Cookie of the Month - Pumpkin Chocolate Chip

I've not yet learned who won the highest bid for my 2010 Cookie of the Month services at the scholarship auction, but I still have the last two deliveries of 2009 to make for this year's winners.  November's choice is a recipe that I found in a magazine years ago in a Libby's canned pumpkin ad... I think.  Anyway, the recipe has been made a hundred times and is a particular favorite of my oldest son, Lars.  Great Pumpkin Cookies - a fitting choice for November.  (Sorry about all the artificial light and shadow in these photos - it's been rather dreary weather here in Wisconsin for the last few days - nice temps, but no sun.)

Here are your ingredients:

4 cups flour

2 cups rolled oats

2 t. baking soda

2 t. cinnamon

1 t. salt

1 1/2 cups butter

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 t. vanilla

1 (16 oz.) can pumpkin

1 bag (12 oz.) semi sweet chocolate chips

Soften up three sticks (1 1/2 cups) butter.

Add the two cups of brown sugar.

and one cup white sugar.

Beat until light and fluffy.

Add egg and vanilla.  Mix well.

In a separate bowl,

measure out the flour, oats,

baking soda, cinnamon and salt.

Combine those dry ingredients into a crumbly mixture.

Open up the can of pumpkin.

Some people prefer to bake pumpkin wedges

and make their own puree.  Each to his own.

Alternate additions of the dry mixture and the pumpkin

- mixing well after each.

Sometimes I add a little yellow and red food coloring

to amp up the orange factor.

Add the bag of chocolate chips.

These are drop cookies and although they taste wonderful, they aren't very attractive -- but since Beth and her family paid big money for cookie of the month, I do my best to make them uniform and pretty.  This time I'll try piping them from a large pastry bag with a big round open tip.  (The pastry tip only got clogged with chocolate chips once.)

I also stuck a chocolate chip on top of each one so they wouldn't just look like plain blobs after baking.  I used parchment, but they are fine on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes if you make them the size of a heaping tablespoon - longer if bigger.  

These turn out to be soft, cake-like cookies and very moist.

Very tasty.

This recipe makes about 80 two inch cookies.

Happy Thanksgiving prep.  May all your baking come out scrumptious, your pies perfect and your dinner dishes delicious.  I know I still have two French Silk pies and two large pans of cheesy potatoes to make for the big feast at my sister's house tomorrow.