You will need:
- Your favorite sugar cookie recipe (CookieCutterKingdom recipe here)
- Cookie CutterKingdom’s Maple Leaf Cookie Cutter
- Royal Icing in your choice of colors (I used light green, orange and red to replicate the “turning leaf effect”)
- Icing bottles/bags to decorate your cookies
- Pumpkin Buttercream Frosting (Recipe adapted from the blog Wine and Glue here)
- Piping bag for the buttercream
Ingredients for Pumpkin Buttercream Frosting:
- 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter at room temperature
- ½ cup of 100% pumpkin puree
- ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon of cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg
- 3 cups of powdered sugar.
Directions:
To begin, you will need to bake your cookies according to your recipe. I used Pumpkin Spice cookies for an extra pumpkin kick, but these would work beautifully with any basic recipe! Make an even number of cookies since you will be pairing them up to make your cookie sandwiches later.
Make sure you allow your decorated cookies to dry completely (12 hours or overnight) before handling. Once your cookies are ready, move on to make the buttercream. I do not recommend making the buttercream until you are ready to pipe it onto your cookies right away.
To make the frosting, begin by creaming together the butter and pumpkin. It was explained in the original recipe that, because of the textures of these ingredients, they will not truly “cream” together all the way. Let me explain. You will see that although they are combined, you can still see specks of just butter, and specks of just pumpkin throughout the mixture. I included a picture just in case you wonder exactly how mixed is "mixed enough".
This buttercream recipe makes enough for five dozen sandwiches (which means you would need 10 dozen cookies total), but the ingredients can be easily cut in half to make a smaller batch. Now we’re ready for the fun part!
Cut off the tip of your bag, or you may choose to use a decorating tip, and begin piping buttercream onto the wider, center part of the leaves. Try to stay away from the tips of the leaves. Since we will be layering another cookie on top of these, too much buttercream near the more delicate and thinner edges of the cookie means that you will have some buttercream running down the sides of the cookies.
For the last step, place your decorated cookies on top of your buttercream to create a cookie sandwich. Make sure to line both cookies up well once you place it. The buttercream will crust slightly after a while and it may be difficult to fix them later.
Once your sandwiches are done, let the cookies sit for about 30 minutes to allow the buttercream to crust and have less potential for messy fingers! Or you can be like me and lick you sticky, pumpkin-y fingers afterwards. Because, who are we kidding? We’re not waiting 30 minutes!
I hope you all have as much fun as I did putting these fall-inspired cookie sandwiches together (and eating them too)! Just think of how pretty your fall or Thanksgiving tables will look with these lovelies on top. Or pair them with a Pumpkin Spice Latte and enjoy the goodness all on your own. Happy Fall ya’ll!
Lynette M.