How to Recreate Pumpkin-Shaped Pillsbury Cookies

Everyone knows and loves the Pillsbury sugar cookies that come in either pumpkin or ghost shapes as one of the greatest Halloween treats. Instead of buying them this year, how about recreating pumpkin-shaped Pillsbury cookies?

This is a fairly demanding recipe, but the trickiest part is blocking out enough time since there is a lot of refrigeration required. If you're in a pinch, you could try freezing the dough for 15-minute intervals, but it definitely affects the cookies.

Another important step is finding a small cookie cutter. While you could cut out the pumpkin shapes with a knife, it is important that they are all the same size and shape since they have to be stacked on top of each other. Otherwise, your recreated pumpkin-shaped Pillsbury cookies will look more like pumpkins without stems.

Pillsbury Pumpkin Shape Cookies

• Prep Time:4 hrs
• Cook Time:11 mins
• Total Time:4 hrs 11 mins
• Servings:36
• Hard

Ingredients

• 3/4 unsalted butter softened
• 1 1/4 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Pinch salt
• 3 large eggs
• 2 1/2 cups cake flour
• Red and yellow food coloring or orange
• Small pumpkin cookie cutter

• Step 1

  Cream the butter in a large bowl. Make sure you are using softened butter. If it is still cold, it will be hard to mix everything together, and it will be a much more difficult process to form the dough.

  

• Step 2

  Mix in the confectioners sugar.

  

• Step 3

  Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites. Do this by cracking the egg in half, and using the shell halves to pass the yolk back and forth until the egg whites are completely separated from the yolk.

  

• Step 4

  Add the egg yolks, vanilla extract, and salt to the large bowl, and combine with a wooden spoon.

  

• Step 5

  Stir in the cake flour. The dough will be crumbly. Don't swap out the cake flour for regular all-purpose flour, it won't help the cookies maintain their shape.

  

• Step 6

  Turn the dough onto a clean surface and knead until it forms into compact cookie dough.

  

• Step 7

  Separate the dough into two halves. Take one half, wrap in cling wrap, and place in refrigerator.

  

• Step 8

  Color the other half with the food coloring until it forms a bright orange color. Wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

  

• Step 9

  Take out the orange dough, and roll it out until it is about the depth of your cookie cutter. The thicker they are, the easier life will be later.

  

• Step 10

  Cut out orange pumpkins.

  

• Step 11

  Using the egg whites from when the eggs were separated, brush a little onto the side of the pumpkins and stack them, one on top of the other. If they are thick, there won't be as many to stack, or as many opportunities for small gaps between pumpkins. Wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

  

• Step 12

  Roll the not colored dough into cylinders the length of the stacked pumpkins. Place the cylinders around the pumpkins.

  

• Step 13

  Gently roll out the dough until it is smooth and rounded. Wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

  

• Step 14

  Slice the dough into thin cookies, about 1/4 inch. Place the cookies on a cookie sheet and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

  

• Step 15

  Preheat the oven to 350°.

• Step 16

  Bake the cookies for 10-11 minutes, until slightly golden.