Pumpkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting

Fall equals pumpkins around here.  There is something about the crisp air that makes me want to have the smell of cinnamon and spice wafting through my home.  That means I'm busy baking:  pumpkin bread, pumpkin cake, pumpkin cookies.  I'll try pretty much anything pumpkin this time of year. 

Is it that way at your house?  If it is, I urge you to give these Pumpkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting I found last year.  Jamie at My Baking Addiction shared this recipe and is quickly became one of our seasonal favorites.

Pumpkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Icingfrom My Baking Addiction
Yield: 24 Cookies (Um, only if they're HUGE)

Ingredients
1 cup butter flavored shortening
1 cup unsalted butter; softened
2 cups white sugar
2 cups canned pumpkin (solid; not pie mix)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups all-purpose flour (I split mine: 2 cups all-purpose/2 cups whole-wheat)

Directions
1. Cream shortening, butter, white sugar and pumpkin. Add eggs and mix well.

2. Sift together the baking soda, ground cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg, salt and flour. Add to pumpkin mixture and mix well.

3. Drop from spoon to cookie sheet. (In order to get only 24 cookies from this recipe, Jamie used a 1/4 cup scooper. As for me, I tried it both ways. I liked the smaller cookies used my medium scooper from Pampered Chef for those.) Bake 13-15 minutes (the smaller cookies take less time...look at them at 10 minutes) at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons butter, softened
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (extract will also work)
2 tablespoons milk

Method
Mix the cream cheese with the butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla extract, and milk in a bowl. Heat in a microwave for 15 seconds. Drizzle spoonfuls over the cooled cookies and smooth with the back of a spoon or a spatula.

NOTES:  These cookies really were awesome. As I wrote above, I liked the smaller version of the cookies, so if you make smaller cookies, you'll get a lot more than 24 cookies out of this recipe. Also, the frosting doesn't harden, so you can't stack the cookies to store them.

Happy baking!