If you follow me on Instagram, you know I’ve been counting down the seconds leading up to my annual trip to Swan’s Island, Maine. I’ve been crossing things off of an elaborate to-do list:
obtain more overalls
get an absurd amount of coffee from Sahadi’s
finalize our grocery list
pack four bags or less
pick up rental car
somehow find time to work
tell you about these Pumpkin Pie Thumbprints
go to Maine
Yep, this is the last thing I have to do before I hit the road today! I mean, it would be super rude of me to leave without telling you about these Pumpkin Pie Thumbprints, now wouldn’t it? They’re teeny, tiny two-bite pumpkin pies nestled in sugar cookies—you *need* to know about these. You need to bake these.
The secret to these thumbprints? Pumpkin Spice Spread! I posted this super-easy, super-versatile recipe last week, and here it is again. This time, it’s piped into little wells in the middles of sugar cookies and baked until puffy and perfect. You’ll only need about half the batch to make these cookies, but trust me, you won’t have any trouble finding uses for the rest. *hint hint* 
While pumpkin pie is traditionally finished off with whipped cream, that doesn’t make much sense in a cookie. I went with a simple icing drizzle as the final flourish, and I regret nothing. Aren’t they cute?! Almost as cute as they are delicious—what could be bad about buttery cookies with squidgy pumpkin centers?
Okay, there it is—you know about Pumpkin Pie Thumbprints. That’s one more thing off the list. I guess all there is to do is road trip north. Can’t wait to get to Swan’s and show you what we’re cooking up six miles out to sea.
Pumpkin Pie Thumbprints
makes about 3.5 dozen cookies
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon Kosher or sea salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
4 oz (1/2 brick) full-fat brick-style cream cheese, softened to room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 large egg, room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Filling:
~1 cup Pumpkin Spice Spread
Icing:
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
3-4 teaspoons milk
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In a separate large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to beat butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Cream in granulated and light brown sugars, followed by the egg and vanilla. Add dry ingredients in 3 installments, combining completely after each. Cover dough with plastic wrap and chill for at least 3 hours or up to 3 days.
Preheat oven to 300F. Line two baking sheets with parchment. Set aside.
Place the narrow end of a a piping bag (or the corner of a ziptop bag) in a tall cup and stretch the wide end over the edge. Fill with pumpkin spice spread (you may not be aboe to use it all at once). Twist to close. Set aside.
Remove dough from the refrigerator. Scoop dough by the tablespoon and roll each int a ball. Place dough balls at least 2 inches apart on prepared pans. Use the back of a very small spoon (like a 1/2 teaspoon) to slowly press a well into each dough ball. They may crack a bit—just smooth them with your fingers. If dough gets too warm and sticky, freeze for 10 minutes.
If necessary, snip a the narrow end of your piping bag.
Bake cookies 10 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven, then carefully press the back of a rounded 1 teaspoon measuring spoon into the centers again. Pipe pumpkin spice spread into each well. Carefully tap the pan on the counter a couple of times to release large air bubbles. Bake cookies another 10 minutes, until pumpkin spice spread is set.
Let cookies cool on the pans for 10 minutes before carefully removing to a rack to cool completely. Repeat rolling and baking process with all remaining dough, letting the cookie sheets come back to room temperature between batches.
Serve cookies room temperature or chilled. Leftovers may be kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to five days.
People tell me all the time that they don’t bake because it doesn’t allow for improvising. I’m here to tell you that assumption about baking being all about precision is a big ol’ myth. At least half of the recipes in my archives started from a place of improvisation.
The base recipe for these Coconutdoodles has been on here once already this year. It looks different 
That’s right, a blank slate. A new start. A place to improvise by adding that random half-bag of coconut you have leftover from…well, I don’t remember what, but that’s beside the point. The point (!) is to load up that dough with as much coconut as it can take, then blitz the rest into a powder with some sugar and roll your cookie dough balls in it, 
Coconutdoodles bake up super thick and puffy, and while the sugary coconut-crusted exteriors don’t really toast, they do get extra crispy. Oh, and the insides are super chewy and loaded with an obscene amount of coconut. Ob-scene. I really thought it might be too much, or that it might make the cookies crumbly, but it‘s the exact right amount and these cookies stay soft for days. I know because I ate this whole batch myself. That was weeks ago and I’m still sad that they’re gone.
