These Gluten Free Pumpkin Snickerdoodles are a fall twist on the family favorite snickerdoodle cookie. Our version is incredibly soft and perfectly spiced, and is top 8 free!
Happy first day of fall! We’re celebrating this day with a delicious twist on our classic snickerdoodle cookies: Pumpkin Snickerdoodles 🙂
Our gluten free pumpkin snickerdoodles are incredibly soft and pillowy with just a little bit of a crunch on the outside from the cinnamon sugar.
These snickerdoodle cookies are so soft, perfectly moist (but not too dense), and delicious, you won’t miss the dairy or gluten in these allergy friendly cookies. They’re also easy to make and fun for kids to create.
Our cookies are:
- Dairy free
- Gluten free
- Vegan
- Peanut Free
- Tree nut free
- Soy free
- Top 8 free
How to make gluten free pumpkin snickerdoodles
Our pumpkin snickerdoodles are easy to make, here’s a quick rundown of how to make these (the full recipe card is a the end of the post):
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet pan with parchment paper or baking mat and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (the gluten free baking mix through the cloves).
- In a separate small bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients (brown sugar through vanilla) until smooth.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix with a hand blender just until a thick dough forms. Stop mixing once it’s blended and you can roll the dough into balls (don’t mix this too much or it will get softer as you mix it and harder to roll into balls).
- Roll the cookie dough into 1-inch balls. Roll each ball in the cinnamon sugar mixture until covered all over, and place on the prepared baking sheet about 1-2 inches apart (these cookies won’t spread).
- Slightly flatten the cookie dough balls with your hands and bake for 12 minutes.
- Cool for 10 minutes. Store completely cooled cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3-4 days.
Make sure to mix the brown sugar with the wet ingredients (not the dry ingredients), the dough comes together better this way.
These pumpkin snickerdoodles taste the best when they’re made with brown sugar, but if you don’t have brown sugar on hand, you can use regular sugar in this recipe, too.
Just use the same amount of regular sugar (1/2 cup), but use 2 Tablespoons dairy free milk instead of just 1 Tablespoon of milk.
We’ve tested this recipe with both brown sugar and regular sugar and both are great, but the brown sugar ones have a richer flavor that we love best with the pumpkin.
After reading some Pinterest reviews on these cookies, I needed to add a note that these cookies are meant to be cake-like and soft, they will not end up being chewy like regular snickerdoodles!
Which gluten free flour should I use in these pumpkin snickerdoodle cookies?
We used the King Arthur all purpose gluten free baking mix in this recipe, and it has the best texture between that flour and the Bob’s Red Mill all purpose gluten free flour we tried.
Please note that gluten free baking mix is slightly different than gluten free flour. The baking mix includes baking soda and salt in the mix, so if you end up using a gluten free all purpose flour that doesn’t have those things added, you’ll need to add a little bit of salt and baking soda to the recipe.
If you end up using an all purpose flour instead of a baking mix, add 1/4 teaspoon salt and about 1/8 teaspoon baking soda to this recipe. Just make sure to check the label on whatever flour you choose, you don’t want to skip the salt or baking soda since it enhances the flavor and helps keep these cookies fluffy.
We tested this recipe with both the King Arthur Flour gluten free baking mix and the Bob’s Red Mill all purpose gluten free flour. Both flours worked well, but we preferred the taste and texture of these cookies made with the King Arthur GF flour in this recipe.
I did notice that the Bob’s Red Mill flour did seem to make a slightly drier cookie, but they were still good. Also, the Bob’s Red Mill GF flour does not have salt or baking soda in it, so if you use that, follow the directions above to add some to the mix.
UPDATE on the King Arthur all-purpose gluten free baking mix
We have used the King Arthur all-purpose gluten free baking mix for quite a few of our recipes, King Arthur Baking Company recently reformulated their gluten free baking mix to be better for biscuits.
The change in their baking mix results in slight texture changes for our cookies specifically, but our cookie recipes still work with the newly reformulated King Arthur gluten free all-purpose baking mix.
I am testing several of our recipes with the changed flour to make sure that the recipes still work great and if any updates to our recipes will be necessary. So far no changes to the recipes are necessary with what we have been testing, but we’ll update recipe cards if we find changes that need to be made!
Check out our other gluten free pumpkin recipes!
- Gluten Free Pumpkin Donuts with Cinnamon Glaze
- Paleo Pumpkin Muffins
- Instant Pot Pumpkin Spice Oatmeal
- Vegan Pumpkin Cheesecake
Gluten Free Pumpkin Snickerdoodles (Dairy Free)
Ingredients
Cookies
- 1 ¼ cup + 2 Tablespoons King Arthur gluten free all-purpose baking mix (we recommend King Arthur Flour gluten free all purpose baking mix* in this recipe)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (generous 1/4 teaspoon)
- ⅛ teaspoon salt (see note about flour)
- Dash ground cloves
- ½ cup packed brown sugar**
- ⅓ cup canned pumpkin puree
- 2 Tablespoon dairy free milk**
- 1 Tablespoon oil (we used light tasting olive oil)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Rolling sugar
- ¼ cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet pan with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, pie spice, salt, and ground cloves.
- In a separate small bowl, whisk together the sugar, pumpkin puree, dairy free milk, oil, and vanilla until smooth.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and beat with a hand blender until a thick dough just forms. Don't mix this too much or it will get softer and harder to roll into balls.
- In a shallow bowl, mix together the sugar and cinnamon for rolling.
- Roll the cookie dough into 1-inch balls. Roll each ball in the cinnamon sugar mixture until fill coated, and place on the prepared baking sheet about 1-2 inches apart (these cookies won't spread).
- Slightly flatten the cookie dough balls with your hands and bake for 12 minutes.
- Cool for 10 minutes. Store completely cooled cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3-4 days.
Notes
Nutrition
Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie which she founded in 2011. Sarah is based in Wyoming and has been managing food allergies for herself and her 2 children for over 20 years. Sarah was also a certified personal trainer for 12 years, as well as a group fitness instructor, health coach, running coach, and fitness nutrition specialist.
CAN YOU USE ALMOND FLOUR
Hi Sandra! I am not sure if almond flour will work in this recipe since we haven’t tested this with almond flour, but I bet an all purpose paleo flour blend (like Bob’s Red Mill) may probably work here instead of the gluten free flour.
Has anyone tried it with King Arthur’s Measure for Measure GF flour? Wondering if they will still turn out okay.
Hi Dawn! I haven’t tried these with the KA measure for measure flour, but I bet it would turn out ok. You’d probably want to add a little bit more baking powder and salt if you use it since the KA baking mix has some salt and baking powder mixed into it.
Thanks for sharing! Does it freeze well?
These should freeze and thaw well! Most of our cookie recipes do well in the freezer.
Thanks for sharing! Does it keep long?
These should keep at room temperature for about 4 days.
This looks so good! What a great fall recipe to make for friends!
I can’t wait to try these for my son! You say to use 2T of dairy free milk if using regular sugar, but the recipe calls for brown sugar also with 2T dairy free milk. What is the difference? I’m planning to make it with brown sugar, Do I still add the 2T of milk?
Hi LuAnn, I think that was a typo on my part, if you use white sugar it should be about 3 Tablespoons of milk, I’ll correct that! If you use brown sugar you’ll use 2 Tablespoons of dairy free milk.