Refined Sugar Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies | Healthy Pumpkin Cookies
Celebrate Autumn with these Sugar Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. Extremely soft and melt in mouth, the Pumpkin Cookies are made using healthy blend of ingredients like Whole Wheat Flour and Jaggery Powder (can be substituted with organic coconut sugar). Complete your Fall dessert recipes collection with these amazing Healthy Pumpkin Cookies!
Autumn of 2020 has arrived and what better way to welcome the beautiful season of fall with anything Pumpkin-y! Presenting my healthy take on the oh-so-famous Pumpkin Cookies! These cookies are filled in with chocolate chips and blended with canned pumpkin puree.
The year 2020 has not been an easy year for anyone. The pandemic has shaken many lives, and still continuing. Everyone has a different story to tell and different kinds of struggles. Life has changed (for good/bad), but it has certainly taught us many things, especially, to “Hold on”, and also, to take each day, one at a time.
Amidst this chaos, I didn’t bake for almost a month. With the online schooling, and other daily struggles, I was finding it nearly impossible to give any time to baking. Slowly the schedules got set, and now I am back to experimenting with my healthy bakes, starting with this recipe of healthy and easy pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.
How are these Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies healthy?
The healthy touch is given to these cookies by using Whole Wheat Flour and Jaggery Powder. So, that means these cookies are refined flour free and refined sugar free as well. Also, the Pumpkin Pie Spice adds such a beautiful blend of warm flavor to these cookies, the perfect Fall flavor.
I have used the Canned Pumpkin Puree and Pumpkin Pie Spice from Trader Joe’s. The ingredients in the pumpkin pie spice mix are Cinnamon, Ginger, Lemon peel, Nutmeg, Cloves and Cardamom. It is also easy to make your own homemade Pumpkin Pie Spice by mixing all these above listed spices in ground form.
This particular recipe of mine is adapted from the whole wheat chocolate chip cookie recipe on my blog, which has been a base for many other bakes. Click here to check out that recipe. This recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies is one of the perfect thanksgiving dessert recipes. I love to call these the Thanksgiving Cookies!
How to make Healthy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Here’s a step by step process to make the perfect soft chocolate chip pumpkin cookies. As I always say, I don’t use any electric mixer/whisk to prepare the cookie dough. Mostly a swirl by hand or just using a manual hand whisk is enough to make the cookie dough. Also, always remember to not over mix the cookie dough.
- Mix the butter and jaggery powder till everything is completely blended. Add in the pumpkin puree, egg and vanilla extract to the above and again mix everything together.
- Mix whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice and salt to the wet mixture and swirl everything together to form an even cookie dough.
- Add in the chocolate chips to the cookie dough and mix again. It is advisable to put the dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
- Remove the cookie dough from the refrigerator. Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 375 degree F. Take around 1 – 1 1/2 tablespoon of cookie dough in your hands, form a ball and flatten a little. I was able to make 21 cookies with the prepared dough.
- Bake the cookies for around 12 minutes in the preheated oven, or till you see creases on top of the cookies. The cookies will be soft to touch, but once cooled, they will be fine. Remove the cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool for at least 5-10 minutes. Serve warm or store in an air-tight container for around a week.
Substitutions & Tips
- Whole Wheat Flour – Feel free to replace whole wheat flour with the same quantity of all-purpose flour. If the cookie dough feels a little loose, add ~ 1/4th cup more of all-purpose flour.
- Jaggery Powder – If Jaggery Powder is not available, you can replace it with equal amount of organic coconut sugar.
- Pumpkin Puree – I have used 1/3 cup of Pumpkin Puree here. If you want a more intense flavor, then I would recommend increasing the amount of Pumpkin Puree to 1/2 cup. This would result in even softer cookies.
- Pumpkin Pie Spice – If you don’t have ready-made Pumpkin Pie Spice available, or even all the ingredients required to make the same, try using 1/4 teaspoon of Ground Cinnamon in combination with around 1/8 teaspoon of any/all of the following (whichever are available with you) – Ground Nutmeg, Ground Cloves, Ground Ginger and/or Ground Cardamom. Also, I have used 1/2 tsp of store bought Pumpkin Pie Spice in my recipe, feel free to increase the same to 3/4 – 1 teaspoon, for enhancing the warm and nutty flavor in cookies.
