Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese Shortbread Cookies (Jammers)

Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese Shortbread Cookies (Jammers)

• Prep Time: 40min
• Cook Time: 18-25min (see notes in Assembly step)

Notes

Ingredients

Instructions

• 01

  To make the cookie base: Working with a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter at medium speed until smooth and very creamy. Add the sugars, cinnamon, and salt and beat until well blended, about 1 minute. The mixture should be smooth and velvety, not fluffy and airy. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in 2 of the egg yolks and vanilla, again beating until the mixture is homogeneous.

  Turn off the mixer. Pour in the flour, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and the counter from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek—if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple more times; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough and the dough looks uniformly moist. (If most of the flour is incorporated but you’ve still got some in the bottom of the bowl, use a rubber spatula to work the rest of the flour into the dough.) The dough will not clean the sides of the bowl, nor will it come together in a ball—and it shouldn’t. You want to work the dough as little as possible. What you’re aiming for is a soft, moist, clumpy (rather than smooth) dough. Pinch it, and it will feel a little like Play-Doh.

• 02

  To make the streusel: Melt butter in a small saucepan on stove or in microwave. Add the rest of the ingredients all at once and stir with a fork to form crumbs. You should have a kind of wet sand texture with pea-sized crumbs throughout the mixture. Cover and set aside until ready to use.  The crumbs will harden a little as the cool but that’s fine; just break them up with your fingers a little before using them.

• 03

  To make the cream cheese filling: In a small bowl, stir the pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice together until combined. Reserve the softened cream cheese for the assembly step.

• 04

  To assemble: Preheat the oven to 350° F.

  Ring mold method: Line a half sheet pan with parchment paper. Roll dough to just shy of 1/2-inch thick. Use 3-inch round rings to stamp out cookies (I ended up getting 9 cookies using this method. You could take the scraps and press them into extra molds). Transfer the dough and rings to prepared baking sheet. Chill in the fridge or freezer for 10-15 minutes until the dough firms up a bit (while the dough chills, you can make the streusel). Top the chilled dough with about 2 teaspoons of the pumpkin spice mixture and 1 teaspoon of the softened cream cheese and with a sharp knife, swirl the two together. Add a sprinkling of the streusel to the top of the pumpkin spice-cream cheese swirls.

  Bake for 18-22 minutes (my large molds took about 25 minutes), or until golden and delicious looking. Remove from oven and let cool 15 minutes before removing the rings. Allow to cool completely before serving.

  Whoopie pie pan method: Fill each cup of the pan with a piece of dough and flatten with your fingers. The dough will be just slightly lower than the top of the pan. Proceed as above. Allow cookies to cool for 15-20 minutes in pan before using a small offset spatula to carefully ease them out of the pan and onto a cooling rack.  Makes 10-12 really substantial cookies. If you can hold on to them, they will keep well for 2-3 days.