Soooo a little story about this recipe. I developed it wayyyy back in August and did the whole process. I filmed, photographed, and edited. But to be completely honest, I forgot about it. I forgot to put it on my calendar so this post is a tad rushed but I promise the recipe itself is great.
We’re like halfway through October which is crazy. It doesn’t really feel like October. I’ve been so busy lately, and it’s really frustrating because I feel like I can’t enjoy my favorite month. I haven’t even ordered my costume yet! But I should try to look at the positives right? I got to watch a bunch of Halloween movies last weekend. Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow, Hocus Pocus, and Paranorman. For Sleepy Hollow and Paranorman, it was my first time seeing them, and I actually really liked them. Usually I’m not a fan of watching movies because I don’t have a long enough attention span, but it’s been a really long time since I’ve watched a movie so it was very peaceful.
Also, I’ve fallen a little behind schedule on the blog posts because one of my November recipes took wayyyy more testing than was expected. I have a long weekend this week though, so I’m hoping I can catch up some. I said this in a previous post, but I’ll say it again: you can be sure to expect AUTUMNAL recipes in November. I don’t like to start on Christmas/winter stuff until December. Part of this is because I don’t think Christmas should get two whole months. But also, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays as a foodie, so I pretty much dedicate all of November to recipes you could potentially serve at Thanksgiving dinner.
Ok anyway let’s get back to the present. These cookies are the third recipe in our movie series! These actually took quite a bit of testing to get the texture right, but here we are. They’re a pumpkin chai snickerdoodle, with little button imprints on top. They’re super simple but so fun to anyone who’s a fan of Coraline. If you follow my Instagram and TikTok, I posted a Coraline cake video for the re-release back in August. I have to say, I was very proud of it. But it was also a really difficult cake so I didn’t make a recipe for it.
Describe These Cookies to Me
Taste: As snickerdoodles tend to be, these cookies are a little on the sweeter side of what I typically make. But they’ve got the cozy chai spices to even it all out, and deep, almost nutty brown sugar to compliment the pumpkin.
Texture: These cookies are soft, but not cakey or dry. The pumpkin’s purpose isn’t really flavor, but to make sure these stay moist. We’ll have a little more on that later.
Ease: These are one of my simpler recipes in October. The dough comes together super quickly, and the shaping is way less complicated than it might seem. One thing to keep in mind though, is that this dough requires some chilling time so make sure to leave room for that.
Why Use Pumpkin?
So originally, these cookies weren’t going to have pumpkin in them, but I decided it was necessary in order to achieve the right texture. There’s actually a pretty cool science to it. So a classic snickerdoodle recipe often uses a mixture of baking soda and cream of tartar. Baking soda has a high PH meaning it’s alkaline, while cream of tartar has a low PH, making it acidic. These two react and create Co2, which makes your cookies taller and spread less. But for these cookies, I needed a little more spread to display the button pattern. Enter pumpkin puree, a low acid food. Adding this not only increases the water content, but also changes the balance between the alkaline and acid, allowing the cookies to spread a little more, but still stay fluffy and moist.
The Button Eyes
The button eye pattern is super simple to do, you just need a small circular cookie cutter and a toothpick. You press two circles from the cookie cutter onto the top of a flattened out cookie dough ball. Then just add four little dots in a grid on top to make them look like buttons. Make sure to chill your shaped cookies for 30 minutes before baking so they keep that shape.
Baking
It’s super duper important you don’t over bake these cookies. Snickerdoodles can become extremely dry if over baked, making them much less tasty. ‘Don’t over bake your cookies’ is a pretty good motto in general, but it’s extra important with the structure of these snickerdoodles.
Also, this is completely off topic, but I have some beef with store bought cookies. I’m not sure what brand it is, but I keep seeing these cookies on TikTok that are like as tall as my fist. How are you supposed to eat that? And they always seems so dry and overly sweet and I just don’t get the hype. Not to be a hater, but overpriced and overhyped cookies aren’t worth your time. I promise you can do better if you make your own cookies. They don’t have to be these cookies, or even any of my cookies for that matter. But just make SOME cookies. Tis the season anyway.
Coraline Button Eye Snickerdoodles
Ingredients
Method
- In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the unsalted and salted butter and both sugars on medium speed using a hand or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment until fluffy and combined. Add the eggs, and vanilla and beat to combine.
- In a medium sized mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cream of tartar, chai spice, baking soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and beat on low speed until just combined. Cover the bowl and chill the dough for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
- In a small bowl, toss together the chai spice and sugar. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 350℉ and line two baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicon baking mat. Set aside.
- Roll the chilled dough into balls, about 2 Tablespoons in size. Toss them in the cinnamon sugar and place 3 inches apart on the baking sheets. Press each ball down a little to make a disk, about 3 inches across. Use a very small circular cookie cutter (mine was 1 inch) to indent two circles into the cookie. Then, use a toothpick and make a grid of four little dots within each circle to make buttons. Chill the shaped cookies for 30 minutes before baking.
- Bake the cookies for 12-14 minutes or until the edges are just starting to brown. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before enjoying warm, or allow to cool completely on a wire cooling rack.