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Pumpkin cheesecake snickerdoodles are a fresh take on a classic cookie! Delightfully soft and filled with tangy cream cheese, these cookies will be sure to get a “WOW!” from your friends and family!
I love any recipe that I can add pumpkin to and these cookies are no exception! If you love pumpkin as much as I do, go ahead and try some of these Muffins, this Bread Pudding, and the most Perfect Pumpkin Bread! You will go crazy for them all!
Reasons These Cookies are the BEST
- A twist on a classic: A pumpkin cheesecake snickerdoodle is a twist on your classic snickerdoodle and takes it to the next level. Filled with all of the same sweet cinnamon flavors, with the addition of a yummy cream cheese mixture in the middle, these cookies are something that you will love!
- Soft: I love a good soft cookie and these snickerdoodles are the best!
- They freeze well: Double the batch and freeze them for up to 3 months!
Soft Pumpkin Cheesecake Snickerdoodles
This recipe is perfect for an after-school snack, a game day treat, or just bringing a treat to your neighbors. Whatever you do, I suggest making more than one batch. They are so good, and they will be eaten up in no time!
Ingredients You Need to Make Pumpkin Cheesecake Snickerdoodles
This delicious ooey-gooey recipe is going to become a staple at your house. Because the base flavor is delicious cinnamon, once you add in some pumpkin and cream cheese, you are making the perfect fall treat! See the recipe card below for a list of exact ingredients.
- All-purpose flour: This combines your ingredients and helps thicken the dough.
- Baking powder: This helps the cookies to rise.
- Salt: This enhances the flavors of all of the ingredients.
- Cinnamon: You can’t have snickerdoodles without a delicious cinnamon taste.
- Nutmeg: Brings that delicious earthy flavor that we all know and love!
- Butter: It’s best to use unsalted butter that is at room temperature for these cookies.
- Sugar: Adds sweetness to the cookie dough.
- Brown sugar: This is the best type of sweetener, and the flavor can’t be beat.
- Pumpkin puree: Don’t confuse this with pumpkin pie filling!
- Egg: Use an egg that is at room temperature.
- Vanilla extract: This adds some flavor to the sweetness.
Filling Ingredients
- Cream cheese: Make sure to set your block out so that it is softened before you use it!
- Sugar: Sweetens up the tangy cream cheese.
- Vanilla extract: Adds some flavor to the sugar’s sweetness.
Cinnamon Sugar Coating
- Sugar: Adds sweetness to the spices!
- Cinnamon: Use ground cinnamon and mix it well with the other spices.
- Ginger: Ground ginger will work the best and add in an earthy flavor.
- Allspice: This is the best spice to bring out that fall taste!
Baking Tips
Since these are a bit different than your traditional snickerdoodles, I have come up with a few baking tips to help these turn out just perfectly for you! They are seriously SO good! I can’t wait for you to try them!
- Pumpkin puree: Sometimes, people think that pumpkin pie filling and pumpkin puree are the same thing… they are not! Pumpkin pie filling is mixed with spices and flavors, and you don’t want that for these cookies since you are adding those on your own. A can of pumpkin puree will be orange inside, and all that is listed on the ingredients will be “pumpkin puree.” So make sure that you are getting the right one!
- Chill: Before you ball up the dough and put it in the oven, it’s best (at least in this recipe) to chill your dough and cream cheese filling. This will help your cookies stay fluffy and not spread in the oven!
- Fresh ingredients: For the best results in your baking, make sure that all of your ingredients are fresh! This means that you should be replacing the baking ingredients in your pantry every 3-6 months. They start to lose their flavor and potency after that!
How to Make Pumpkin Cheesecake Snickerdoodles
These homemade pumpkin cheesecake snickerdoodles are easy to make! In fact, bake up a few batches at once so that you have some for later! It will be so simple, and once you see how fast they get eaten, you’ll be glad that you did!
Prep
- Whisk dry ingredients: In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg together. Set aside.
- Beat butter, eggs, and sugar: In a mixer with a paddle attachment, beat together the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
- Blend and mix together: Blend in pumpkin puree, beat in egg, and then add vanilla. Slowly add dry ingredients on low speed just until combined. Cover and chill the dough for an hour.
- Make the filling: To make the cream cheese filling, blend cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla together. Chill for an hour.
- Prep and baking sheets: Preheat oven to 350 and line your baking sheets with parchment paper. In a small bowl, combine the sugar and spices for the coating and set aside.
Bake
- Make cookies: To make the cookies, take a tablespoon of the cookie batter. Flatten it like a pancake and place a teaspoon of the cream cheese in the center.
