It seems like every year, pumpkin recipes become more and more popular. With websites like Pinterest and the growing number of food bloggers, we are flooded with more pumpkin-y creations than ever. I am just as pumpkin-obsessed as the next, and have already enjoyed my fair share of pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin spice oatmeal, and pumpkin-stuffed raviolis. However my FAVORITE pumpkin treat is soft and fluffy pumpkin cookies.

Fortunately for me, my friend Chelsea is just as much a fan and we planned an afternoon of baking in her adorable townhome. We started with an easy Cake Mix Cookie recipe from Julie over at Peanut Butter Fingers and altered it a little. To show you how unbelievably easy this really is, the ingredients are as follows:

1 box of cake mix

1 (15oz) can of pumpkin

Whatever mix-ins you want

So the original recipe called for Spice Cake. But our Target had the smallest cake selection ever so we were given the choices of chocolate, vanilla or carrot. Carrot is close enough, right? I mean it’s got orange flecks in it….

The carrot ended up being a GREAT call because it has the cinnamony spices and color in it plus orange carrot pieces that we can pretend are pumpkin ;) Chelsea and I made a batch of milk chocolate chip pumpkin cookies first.

After they came out so well, I made a second batch with Hazelnuts and White Chocolate Chips to bring to the Ping Pong Party. I kind of learned from the first batch:

A.) The shape/form you put the dough on the pan, is the shape they will come out. They do not expand/rise/flatten. They still look pretty “doughy”

B.) For the second batch I opted to use about 80% of the can of pumpkin instead of the whole thing. They were less doughy and it worked out much better :)

C.) They are to be enjoyed with a Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte.

• Preheat oven to 350 and grease a baking sheet.
• Combine cake mix and roughly 12 oz of pumpkin in a large mixing bowl.
• Add in chocolate chips, nuts, extra cinnamon, craisons or whatever your heart desires.
• Scoop cookie dough as roundly on to pan as possible, because they will keep this same shape.
• Bake for 10-12 minutes

This makes approximately 36 mini cookies, 66 calories and 2g fat each.

The pumpkin cookies with white chocolate chips and chopped hazelnuts were a hit and the plate was empty before the party ended. They are seriously so easy to make, you could literally go to the store, buy the ingredients, make the dough, pop them in the over and be eating them within an hour.

I have a feeling these wouldn’t be bad with a chocolate cake mix…. if anyone tries it, let me know!

Pin this recipe here.