This blog post is sponsored by Nielsen-Massey Vanillas! All texts and opinions are 100% mine. Thank you so much for supporting the brands that support Jessica in the Kitchen! It’s official: my lifetime love for pumpkin has grown even more this season. I think as soon as it hit September 1, I grabbed my first small container of pumpkin purée, thinking I wouldn’t need much. A week later and four containers later, I realised it was time to just buy some pumpkin. I followed my handy dandy homemade pumpkin purée recipe to whip up a whole batch to keep me stocked for the season. Needless to say – I love pumpkin, and I LOVE these Vegan Rolled Pumpkin Spice Cookies! I wanted to try out something different with these cookies. I haven’t made rolled cookies in a while – not since my Jessiker Bakes day running an at-home bakery. Wow, those were some interesting times. I had every single baking device possible, and soooo many cookie cutters! Every shape, every size, every category. There’s just something fun and festive about pressing shapes into rolled cookie dough. I also loved a good solid sugar cookie. The type that is soft but also chewy. With these cookies, I knew what I was looking for and so the creations began. Not that long after, I had created a beautifully spiced (all the pumpkin spice) sugar cookie that was a delicious mix of crunchy, slightly soft on top and chewy. I went out of my way to ensure that this batter was so easy that you could easily whip it up twice in a week while watching a tv show – which is, exactly what I did. Trust me, one bite and you’re all in. Let’s talk ingredients. These pumpkin spice cookies also have actual pumpkin in there! It’s my go-to ingredient to make everything thick and soft. From chocolate chip cookies, to cornbread to even pumpkin quinoa chili. There’s only 1/4 cup in there so it doesn’t taste like pumpkin, but it sure helps with the texture of the cookies. In combination with my usual mix of cookie ingredients, I used my favourite vanilla extract, Nielsen-Massey Vanillas. I opted specifically for their Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract. If you’ve been a reader here before, then you know that I LOVE this vanilla extract. I love their dedication to high-quality ingredients and products – including but not limited to hand-picked vanilla beans, cold extraction process, while being all-natural, Non-GMO Project verified, vegan and gluten free. I also love the sweet and creamy flavour that this specific vanilla extract lends to these cookies. I’ve shared before about how it was the first one I ever used back when I had my baking business, and decided to stick with it, even keeping my massive (empty) bottle of it for quite some time. I’m especially loving Nielsen-Massey’s Better Your Bake campaign. Baking has been in my family for generations. With my grandma having her own catering business, and my mom always making Christmas cake every season and so many more memories. No wonder I fell in love – it’s in my blood! Gav even jokes that he knows when it’s holiday season because I seem to bake constantly, just because. That being said, it helps that I’ve learned many of the basics and so it comes easily and naturally to me. Nielsen-Massey’s Better Your Bake campaign is designed to help you master the basics of baking, so that you can get straight to the enjoying (and all the taste testing, of course). One of my favourite parts of baking is that I feel like I can get lost in the rhythm of it. It allows me to free my mind of overthinking in that moment, and instead just focus on the mindfullness of the process. To this date, I’ve baked over 500 times, so clearly I’ve been loving the benefits of it! Nielsen-Massey did a six-part series sharing lots of baking basics for you to master, complete with step-by-step videos. You can head over to betteryourbake.com to follow along. I decided to cover “How to Roll Cookie Dough” because – who doesn’t love cookies? I go step by step in these photos, and in the instructions below. All in all, this cookie dough will be whipped up in just a few minutes, rested, rolled then baked. It’s the perfect new cookie dough to make for this holiday season and beyond. If you aren’t already following me on IG, I also detailed it last week in video format over on my stories. It’s an easy to follow method that’ll guarantee your cookie dough won’t be sticking to your rolling pin ever. Seriously, always roll your cookies like this! I kept it pretty simple for you! But, be sure to spruce these cookies up even more with maybe a pumpkin shape, or even icing sugar on the cookies. Either way they’ll taste absolutely delicious and will be perfect for the holiday season. Eat up and enjoy friends!
