Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles with French Vanilla Chai Glaze

5 from 8 votes

Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles with French Vanilla Chai Glaze

These pumpkin spice snickerdoodles have a French vanilla chai glaze that makes these already delicious cookies even more delicious! They’re chewy and fluffy, delicate, shiny, and absolutely, perfectly spiced.

Prep Time15

Cook Time25

Refrigeration30

Total Time1 10

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: International

Servings: cookies

Calories: 130kcal

Author: Genevieve Morrison

Equipment

large mixing bowl
medium mixing bowl
small mixing bowl
whisk
mixing spoon
baking sheet with rack
parchment paper
basting or pastry brush

Ingredients

For the Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles

3

cups

flour
1

tsp.

baking soda
2

tsp.

cream of tartar
1½

tsp.

pumpkin spice
½

tsp.

kosher salt
8

oz.

unsalted butter

- softened
1

cup

white granulated sugar
½

cup

light brown sugar
2

tsp.

real vanilla extract
1
large

egg
1
large

egg yolk

For the Sugar Coating

4

tbsp.

white granulated sugar
1
tbsp.

Sugar in the Raw
- optional
2
tsp.

pumpkin spice

For the French Vanilla Chai Glaze

1

cup

powdered sugar
2 tbsp.
French Vanilla Chai Tea
- I used Twining's
1 tsp.
real vanilla extract

Instructions

For the Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together 3 cups flour, 1 tsp. baking soda, 2 tsp. cream of tartar, 1½ tsp. pumpkin spice and ½ tsp. kosher salt. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 cup (8 oz.) softened, unsalted butter, 1 cup white granulated sugar, ½ cup brown sugar, 2 tsp. real vanilla extract, 1 egg, and 1 egg yoke. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.
Mix thoroughly with hands until all ingredients are combined into dough. Either place in a covered container, or wrap with cellophane and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 F. (175 C.) Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and remove the dough from the fridge. In a small bowl, mix 4 tbsp. white granulated sugar, 1 tbsp. Sugar in the Raw (optional - if not adding, simply add another tbsp. white granulated sugar) and 2 tsp. pumpkin spice. Roll 1 tbsp. of dough in your hands and coat in sugar/pumpkin spice until you have about 16 balls.
Place dough balls on baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Bake for 7-12 minutes (checking the bottom of a cookie after 7 minutes to see if it’s golden brown – if not, place it back in the oven). Bake cookies in batches, and after each batch, leave them to sit for 5 minutes, then remove them from the pan to cool on a rack for 20 minutes.

For the French Vanilla Chai Glaze

Add 1 tea bag of Twinings French Vanilla Chai Tea to 4 oz. of hot water and let it steep for 10 minutes.
In a small bowl, combine 1 cup powdered sugar, 2 tbsp. French Vanilla Chai Tea, 1 tsp. real vanilla extract and a sprinkle of cinnamon.
Gently glaze the cookies with a pastry brush. If you don’t have a pastry brush, you can dip them in the glaze, but make sure to let it drip off a lot of glaze, otherwise it will be too thick. You want just a thin layer. Place cookies in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes to quickly dry the glaze.

Notes

They will be perfectly moist and tasty for 1 week in a sealed container. After a week, they’ll start to lose their moisture, but will still be delicious until about 2 weeks when they’ll become a bit stale.

A Few Tips:

1. This recipe calls for 4 kinds of sugar, but you can use only 3 if you like.

I use both white granulated sugar and brown sugar in the cookie recipe, powdered sugar in the glaze, then white sugar and Sugar in the Raw in the cookie coating because it gives the snickerdoodles and more interesting texture. But if you don’t want to pick up a 4th kind of sugar, you can just use white sugar instead of Sugar in the Raw.

2. Don’t skip the refrigeration step!

Once your dough is done, you might be tempted to just start scooping… stop right there! Wrap the dough in cellophane or place it in a sealed container and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes. It’s far too warm just after it’s been mixed, and without refrigerating, you’ll just have unappetizing, deflated, flat cookie disks instead of tasty pumpkin spice snickerdoodles if you put them right in the oven.

3. Ovens vary, so watch your cookies carefully.

I find that, depending on your oven, these cookies can take between 7 minutes and 12 minutes to be perfect. That’s quite a range, so give them 7 minutes, then check the bottom on one. They should be a light, golden brown. The texture will feel REALLY soft and undercooked, even if they’re perfect. They harden on the outside and stay nice and chewy on the inside as they cool, so don’t use the texture as a gauge. Just the color of the bottoms.

Nutrition