use your hands to roll the cookies into logs about 1 inch thick and 4 – 5 inches long.

4. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 5 to 7 minutes, or until just firm to the touch.

5. Let the cookies cool completely. Once Cool, glaze (recipe follows).

 

Glaze

1 ½ Oz. Cream Cheese

1 T unsalted butter, softened 

¼ tsp finely grated lemon peel 

1 tsp lemon juice 

¼ tsp finely grated orange zest 

¾ cup powdered sugar 

2-3 tsp milk

1. Beat together the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add the lemon and orange peels, the lemon juice, and the sugar.

2. Mix in enough milk for the glaze until it can be drizzled.

3. Drizzle the glaze over half of each cookie. Let sit for about 3 hours, or until glaze is set.