Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies are easy to whip up with crisp edges, a soft, chewy center, and plenty of chocolate. With tips to guarantee bakery-quality cookies, they’ll be your go-to fall treat!
Add room-temperature butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar to a stand mixer with a whisk attachment. Beat until creamy, scraping the sides as needed. Add pumpkin, egg yolk, and vanilla, and mix to incorporate.
Add cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and quick oats to the mixture. Beat until combined. Add flour and mix until no streaks remain, then fold in both chocolate chips and mix.
Cover and place the bowl of dough in the fridge for 1 hour.
Roll chilled dough into large, 3-tablespoon balls or 58 grams (see note 4). Roll to be taller instead of wider and place on a parchment-lined tray. Batter should make 18–20 cookies. Chill dough balls in the fridge for 15–20 minutes. While dough balls are chilling, preheat oven to350℉. Line a large sheet pan with parchment paper or a silicon baking mat.
Add only 6 dough balls to a sheet pan at a time, spacing them out well. Bake 12–15 minutes or until lightly browned at the edges and slightly gooey in the center. These cookies are best slightly underbaked! Right out of the oven, bang the sheet pan on the counter a few times to flatten the cookies slightly.
Optionally, right after banging the pan, quickly press cookie edges inward with the back of a spoon, then press a few extra chocolate chips on top.
Let cookies rest on the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Repeat this process to bake all cookies. These cookies taste best at room temperature and even better the next day—the pumpkin flavor has intensified by then!
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Notes
Note 1: It’s really important that the butter is at room temperature to cream with the sugars properly. Melted butter won’t trap air effectively. It’s also important to have room-temperature eggs, which allows them to trap air and disperse more evenly into the batter. Leave these ingredients out at room temperature for 45 minutes to an hour.Note 2: Pumpkin pie spice can be found among other spices in the grocery store, or you can make your own pumpkin pie spice!Note 3: Although it would make sense that any oats would work, they aren’t interchangeable here. Quick oats act more like flour since they are smaller, denser, and more compact.Note 4: Cookies work best at this size. While you may want smaller cookies, know that the texture is not the same. The sweet spot for this recipe is exactly 58 grams (3 packed tablespoons) of dough. Big, I know, but totally perfect for ensuring crisp edges and soft, chewy center!Storage: Most cookies are the best right out of the oven, but these are best at room temperature—and even better (with a much more pronounced pumpkin flavor) the next day! I actually don’t cover these cookies—just leave them on a plate at room temperature—this keeps them from becoming too moist and losing texture. After baking the cookies, let them cool completely on a wire rack (this will keep the bottoms from getting soggy from the steam).