- Add cream cheese mixture: Form another tablespoon of the cookie batter into a flat pancake shape and place on top of the cream cheese. Pinch the edges together, sealing in the cream cheese, and roll into a ball. Roll in the cinnamon sugar coating and place on the prepared baking sheet 2 inches apart.
- Flatten dough: Repeat until the dough is gone, and flatten the cookie dough balls with a heavy-bottomed glass or measuring cup.
- Bake and cool: Bake the cookies for 10-15 minutes or until the tops start to crack. Let cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes and transfer to a wire rack. Enjoy! These pumpkin cheesecake snickerdoodles are the best!
Storing Leftovers
If you have some pumpkin cheesecake snickerdoodles that didn’t get eaten all at once, here is how you can store them for later! That way, you can eat them all week long!
- Refrigerator: Because these cookies have cream cheese in them, don’t store them on your counter. Place your cooled cookies into an airtight container and leave them in your fridge for up to a week!
- Freezer: Store your cookies in a sealed, airtight container or freezer ziplock bag. Label the bag with the date, and then you can store them for up to 3 months! Just thaw them in the fridge before you want to eat them.
More Delicious Pumpkin Desserts to Try
If you loved these pumpkin cheesecake snickerdoodles, then it’s your lucky day! I have come up with a few more pumpkin desserts that I think that you will love as well! They are all amazing to add to your Autumn pumpkin recipes.
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Pumpkin Cheesecake Snickerdoodles
Ingredients
- 3¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 1½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
- 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup light brown sugar
- ¾ cup pumpkin puree
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Filling Ingredients:
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Cinnamon-sugar coating:
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- dash allspice
Instructions
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a mixer with a paddle attachment, beat together the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
- Blend in pumpkin puree, beat in egg, and then add vanilla. Slowly add dry ingredients on low speed just until combined. Cover and chill the dough for an hour.
- Blend cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla together to make the cream cheese filling. Chill for one hour.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line your baking sheets with parchment paper. In a small bowl, combine the sugar and spices for the coating and set aside.
- To make the cookies, take a tablespoon of the cookie dough. Flatten it like a pancake and place a teaspoon of the cream cheese in the center. Form another tablespoon of the cookie batter into a flat pancake shape and place it on top of the cream cheese. Pinch the edges together, sealing in the cream cheese, and roll into a ball. Roll in the cinnamon sugar coating and place on the prepared baking sheet 2 inches apart.
- Repeat until the dough is gone and flatten the cookie dough balls with a heavy bottomed glass or measuring cup.
- Bake the cookies for 10-15 minutes or until the tops start to crack. Let cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes and transfer to a wire rack. Enjoy!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
So, after reading the comments I expected issues with the dough…it is indeed sticky unless chilled very well. I put the dough in the freezer for several minutes when it started to become unworkable for each batch. This eats up a lot of time! I also cut out steps by creating the two “pancakes”, sealing the edges around the cream cheese, then just flattening and smoothing the edges and flipping on each side in the coating. Rolling it into a ball after filling the pancakes and then flattening again seems unnecessary handling of the dough and will encourage the sticking…plus, it’s just more waste of time in my opinion. Especially since unless you’re making them the size of your head, you have to make WAY more than 24. Mine are slightly larger than “normal” cookie size, and I ended up having to make about 40- again, more time and labor.
Also, I added a few tablespoons of flour to the cream cheese filling to give it body and keep it from “melting” into the dough. That worked like a charm.
Overall, they are yummy but a ton of time and labor that’s not at all worth the payoff. You can get the same flavor combo and satisfaction by just making them as straight up cookies and top them with cream cheese frosting.
This recipe was just okay. It’s a lot of steps, dough is sticky, and I’m glad I did it with the kids assembly-line style, because I can’t imagine having to put these all together by myself. It was a lot of work, but it would have been worth it for the cookies in the picture. Unfortunately, they were cake-like, tasted much like flour and not really like pumpkin at all. I always increase the amount of pumpkin spice because i love it so much, and even having done so, they didn’t have that bold fall flavor that I was hoping for. They were dull in color, not a festive golden orange, and by no means was the cheesecake filling oozing out of the center. Most absorbed into the cookie, which was not what I expected, but I actually liked to moist, dense texture it gave in the middle. I would probably mix cream cheese straight into the cookie for that effect, then add more pumpkin and way more spice, and just stick with doing them like that.
And after you bake them, how do you store them & can you freeze them after they’re baked?
I made them they are yummy.