- Egg – To make the recipe eggless, I would advise to replace the egg with either of these two options:
- Chia Seed Gel (Mix 1 Tbsp powdered Chia seeds with 3 Tbsp water, and let it soak for 5 minutes)
- Flax Seed Gel (Mix 1 Tbsp powdered Flax seeds with 3 Tbsp water, and let it soak for 5 minutes)
NOTE – For eggless version, powdered seeds are preferred. But if not available, you can use whole seeds for soaking!
Also, continuing the tradition, here comes the 49th recipe under My Julie & Julia Project. For those who don’t know, I had started this project last year, under which I had planned to post 100 recipes from my kitchen by the end of the year 2019. But since I got busy with other priorities in life, I have planned to continue the tradition in 2020. So, this is the Recipe #49 for you all.
Let’s get going to the No Refined Sugar Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe now. Happy baking everyone!!
Refined Sugar Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Butter Unsalted, Softened
- 3/4 cup Jaggery Powder
- 1/3 cup Pumpkin Puree I used Canned Pumpkin Puree from Trader Joe's
- 1 Egg
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2 cups Whole Wheat Flour
- 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/2 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
- 1/2 cup Chocolate Chips Semi-Sweet
Instructions
- Mix the butter and jaggery powder till everything is completely blended. (I don't use any electric mixer/whisk to prepare the cookie dough. Mostly a swirl by hand or just using a manual hand whisk is enough to make the cookie dough.)
- Add in the pumpkin puree, egg and vanilla extract to the above and again mix everything together.
- Add in whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice and salt to the wet mixture and swirl everything together to form an even cookie dough.
- Finally, add in the chocolate chips to the cookie dough and mix again. It is advisable to put the dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
- Remove the cookie dough from the refrigerator. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
- Preheat oven to 375 degree F.
- Take around 1 – 1 1/2 tablespoon of cookie dough in your hands, form a ball and flatten a little. I was able to make 21 cookies with the prepared dough.
- Bake the cookies for around 12 minutes in the preheated oven, or till you see creases on top of the cookies. The cookies will be soft to touch, but once cooled, they will be fine.
- Remove the cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool for at least 5-10 minutes.
- The Healthy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies are now ready to be served warm, or these can also be stored in an air-tight container for around a week.
Notes
- Whole Wheat Flour – Feel free to replace whole wheat flour with the same quantity of all-purpose flour. If the cookie dough feels a little loose, add ~ 1/4th cup more of all-purpose flour.
- Jaggery Powder – If Jaggery Powder is not available, you can replace it with equal amount of organic coconut sugar.
- Pumpkin Puree – I have used 1/3 cup of Pumpkin Puree here. If you want a more intense flavor, then I would recommend increasing the amount of Pumpkin Puree to 1/2 cup. This would result in even softer cookies.
- Pumpkin Pie Spice – If you don’t have ready-made Pumpkin Pie Spice available, or even all the ingredients required to make the same, try using 1/4 teaspoon of Ground Cinnamon in combination with around 1/8 teaspoon of any/all of the following (whichever are available with you) – Ground Nutmeg, Ground Cloves, Ground Ginger and/or Ground Cardamom. Also, I have used 1/2 tsp of store bought Pumpkin Pie Spice in my recipe, feel free to increase the same to 3/4 – 1 teaspoon, for enhancing the warm and nutty flavor in cookies.
- Egg – To make the recipe eggless, I would advise to replace the egg with either of these two options:
- Chia Seed Gel (Mix 1 Tbsp powdered Chia seeds with 3 Tbsp water, and let it soak for 5 minutes)
- Flax Seed Gel (Mix 1 Tbsp powdered Flax seeds with 3 Tbsp water, and let it soak for 5 minutes)
Method (Step-by-step with pictures)
- Mix the butter and jaggery powder till everything is completely blended.
- Add in the pumpkin puree, egg and vanilla extract to the above and again mix everything together.
- Add in whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice and salt to the wet mixture and swirl everything together to form an even cookie dough.
- Finally, add in the chocolate chips to the cookie dough and mix again. It is advisable to put the dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
- Remove the cookie dough from the refrigerator. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
- Preheat oven to 375 degree F.
- Take around 1 – 1 1/2 tablespoon of cookie dough in your hands, form a ball and flatten a little. I was able to make 21 cookies with the prepared dough.
- Bake the cookies for around 12 minutes in the preheated oven, or till you see creases on top of the cookies. The cookies will be soft to touch, but once cooled, they will be fine.
- Remove the cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool for at least 5-10 minutes.
The Healthy Sugar Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies are now ready to be served warm, or these can also be stored in an air-tight container for around a week.
Leave a Reply