Mom made these cookies every fall. Looking at the condition of the recipe card (at right), I’d say she probably wrote it down at some point when I was in elementary school. Essentially, these are dressed-up sugar-butter cookies, and can, if you’re careful, be cut into shapes other than the standard biscuit round that we always used. (Lehman’s in Kidron has a whole wall of cookie cutters! Stop in and see them soon.)
Because Pumpkin Spice Cookies have so few ingredients, they are a great cookie for beginning bakers. When I was small, Mom and I used to frost the cooled cookies with orange-tinted butter cream frosting, using regular and mini chocolate chips to make our round cookies look like smiling pumpkins.
Pumpkin Spice Cookies
1 1/2 cups sugar (can use part white and part brown/raw sugars)
1 cup butter
1 egg
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
Cream sugar and butter together until fluffy and light gold. Blend in eggs. Mix spice well into flour. Add flour mixture gradually to egg-butter mixture until combined. Chill dough at least three hours in refrigerator; overnight is better. Roll out chilled dough to 1/4-inch on floured surface. Cut 3-inch rounds. Place on greased cookie sheet and bake at 400° for 6-8 minutes. Cool completely before frosting.