A few years ago my obsession with pumpkin became out of control. I started making pumpkin oatmeal, pumpkin butter, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie and pumpkin butter gooey cake. I also made pumpkin cookies for the first time. The cookies were good, but not excellent. And then, my mom slipped me a piece of paper with the recipe I had been waiting for: Pumpkin cookies with cinnamon maple vanilla buttercream glaze. And that was it.

They are my favorite, my brother’s favorite and many of my friend’s favorites. People have asked for the recipe, and I’m really bad at sharing it, out of pure laziness. There are very similar ones online, but they just aren’t quite right, and not with the special maple cinnamon frosting.

And now, a little tribute to the pumpkin cookies:

Here’s how to make these perfect cake-like pumpkin spice cookies:

Preheat oven to 350.
Combine:

2.5 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, a lot of pumpkin pie spice, 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

A lot of pumpkin pie spice equals 2 teaspoons or more. I use tons. I use so much that the mixture smells spicy and pumpkin-y. I’m so scientific.

Now, in another bowl combine:

One stick of butter softened, 1.5 cups of sugar, 1 cup of canned pumpkin, one egg and two teaspoons of vanilla.

Gradually add the flour mixture into the butter/sugar/pumpkin mixture. When you taste the dough, you’ll know it’s right when you say “OH MY GOSH, YUM” and then you just can’t stop tasting it. I know, raw eggs are bad, so don’t tell anyone I told you to taste it.

Drop spoonfulls of dough onto a baking sheet and bake for about 15-20 minutes. Cookies should be cake-like, not crispy at all.

Make this glaze while your first batch is cooking and drizzle onto cookies while they are just out of the oven so it runs perfectly down the sides of the cookies and then hardens.

Glaze includes:

2 cups of powdered sugar, 3-ish tablespoons of milk, 1 tablespoon of melted butter, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, a tablespoon of maple syrup, plus a few shakes of cinnamon. Mix it all together, and your glaze is good to go.

Enjoy! I just dare you to stop eating them.