Beautifully soft vegan pumpkin cookies drizzled with a maple glaze. This simple recipe is perfectly spiced and perfect for fall!
These vegan pumpkin cookies were such a success I was actually shocked!
I had been trying ALL day to make some vegan pumpkin oatmeal cookies, but really could not get it right (will have to circle back to that one day!).
But I was determined to put together a winning recipe for pumpkin cookies and I was just not going to call it a day until I did!
And then it suddenly occurred to me, well why don’t I just try some straight up pumpkin cookies and forget the oatmeal part altogether?
And that’s when these happened. It was about 11pm by that time and I have never been so happy to succeed at a cookie!
These cookies are super simple. They’re similar to a sugar cookie but even softer!
They are super soft and melt in your mouth and they are topped with a delicious maple glaze.
If you love all things pumpkin flavored, then check out our vegan pumpkin pie, vegan pumpkin muffins and vegan pumpkin bread too!
How To Make Vegan Pumpkin Cookies
- You will love how easy it is to make these cookies!
- Just add some vegan butter, white sugar and brown sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer. Cream them together and then add in some vanilla and pumpkin purée and mix in.
- Now add in some all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and mix that in with the butter and sugar by hand (not your actual hands, just use a spoon and not the stand mixer for this part). You will now have a thick cookie dough.
- Scoop the cookie dough with a cookie scoop in roughly 2 tablespoon sized scoops and place onto a parchment lined baking tray, aiming for around 20 cookies.
- Flatten the cookies with a fork.
- Bake for 15 minutes at 350°F. When they come out the oven they will be very soft but will firm up as they cool.
- Prepare a maple glaze by mixing up some powdered sugar, maple syrup, soy milk and vanilla in a bowl. It should be a consistency that can easily drizzle over the cookies, but not so runny that it will just run straight off the cookies. So if it’s a little too thin, add a bit more powdered sugar to thicken it up.
- When the cookies have cooled use a teaspoon to drizzle the maple glaze over the cookies.
Storing and Freezing Vegan Pumpkin Cookies
Keep the cookies covered at room temperature where they will stay fresh for a few days or covered in the fridge for up to 7 days. They are also freezer friendly if you want to freeze them.
What About Gluten-Free?
If you want to make these cookies gluten-free then use a gluten-free all purpose flour blend that is meant to replace regular flour in a recipe. That will provide the best results.
Let us know what you think of these vegan pumpkin cookies in the comments and please rate the recipe too!
We’re kind of mad about cookies on this blog, so we have a ton of cookie recipes, but here’s just a few other vegan cookie options!
- Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
- Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Vegan Sugar Cookies
- Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
- Vegan Lemon Cookies
- Vegan Snickerdoodles
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Vegan Pumpkin Cookies
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 15 mins
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 20
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
Beautifully soft vegan pumpkin cookies drizzled with a maple glaze. This simple recipe is perfectly spiced and perfect for fall!
Ingredients
For the Pumpkin Cookies:
- 1/2 cup (112g) Vegan Butter
- 1/2 cup (100g) White Sugar
- 1/4 cup (50g) Brown Sugar
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/3 cup (75g) Pumpkin Purée (Canned or Fresh)
- 1 and 1/2 cups (190g) All Purpose Flour*
- 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp Nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp Salt
For the Maple Glaze:
- 1 cup (120g) Powdered Sugar
- 2 Tbsp Maple Syrup
- 2 Tbsp Soy Milk*
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Instructions
- Add the vegan butter, white sugar and brown sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer and cream them together and then add in the vanilla and pumpkin purée.
- Then add in the all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and mix in by hand (don’t use the electric mixer for this part).
- It will make a thick cookie dough that is a bit wet, a little too wet to roll with your hands.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
- Scoop the cookie dough in roughly 2 Tbsp sized scoops out onto a parchment lined baking tray, aiming for around 20 cookies. Flatten with a fork.
- Bake for 15 minutes. When you remove them from the oven they will be very soft. Let them cool on the tray before moving them.
- Prepare your maple glaze by mixing up the powdered sugar, maple syrup, soy milk and vanilla in a bowl.
- When the cookies have cooled use a teaspoon to drizzle the maple glaze over the cookies.
Notes
*Weigh the flour on a food scale for accuracy or, if you don’t have a scale make sure to use the spoon and level method for measuring flour.
*You can substitute almond milk or another non-dairy milk for the soy milk if you prefer.
*The glaze should be thin enough to drizzle but not so thin that it just runs right off the cookies. If you think it’s too thin, thicken it up a little with extra powdered sugar.
*If you want to make these cookies gluten-free then try a gluten-free all purpose flour blend that is meant to replace regular flour in baking.
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: Vegan
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Cookie (of 20)
- Calories: 135
- Sugar: 14.7g
- Sodium: 118mg
- Fat: 4.5g
- Saturated Fat: 1.2g
- Carbohydrates: 22.5g
- Fiber: 0.4g
- Protein: 1g
Keywords: vegan pumpkin cookies
Delicious! Even my non-vegan family members really enjoyed them! Have made the recipe three times already, as there’s always pumpkin left over 🙂 Thanks for the recipe!