But you know what? I have this blank slate sugar cookie dough, and I’ve got another half-bag of coconut, and heaven knows I’ve got time to make cookies this weekend. I’ll save my crippling fear of failure for next weekend.
Full disclosure, I am tired. Like in-my-bones tired. It’s been a long week and I haven’t been sleeping well and I just can’t seem to get my brain to concentrate on this blog post. I would say I’m trying my best, but I am actually trying as much as I absolutely have to and not the tiniest bit more. It’s that sort of day.
I usually take pride in writing a “real” blog post, but was tempted today to just leave it at “Um, hi. I took cookie cake and threw sprinkles in there and made it smaller. Oh, and there’s a plume of vanilla buttercream on each one. Funfetti Cookie Cupcakes, y’all!” …and leave it at that. I mean, that about sums it up, right?
Well, almost. It doesn’t tell you that these Funfetti Cookie Cupcakes were born because I deeply miss baking for groups. I really wanted to make a cookie cake for weeks, but resisted because who would I share it with?
That rambling, incoherent, grammatically incorrect blurb says nothing of how the exteriors of these little cookie cakes crackle ever-so-slightly against your teeth when you first bite in, or how the centers are a tad underbaked and chewy like 
There’s no mention of how much I absolutely love 
And speaking of single servings, that half-assed blog “post” I wanted to write has one more gross oversight. These are perfect for socially-distanced celebrating or for delivering to someone you love and can’t really see right now. It doesn’t tell you that even though you bake all the time, even when you are tired and feel uninspired, making these will feel nothing like work and completely like joy. And how even when you’re a completely depleted puddle of a human who needs a weekend so badly it’s ridiculous, you’ll find a way to find the words to say it all.
Two chocolate chip cookie 
Yes, you. I know you’re out there. I see you, wading through a sea of soft, chewy chocolate chip cookie recipes, baking them extra long in hopes that they’ll be something they’re not. I’ve read your emails and direct messages, and I’ve been trying on-and-off for years to make a cookie base just for you.
Now, I’m sure if you bake any cookie dough long enough, the results will be crispy, but this one is *specifically formulated* to be that way. It sounds a little pretentious when it’s written out like that, but it’s true. It’s taken at least 30 test batches, if not more, to make the perfect homemade Crispy, Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookies. I don’t throw the word “perfect” around on here literally ever, so please believe me when I tell you how incredible these are because getting here has been a journey.
When I started down this particular cookie road (really going with the journey metaphor), I knew I needed to bump up the granulated sugar and reduce the brown sugar for crisper results. It’s basic cookie science. Sugar is hygroscopic, meaning it absorbs moisture from the air. Brown sugar, which is what happens when you whirl molasses into granulated sugar, absorbs more moisture than plain white granulated sugar. Therefore, more brown sugar in a cookie recipe = more chew. I wanted less chew—no chew, even—but still needed that signature brown sugary chocolate chip cookie flavor, so I opted to use equal parts brown and granulated sugar. The results are all the flavor I expect in a chocolate chip cookie and none of the softness.
Next, I reduced the flour to cause more spreading during baking. Yes, I wanted this dough to spread—no multi-hour chills here! I also decided to try a reverse creaming method after seeing Stella Parks’s homemade 
Now, all of that is fine and good and very important in the whole crunchy cookie racket, but the real game changer came a few weeks ago. I was eating 
Now, If you’re scratching your head wondering what WTF golden syrup is, you’re not alone. It’s a cane sugar-based invert sweetener (invert = liquid) that’s popular in the UK, but a bit more niche here. I can find it in some really well-stocked grocery stores and 
The syrup is added after the butter is reverse-creamed in, and before the chocolate chips. The dough will hold together as well as any other chocolate chip cookie dough, and rolls easily into 24 tablespoon-sized balls.
One more reason to get on the crunchy cookie bandwagon? Crispy, Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookies keep like a dream. A dream, I tell you! I am a huge snob about day-old cookies, so believe me when I tell you that these just get better with time. Where soft cookies get a little stale after a day, these crisp treats retain their texture and their flavors only deepen further. You should keep them covered as sugar’s hygroscopic nature means your cookies can be affected by humidity, but the batch pictured made it through some seriously gnarly NYC weather and were still near perfect. And by near perfect, I mean perfect-perfect.
e2 bakes brooklyn 