When my daughters were little, they took private swimming lessons at the Stonestown YMCA with a lovely, young San Francisco State University student named Elyssia. But teaching my girls how to swim all four strokes was not the only gift we received from Elyssia. After their lessons one year during Halloween week, Elyssia gave my daughters each a few of the most deliciously moist, chocolaty and pumpkin spicy cookies I had ever tasted (I was able to pry one out of my older daughter’s little cold, wet hands to taste for myself).
I immediately asked Elyssia for the recipe, and ever since, her pumpkin chocolate chip cookies have been a family favorite. We make them a lot in the fall, in particular, and every year my younger daughter brings them to school for her birthday. I have yet to encounter a kid who does not love them.
In addition to featuring the unusual combination of chocolate and pumpkin, these cookies are unique in that they do not contain eggs. While this is great if you need to cater to egg allergies, the best thing about egg-free cookies is that you (and your kids) can go ahead and pig-out on the dough—and believe me, you’ll want to—without having to worry about salmonella. Likewise, it’s perfectly fine to under bake these cookies—in fact, they are better that way.
We lost touch with Elyssia after she graduated from San Francisco State and stopped teaching swimming lessons, but will be forever grateful to her for teaching our daughters to swim and for introducing us to these scrumptious pumpkin chocolate chip cookies! And now, I am passing the recipe on for you to enjoy!
Follow along on our @sfmomsblog Instagram story today see how these cookies come together!
Elyssia’s Egg-Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
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INGREDIENTS
Makes around 24 cookies
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter softened
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 6 Tbsp pumpkin puree
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (or more, as desired!)
DIRECTIONS
- In a medium bowl, whisk the softened butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar together until smooth. Whisk in the vanilla and pumpkin until smooth. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together with a large spoon or rubber spatula.
- Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Cover the dough and chill for 30 minutes or up to 3 days (chilling is a must!)
- Preheat the oven to 350 F and roll the dough into 2 Tbsp-sized balls
- Place the balls onto a cookie sheet (line with parchment paper for best results) and flatten slightly
- Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes; they will look very soft, but remember — no eggs! — and keeping them in longer may dry them out.
- Allow cookies to cool for at least 10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.