★★★★★
Wonderful! Thanks so much for the awesome review Emily. 🙂
Made them with gluten free flour blend and used 1tbsp pumpkin pie spice instead of the spices in the recipe and they were amazing!
★★★★★
Wonderful! Thanks so much for the awesome review Amber. 🙂
Didn’t make the glaze and substituted sweet potato (microwaved, mashed, weighed) for the pumpkin. Big hit!! Delicious.
★★★★★
Oh wow, that sounds great! Thanks for sharing and the awesome review! 🙂
I use a vegetable oil based butter and I was not able to cream the butter and sugar together. It just melted into a slurry. Does it need to be creamed like traditional buttercream frosting would require?
Hi Kaitlyn, that is so weird! I have seen some dairy free spreads that say they are not meant to be used in baking, only as spreads, I wonder if maybe that applies to this one as well. I usually just let it run a minute or two, so I guess it might not be as long as traditional creaming of dairy butter and sugar would be, but I have also just let it run and have never had it turn to liquid, so my guess is that it’s the brand of vegan butter that is causing the issue.
I figured part of the problem was that I let the butter melt too quickly, and I don’t have an electric mixer so I was trying to cream it by hand. I was able to make it work by placing a bag of frozen veggies under the bowl to keep the butter from melting too fast and I subbed the granulated sugar for 3/4c + 2tbsp of powdered sugar. Fluffed up after only a few minutes of beating the devil out of it, and the cookies turned out wonderful 🙂
★★★★★
So glad they turned out well in the end! Thanks so much for updating us and the wonderful rating! 🙂
Yummy! great texture and tasty! Though I don’t know what happen with the glaze, it was watery and just ran off the cookies =/ other than that they were great! Thanks for sharing!
★★★★★
So glad the cookies were good! For the glaze, you can thicken it up with a little extra powdered sugar if that happens. Thanks for the awesome review. 🙂
Delicious! I added 1/4 tsp cloves too because I like my fall baked goods heavily spiced. Only issue I had is mine turned out pretty cakey and I’m not sure why
★★★★★
Hi Rebecca, so glad you enjoyed the cookies! Thanks for the great rating! They are supposed to be soft and similar to sugar cookies in texture. 🙂
Made exactly as written and they were delicious. They are extremely soft and almost like little cakes.
★★★★★
Awesome! Thanks Holly! 🙂
Yummy Yummy Yummy!!!!!
★★★★★
Perfect, but I will cut sugar by 1/3 next time! Little too sweet for me!
★★★★★
Just looked at the photo again and see your cookies are more orange than mine so maybe that’s why my glaze isn’t visible against the cookies. I wonder why my cookies turned out more tan color than orange. I followed recipe exactly! Thx for any thoughts. In any case, they’re delicious.
Hi Jana, your pumpkin might just have been less orange than mine. You can omit the maple syrup if you want the glaze to be more white. 🙂
Good to know – thanks. Fyi, they didn’t last more than 24 hours. I personally polished off more than I care to count and did manange to leave some for my kids. Lol.
Hahaha, well that is a very good sign! 🙂
Just made these cookies and they’re yummy. My glaze seemed runny so I increased powdered sugar to 1-1/4 c. That seemed to thicken it but when I drizzled it onto the cookies it was invisible because it’s the same color! Can I omit maple syrup to make glaze more white? I realize I’ll be omitting maple flavor but I want glaze to be visible. Thx for any suggestions.
Can I use pumpkin spice instead of nutmeg?
Hi Tania, you could. You could use pumpkin pie spice to replace the cinnamon and the nutmeg if you like. It will have a slightly different flavor since pumpkin spice has a few other spices in as well, but it would definitely be good! 🙂
Can I freeze these after they are iced?
Yes, you can! 🙂
Can you use a different type of flour? Like oat flour or gluten free flour ?
Hi Allison, not sure about oat flour, but a gluten-free all purpose blend might work. I haven’t tested it with these cookies, but that has worked with some of my other cookie recipes. 🙂
I used spelt flour and they turned out cakey like I saw in another comment! Loved them, although sweeter than I wanted! I’ll cut sugar next time too.
Thanks for sharing Vi! 🙂
Is there a good substitute for vegan butter? I don’t use butter. These look amazing and my hubby loves pumpkin.
Hi Bev, you could try with coconut oil but the recipe was not tested that way so I don’t know if it would work, but others have done this on some of my other cookie recipes so it could work fine as a 1:1 replacement. Alternatively you can make your own vegan butter.
Thank you for your response. Hubby loves all things pumpkin. These look great.
These were awesome! I ground up some Redmill gluten free oats for the flour. They turned out amazing! Thank you for sharing the recipe, my family and friend loved them!??
Awesome Kristy! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
I made it today. it was 16 cookies and they are very soft and delicious. Yet, they are still soft….I took them out to cool but too soft to pick up. I used Miykoko vegan butter. I am not sure if a box of it is 1/2 cup. Maybe I should cut it half. What is your thought? Thank you. It smells like fall here in the house. Love it.
A box of Miyoko’s is a full cup. Did you use the whole box?
So many beautiful pictures of the perfect looking pumpkin cookie. This looks SO good.
Delectable little cookies for that little teatime gathering of friends.
★★★★★