Copycat Pillsbury Pumpkin Sugar Cookies

Seeing Pillsbury Pumpkin Sugar Cookies in grocery stores for the first time every year is the warmest feeling I know. As a kid, my sisters and I would eat most of the cookie dough before we could actually get them in the oven. I still get that same excited feeling when I see them on the shelves.

The only problem about the Pillsbury Cookies is that they are only sold certain times of year. With this copycat recipe, you can make them all year round and customize them to whatever shape you want in the center so get creative! This copycat recipe will give you that same nostalgia with each bite. They’re soft, slightly buttery and crisp on the bottom and overall, melt-in-your-mouth delicious.

Making the Sugar Cookie Dough

The cookie itself is extremely simple and straight forward. If you love the cookie dough, in the future, you can just prepare the dough normally and bake them without shapes in the center and just enjoy them as any regular sugar cookies.

I used an electric hand help mixer to combine my ingredients, but you can use a stand mixer fit with the paddle attachment OR just mix by hand (you’ll get a nice little arm workout in). I recommend using an electric mixer of any kind just to help ensure that the dough is combining nicely without your arm getting too tired from mixing by hand.

Coloring The Sugar Cookie Dough

This step of course, is the first most important step to recreating these Pillsbury Pumpkin Sugar Cookies. Once the cookie dough has been made, about 3/4 cups of the dough will be dyed orange. And 1 tablespoon will be dyed green. This will create the pumpkin and the stem/leaf.

If you have gloves, USE THEM. Otherwise I recommend mixing the dye into the colors using a silicone spatula. Food dye will stain your hands and that’s just no fun.

Assembling Copycat Pillsbury Pumpkin Sugar Cookies

It’s super important to pay attention to the size that you’re rolling all of your dough out too. The orange log of dough should be 1″ in diameter. If this log is too large, the cookies will be too big. The same goes for the uncolored dough wrapped around your pumpkin log. If the dough on the outside is too thick the cookie will be large off the bat and most likely spread a bit more in the oven. They’ll still have the cute pumpkin design but they won’t resemble the thickness and softness of the classic Pillsbury Cookie.

Another important step is making sure the uncolored dough is tightly wrapped around our log of pumpkin dough. Squeeze the entire log together super tight. If the dough hasn’t been tightly wrapped, there will be gaps between the pumpkin and the uncolored dough. You can always individually press them to be closer together but it’s easier to just get this done in the beginning to avoid any headaches.

What To Do With Extra Cookie Dough Scraps

These cookies have every quality you could ever want in a classic sugar cookie. They are perfectly sweet, chewy, super soft, and slightly crisp on the bottom. Bake off all your scraps by rolling them into 2 tablespoon sized balls of dough, place them onto your cookie sheet about 1 1/2″ apart, then bake for the same amount of time as your Copycat Pillsbury Cookies – just until perfectly golden on the bottom.

If you really want to get creative, make ice cream cookie sandwiches by baking off the scraps as described above, then placing a scoop of ice cream between two cookies. Roll the sides in festive Halloween sprinkles and VOILA! Deliciously soft and sweet sugar cookie ice cream sandwiches.

Do I Use Liquid Or Gel Food Dye?

I will always recommend Americolor Gel Food Dye. Click here for the link. Gel food dye is less likely to alter the consistency of the dough. Adding too much liquid food dye will make the dough sticky, tacky, and hard to work with.

A few drops of each color will do the trick. But of course you can always alter the amount based on the color you want to achieve. It’s best to start with a little then add more if needed.

How To Slice Pumpkin Sugar Cookies

To get the clean even slices that we want, it’s important to make sure that the dough is very cold. Cold dough will slice very clean and the dough will hold its shape perfectly. If the dough becomes soft when working with it, wrap it up in plastic wrap or parchment paper and let it sit in the freezer for 10 minutes before slicing. I promise, being patient and making sure the dough is cold will yield the best end result.

Be sure to use a sharp knife. Do not use a serrated knife, just a knife with a sharp blade will do perfectly! Slice each cookie slowly and take your time to ensure that each cookie is roughly the same thickness. Having each cookie the same thickness will also ensure that they bake evenly.

