Pumpkin Crinkle Cookies 
makes about 32 cookies, adapted from this recipe

Ingredients:
1. 2 1/4 cup flour
2. 1/3 cup pumpkin puree
3. 1/2 cup brown sugar splenda
4. 1/2 cup sugar
5. 12 Kraft caramels (cut them in half)
6. Trader Joe’s Cookie Butter
7. 1/2 cup powdered sugar
8. 1/4 tsp salt
9. 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
10. 1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
11. 1 tsp cinnamon
12. 1 stick butter (softened)
13. 2 eggs
14. 1 tbsp vanilla
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, spices, and baking powder. Separate the powdered sugar into two smaller bowls with each containing 1/4 cup of powdered sugar, and set aside (this does not go in the batter). In the bowl of an electric mixer, fit with a paddle attachment, whip together the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Proceed to add the eggs, pumpkin, and vanilla into the butter and sugar mixture. Stir until combined. Slowly, add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Dough will be quite sticky.

Scoop out dough 1 heaping tablespoon at a time and roll into a ball. Press thumb into the center of the ball and insert caramel (or teaspoon of cookie dough). Press the dough around the filling to completely cover the caramel or cookie dough with the batter (For some, we also chopped up some chocolate and put it in the center too!). Once dough is shaped back into a ball, roll in the powdered sugar and coat well. Bake the cookies on an un-greased cookie sheet for about 8 minutes. Remove from the oven and place on the cooling rack, once it is cooled down enough, roll in the second bowl of powdered sugar to coat again.

Note: There are two small bowls of powdered sugar because you don’t want to cross contaminate the raw eggs from the uncooked cookie dough from the first bowl of powdered sugar used before baking.
The caramel filled cookies are best eaten warm, so they are nice and gooey! Otherwise, they harden a bit and become more chewy than gooey. Our favorites were the ones with the cookie butter center! I also found that the cookies tasted better the next day, as the pumpkin flavors seems to be a bit stronger (but I’d make sure to eat the caramel filled ones straight from the oven). In my experience making pumpkin cookies, they always come out more cake-y than your typical cookie, so if cake-y cookies aren’t your thing, I’m not sure you’d like pumpkin cookies.

Soul was telling Ben she wanted to eat Mommy’s “high-nu” cookies for snack. Ben told her, “Soulie, just because it has pumpkin doesn’t mean it’s high nutrition.” I guess that kind of bursted her “healthy” snack bubble because these cookies for sure aren’t high nutrition, but they do taste good, and it is definitely something that doesn’t hurt to have once in awhile. Plus, we had to kick off our Thanksgiving week with some baking. We actually doubled the recipe and delivered some cookies to a few of our neighbors. Hopefully, they liked it just as much as we did!

I have plans to make a healthier version of pecan pie this week too! Oh Thanksgiving, you are dangerous…