It’s getting cold outside. The past week, almost every morning I’ve woken up to raindrop stains on the windows and I’ve tried to guess how many leaves have fallen from the trees. I’ve had the fireplace on and I’ve had lots of tea lately. And I’ve decided it’s fall. Candles have been lit, soft music has been playing, and well, we’ve just been enjoying the weather. Maybe you’re like us. Maybe you have a possible bride coming over to discuss her upcoming wedding and you’ll watch the stars dance in her eyes as she describes her fairytale dream. Maybe you have old friends coming over just to have a hot mug of coffee around the fireplace. Or maybe you’re like me, and you just want to have the house smell yummy like pumpkin and chocolate..the smells of fall. Maybe you just want to have fingerprints of flour all over your pants like I did. And maybe, maybe you just really have a chocolate craving.

I did.

So I decided to fix it.

Yum.

I may or may not have resorted to my childhood and licked the batter off the spoon.

Pumpkiny.

Chocolatey.

Cinnamony.

Gooey.

Warm.

Fluffy.

Perfection.

So I baked the yummy, gooey, fluffy, chocolatey perfection. And while the oven was doing its job of protecting my yummy, ooey, gooey, chocolatey perfection, I cleaned the fingerprints of flour off my pants and washed my dishes so I could justify eating every one of my little fluffy perfect gifts from heaven.

And fifteen minutes passed. The timer beeped. My heart leaped like it did when I had my very first ice cream cone. And I was almost too excited that I forgot to get out a towel so I wouldn’t burn myself.

I didn’t get out a rack to let them cool.

I didn’t loosen them from the cookie sheet.

I did what every brilliant, pumpkin loving person would do.

I slid a perfectly round cookie off the sheet and I ate it.

And it was so worth it.

So that’s the end of my story, and my late night craving for pumpkiny, chocolatey perfection.

Now that you’re craving a warm cup of coffee with a splash of cream and hazelnut and a warm, pumpkin cookie and all you want to do is curl up by the fire with a book, go make these. You won’t regret it. Trust me. And all the courage it took for you to actually pull all of the ingredients out of the pantry and hook the beater to the mixing bowl will justify you eating these. Okay? And when you’ve eaten them all up, let me know :)

 

 

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup of butter, softened

1/2 cup of Crisco (or use another stick of butter)

1 cup white sugar

1 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup pumpkin puree, canned

3 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cloves

2 cups dark chocolate chips or chunks

How to make:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees and spray  cookie sheets with nonstick spray or line with parchment paper.

Using a mixer, lightly beat the butter and Crisco. Beat in the sugars, a little at a time, until the mixture is light. Add in the eggs one at a time, and mix in the vanilla and pumpkin puree.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Add the flour mixture to the batter in thirds. Once combined, stir in the chocolate chips. In heaping tablespoons, scoop the dough onto the prepared cookie sheets and shower with a little bit more love :) Bake them for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges but still soft in the middle. Remove them from the oven and if you’re really good, you can let them rest for two minutes before transferring to a rack. But if you’re too excited, just pull them off the cookie sheets and eat them all at once :)