White chocolate pumpkin snickerdoodles

Happy belated Halloween everyone! I usually don't put much effort into my costumes, but this year, someone was awesome enough to make me an amazing TARDIS hat (the light on the top blinks and everything!). All I had to do was put on my TARDIS apron and not move my head too quickly (the hat was pretty heavy).

Time and Relative Dimension in Space

As for my Halloween treat, I present: white chocolate pumpkin snickerdoodles! This cookie is another winner of a recipe from my favorite baking blog. I originally baked these for the weekly lab meeting, but they were so good, that I ended up baking another batch for the Halloween party I went to.

It's full of great flavors - pumpkin, white chocolate, all the fall spices, plus the short baking time results in a perfectly soft and chewy cookie. You might notice that this recipe has no egg in it. Eggs are usually added to cookie dough to help fuse it all together, but in this case, the pumpkin takes care of that role! Adding eggs would actually make the dough too wet, sticky, and overall hard to handle. The lack of egg also means you don't have to worry about slightly under-baking these cookies - that just adds to the chewiness factor!

In this case, just be sure to chill the dough slightly (~30 minutes) to make it even easier to form balls. Of course, like regular snickerdoodles, these are rolled in cinnamon sugar right before baking to add that extra layer of sweetness.

Hope everyone's Halloweens were filled with fun and candy! Speaking of the TARDIS, this has been a really....interesting season of Doctor Who, hasn't it? Some really great episodes, along with some...really terrible episodes that were only saved by the acting. We'll see what the finale has in store for us!

White chocolate pumpkin snickerdoodles (makes about 2 dozen cookies)
(Adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction)

• ½ cup of butter (unsalted, melted)
• ¼ cup (50 g) of dark brown sugar
• ½ cup (100 g) of white sugar
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 6 Tbsp (86 g) of pumpkin puree
• 1½ cups (190 g) of flour
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp baking soda
• 1½ tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp ground allspice
• ¼ tsp ground ginger
• ¼ tsp ground cardamom
• ¼ tsp ground cloves
• ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
• ½ cup (90 g) white chocolate chips
• ½ tsp cinnamon + ½ cup white sugar, for rolling

1. Combined melted butter, brown sugar, and white sugar together by hand or in a mixer on medium speed. 
2. Add vanilla and pumpkin and continue mixing until smooth and combined. 
3. Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and all the spices. Add the butter/sugar mixture to the dry ingredients and fold together until just combined (do not overmix!)
4. Fold in white chocolate chips. 
5. Chill dough for at least 30 minutes (can chill overnight).
6. Preheat oven to 350F.
7. Form dough into balls about 1.5 Tbsp each. Roll the dough balls in the cinnamon/sugar mixture and place on lined baking sheets. Flatten the tops of the balls slightly (they do not spread very much during baking). 
8. Bake for 8 minutes or until the cookie comes off the baking sheet easily. 
9. Let cool and enjoy!