Soft, chewy cookies, perfectly spiced and filled with a delicious cream cheese frosting. These pumpkin spice sandwich cookies are the perfect autumn treat!
These sandwich cookies have gone straight into my favourite bakes ever list. Seriously, they are so good! Pumpkin spice is the perfect flavour for Autumn; so warming and comforting. The cookies are soft (and actually get softer and more delicious with time!) and chewy, with the most delicious texture from the coating of Demerara sugar. And the cream cheese filling cuts through the sweetness perfectly. Honestly, I need you to make these right now!!
Key Ingredients You’ll Need
- Spices – You can buy pre-made ‘pumpkin spice’, but I’ve just used a combination of spices here. You’ll need ground ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. So if you don’t want to clog up your spice rack, then feel free to go for a pre-made mix.
- Black Treacle (Molasses) – This is what keeps our cookies super soft and tender! It’s definitely a sticky substance to work with, but it wouldn’t be the same without it!
- Demerara Sugar – Before baking, the cookies are rolled in Demerara sugar and it gives them the most delicious crinkly texture. And an extra sweetness that goes so well with the spices.
How to make pumpkin spice sandwich cookies
The cookie mix is super easy to whip up and only needs 20 minute chilling time. Beware though, the dough is so tasty pre-baking, you might not end up with anything to bake! 😉 And the cream cheese filling takes literal minutes to whisk together too. They’re the perfect afternoon cookie bake that will last you the whole week through! Seriously the whole week! The cookies start fairly firm, and get softer over time resulting in them being even more delicious.
Making the pumpkin spice cookie dough
So first of all, you need to make sure your butter is cold from the fridge. The cookies start almost like pastry, by combining the flour, bicarb and spices together and then rubbing in the butter. Once it looks like you have a bowl full of breadcrumbs, you can stir in the sugar. And then we get to the wet ingredients.
In a separate bowl, combine the egg, golden syrup and black treacle together – just enough to combine. Treacle and golden syrup are super sticky and gloopy to bake with. Luckily you can often find golden syrup in squeezy bottles now, but treacle not so much. So I find it easiest to use a big dessert spoon, dip it into the treacle, then turn the spoon over a few times until the dripping stops. Then tap the edge of your bowl with the spoon, for the treacle to drip in. This is the best way I’ve found to avoid a sticky mess around the edge of your tin, and across your worktop!
Then you can stir the wet mixture into the dry, and a soft dough will quickly form. Then place into the fridge to chill for 20 minutes.
Baking the cookies
Once your cookie dough is chilled, theres one final step before baking. And thats to roll the dough in lashings of Demerara sugar. The sugar gives a delicious crunchy texture and gives the cookies a crinkly look which I really love too! And its so so simple. Literally just scoop out the dough (about 40g, but you can eyeball it!), roll it into a ball between your hands and then roll it in the sugar. Then they’re ready to be placed on a baking tray and baked straight away! No further chilling time – hooray!
When they come out the oven, rap the baking tray down on your worksurface just to deflate them a little and add to that crinkly texture, and then leave them to cool.
You could totally stop here, and just have the cookies plain, but they are SO good with the sandwich filling.
Sandwiching the cookies
By this point your kitchen must smell incredible, full of warming spices! Just the best. But now for the final flourish. The filling! Cream cheese and pumpkin go hand in hand when it comes to desserts, and this is my favourite cream cheese frosting. Just a simple mix of cream cheese, double cream and a little icing sugar. Whisk it all together quite vigorously so it thickens, and then pop it all in a piping bag. You don’t need a piping bag, but it does make your life a bit easier and neater!
Once you have the filling ready to go, match up all your cookies so they’re in even sized pairs. Then pipe the filling on the base of half of the cookies, and press the other half of the cookie on top to sandwich. And voila!
Tips & Tricks
You totally can, and I get that it’s a lot of spices. Just make sure to use the same total quantity of the spices below.
Firstly, make sure your cream cheese and double cream are fridge-cold when you use them! I always finds this helps. Also, some cream cheese textures are different, so you may need to whisk for longer than you think.
Yes! Absolutely! And in fact, I actively encourage it. I found on days two and three, that I enjoyed the cookies even more! The time gives the flavours a chance to develop and the cookies to soften and get even more tender.
I’m so so happy with how these pumpkin spice sandwich cookies turned out. They’re full of warming spice, soft but a little chewy, crunchy on the outside from the sugar and filled with the creamiest cream cheese frosting. The slightly tangy cheese cuts through the sweetness so well. And most importantly they’re SO easy to make, and last so well at room-temperature and in the fridge! The perfect gifting cookie in my opinion!
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Pumpkin Spice Sandwich Cookies
Ingredients
Cookies
- 350 g plain flour
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 3/4 tsp ground ginger
- 3/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 190 g unsalted butter chilled
- 175 g soft light brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 60 g golden syrup
- 60 g black treacle
- 80 g Demerara sugar
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 200 g full-fat cream cheese
- 25 ml double cream
- 60 g icing sugar
Instructions
- For the cookies: Place the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices into a large bowl. Then rub in the cold cubed butter, until it resembles breadcrumbs. Then using a wooden spoon or silicone spatula, stir in the light brown sugar.
- In a separate bowl, lightly beat the egg, golden syrup and treacle together until combined. Then pour into the dry mixture, and stir until combined. Press clingfilm directly onto the surface of the dough and chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas Mark 4 and line two/three large baking trays with baking paper. Pour the Demerara sugar onto a small plate. Then scoop small balls of the dough out (approx. 40g each), roll into balls between your hands and then roll in the sugar, completely coating the outside. Then place on the baking trays, leaving a little gap between each. You should have 22 cookie balls.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes or until they feel firm. Leave them on the baking trays for 10 minutes, and then remove and place them onto cooling racks to cool completely.
- For the frosting: Whisk the cream cheese and double cream together until smooth and slightly thickened, then whisk in the icing sugar until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Place in a piping bag.
- Pair up the cookies into even sizes, so you have 11 pairs. Pipe the frosting onto the bottom side of half the cookies, and sandwich the remaining cookies on top of each, pressing down slightly to set.