I also am having the sticky dough issue, and the video does not show me anything that would assist in making the dough less sticky so I can work with it. Are there any suggestions on how to resolve this issue? I really want to make these for my aunt’s cookie exchange in two weeks.
Ok after reading the comments I decided I needed to work quickly since they get sticky. I flattened the bottom part on the pan first and did that until the pan was full. Then I put the cream cheese mix on each top and then flattened the dough in my hands (using spray oil – Pam) so they wouldn’t stop and put them over the cream cheese. I didn’t roll them into balls I just flipped them each into the sugar mix and then back on the cookie sheet where I then flattened them and out them in the oven. They turned out perfect and look like the picture but mine are a little bigger!! Wish I could post a picture on here of mine!
This recipe was requested by my dad. Didn’t check out the comments until after.. but experienced the extreme stickiness which makes it almost unbearable. I bake a lot and have baked with pumpkin many times. This was a whole other sticky level. Got it done but needed to freeze dough. Also had a very bland flavor. It tastes like pumpkin if you really think about it and focus. The color is pale and nothing like the picture featured. Followed the recipe exactly so not sure what has happened? The idea is good but the work is not worth the outcome. (long time to prepare/difficult to manage > bland/mild flavor)
I created a video to show the process and most are having great success. They shouldn’t have been bland. In fact these are one of our favorite cookies!
They’re pretty good straight out of the oven, but too labor intensive for me to make them again, except for a special occasion. I liked the cream cheese ball tip and there’s a distinct layer of cream cheese in my cookies, but they were super sticky even after 2 hours in the fridge, and went into the fridge for at least 30 min after rolling into a ball, pressing into a pancake, and then for a while after rolled into a ball to give the cream cheese a chance to soften before I tried to press them. I got 23 cookies and definitely needed more like 18-20 minutes to cook them. I added twice the spice and it’s still a very subtle flavor, very cake like, not chewy like other Snickerdoodles but expected based on the comments. I got good orange color, though!
Holy cow these are miserable to make. Incredibly sticky! I even thought I’d made a mistake in measuring (I hadn’t) and added another 1/2C of flour just to see if it would help, but it didn’t. I made the batch over 2 days because I kept hoping it’d firm up in the fridge, but even over night it never did. I’ve been told they were fabulous (I am not a pumpkin fan), but as much as I love my friends, I will never, ever make these again. That being said, I will be passing on the recipe to those who have asked, with huge warnings that it’s a hellacious mess. 2 stars for good reviews and grateful friends, but minus 3 stars for mess, misery and time suck.
Shouldn’t have been sticky or very difficult. I made a video in the post to show the process and I hope that helps.
My cookies tasted ok, but none of the fun crackling that you normally get with a snickerdoodle recipe. I noticed the recipe did NOT call fro cream of tartar, which is a pretty standard snickerdoodle ingredient. I probably wouldn’t use this paericular recipe again.
I originally saw these via a Twitter video post, then searched for the recipe. The video actually helped me avoid a lot of the frustrations other posters have expressed. I used a two tablespoon size dollop of dough, flattened it on a floured board, then put a teaspoon of filling in the middle. Then I rolled it like a taco, and finally into a ball before dipping in the sugar and spice mixture and squishing before baking. Some mess in the assembly, but the finished product is yummy!
I just made these amazing cookies. I did not think they were difficult at all…honestly I was surprised to read people had issues with sticky dough. I just made balls of dough after refrigerating then pressed into disks on parchment paper. I followed the instructions on putting them together and they turned out great! Just be gentle when rolling the already stuffed dough into a ball. Thanks for the great new addition to my fall and winter baking lineup ?
How did your filling turn out? I see a lot of people who followed this recipe found that the cookie absorbed the filling. Did you use confection sugar or granulated sugar for your filling?
Do u need to refrigerate after you make them?
I bypassed the pancake making and flatten them out in my hand, scooped in the cream cheese mixture and rolled into a ball. It was so much easier!! I froze a glass mug and used it to flatten them out after I rolled them in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Hope this helps! Wasn’t messy at all!!
I’m on my third batch and I’m less than thrilled with the effort vs outcome. The color is pale, very sticky dough and the creme filling is absorbed into the cookie. Has anyone tried confection sugar vs granulated sugar for the creme filling?
? them. Waiting on them to get out of the oven to pack for Hubby’s (special I miss you) church retreat treat.
I made these cookies and followed the recipe to the letter. The cookies tasted great but a bit on the cake side and really big. I think on my second batch I will use less dough and not roll them. Once rolled the filling seemed to melt into the dough.