The Big Cookie Project: Week 21

It's fall...almost. I couldn't help myself by jumping the gun and making a very fall-like cookie. It IS 95 degrees outside and that's pretty cool around here compared to summer, so I thought,"Why not?"

Penelope sent me this recipe, and will be presented with a few of the cookies tomorrow at church as a thank you. I really can't take credit for making the cookie either, because I put an apron on Nolan and put him to work dumping the ingredients in to the mixer. I did bake them, which would have been dangerous for Nolan to do. After they came out, the recipe said to add a glaze to them, and me having the biggest sweet tooth in Texas didn't think glaze was enough. So, I went ahead and made a cream cheese frosting for the cookie.

I've never figured out if I should refrigerate the baked goods with cream cheese frosting, because technically cream cheese should be refrigerated. My worst nightmare would be for someone to take a bite of a cookie and realize that the icing was sour because I had left it on the counter. So, as an experiment, I'm leaving half the cookies on the counter and half the cookies in the fridge to test:

#1: What tastes better

#2: Which icing does better (room temp. vs. cold)

#3: Which cookie will dry out faster

Very scientific, I know. I'm the next Mr. Wizard.

Here's the recipe:

ICED PUMPKIN COOKIE RECIPE

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter (softened)

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 can pumpkin puree

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

ICING:

3 oz. cream cheese

1/4 cup butter (softened)

2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:

1. Cream together butter and sugar.

2. Add pumpkin puree, vanilla extract and egg

3. Add dry ingredients.

4. Drop by spoonful on to cookie sheet and bake for 15 to 20 minutes at 350 degrees F.

5. Let cool completely on wire rack

6. Mix together icing ingredients

7. Top cookie with the icing

For lunch, I had one cookie from the fridge and one cookie from the counter (healthy lunch) and I prefer the fridge ones because they remind me of fall since they are a little chilly.

If you know the answer to my cream cheese question, give me the answer!

Yay for fall cookies :)