More Recipes You Might Be Interested In…

Pillsbury Pumpkin Sugar Cookie Cupcakes

By TheSqueakyMixer

Posted in Cupcakes

There is no denying that the Pillsbury Pumpkin Sugar Cookies are the most cozy and nostalgic reminder that autumn is here or in this case, right around the corner. As a kid, I remember my sisters and I ObSESSING over the new designs for each season of the Pillsbury Sugar Cookies. The pumpkins, and any…

Pumpkin Banana Bread Muffins With A Cream Cheese Filling

By TheSqueakyMixer

Posted in Muffins

In my opinion it’s hard to top a good Banana Bread. It’s delicious warm out of the oven, cold form being stored in the fridge, insanely good toasted (especially when topped with cream cheese), and pretty much any other way you can eat banana bread it’s delicious. Let’s bring Pumpkin Bread into play now. Anything…

Halloween Cake Pops

By TheSqueakyMixer

Posted in Cakes

If it’s not obvious yet, I am 100% one of those people who gets SO excited for any given Holiday long before it’s socially acceptable. ESPECIALLY when it comes to Halloween, Thanksgiving, and most of all, Christmas. I just couldn’t wait any longer to make these adorable candy corn & ghost Halloween cake pops. What…

Pumpkin Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting & Halloween Hats

By TheSqueakyMixer

Posted in Cupcakes

These cupcakes are of course perfect for the entire fall season, but by adding the chocolate witch and wizard hat, they become the most adorable and delicious treat for Halloween. Today is July 31st which means that it’s Harry Potter’s birthday – these cupcakes are my tribute 🙂 The spice level in these cupcakes isn’t…

Connect With Me!

Nothing makes me happier than sharing my recipes with you all. Well maybe one thing….when you all share YOUR results of creating my recipes. It doesn’t get much better than that. Please never hesitate to tag me in your creations! I’m also always looking for recipe ideas and suggestions. Find me on social media @thesqueakymixer 🙂

Copycat Pillsbury Pumpkin Sugar Cookies

4 from 159 votes

Recipe by Maddison Koutrouba – thesqueakymixer.com

Servings

12-15

servings

Cooking time

10

minutes

Cook Mode

Keep the screen of your device on.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups 2 1/2 all purpose flour

• 1 tsp. 1 baking powder

• 1/4 tsp. 1/4 salt

• 1 cup 1 unsalted butter, softened

• 1 1/2 cups 1 1/2 granulated sugar

• 1 1 egg

• 2 tsp. 2 vanilla extract

• 2 2 drops orange food dye

• 1 1 drop green food dye

Directions

• In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Then set aside.
• In a separate bowl (or in a stand mixer fit with the paddle attachment) mix together the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy. About 2 minutes on low speed.
• Add the egg and vanilla to the butter mixture and continue to mix until fully combined and smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as you go.
• Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until a soft dough forms.
• Once you have a nice dough formed, remove about 3/4 cups of it to dye orange. Next, take out 1 Tbsp. of dough to be dyed green. Keep the remaining dough in the bowl.
• Use gloves if you have them to dye the first removed portion of dough orange, then the small amount green. To do this, add a drop of food gel at a time to the dough and work it into the dough until it is evenly distributed and has reached the perfect shade.
• Flatten each color of dough into a disc and wrap in plastic wrap to chill in the fridge for at least two hours.
• After two hours, take the uncolored dough and roll it out to 1/4″ thick on top of parchment paper. Slide this onto a cookie sheet and let sit in the fridge while we move onto the next step.
• Remove the orange dough from the fridge and roll it out into a log about 1″ in diameter. Take a skewer to make an indent along the top of the log to create more of a pumpkin shape and to leave an indent where the green stem will go.
• Next, take the green dough and roll into long skinny pieces and place these pieces along the top of the indent made from the skewer on the pumpkin.
• Wrap the pumpkin log in plastic wrap and let set in the freezer for at least 10 minutes.
• Remove the rolled out, uncolored dough from the fridge – let it sit out for about 5 minutes to become more flexible. Then place the pumpkin log in the center of the uncolored dough then wrap the rolled out dough around the pumpkin log. You can pinch the seams together to help the two sides meet.
• Thoroughly squeeze and roll the log of dough to ensure the uncolored dough and the pumpkin log are joined together nicely. Wrap the entire roll in plastic wrap again and let sit in the freezer while preheating the oven to 375°. While the oven is preheating, prepare a cookie sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.
• Once the log has chilled, slice the log into about 1/4″-1/2″ slices. Place each cookie about 1 1/2″ – 2″ apart on the prepared cookie sheets.
• Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges just barley look brown. We want these nice and soft so as soon as you see a bit of browning on the edges, take them out of the oven and let sit on the cookie sheet for an additional 10 minutes on the sheet to firm up a bit/ finish baking and cooling.
• Enjoy!🎃

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @thesqueakymixer on Instagram! I love to see what you all create.