I don’t know about you, but I am ready for autumn!! I think it’s trying to come here. We recently moved and I heard the lowest temp all year will be 60…not much for fall weather. I lit a new candle last week and when the scent filled the room I felt like decorating for fall and baking everything pumpkin spice! Now that’s a good candle! haha
Hobby Lobby had a beautiful burlap wreath about a year ago. But if you know me, you know I thought, I can make that! So this year I got the supplies to do that since I sold all my previous wreaths. It’s not as gorgeous as the one I saw, but I like it well enough for our small door anyway! At least if we get a larger door (house), I can always gift this to my sister, hehehe.
I also love this new little mug Walmart has right now…I will have to go get enough for guests and my little ones. Yesterday was National Coffee Day, so it was the perfect time to start using it. I will hate packing it away. 
With all the pumpkin spice-ness in the air, what’s next? Baking, of course! Once I got started, I wanted to “bake all the things,” lol. I will have to pace myself…I ran out of sugar and flour, haha. I made some play-dough before we started baking, so that was part of the problem. I would have chose pumpkin spice lofthouse cookies over playdough, but you live and learn. I did get to make these before I ran out of baking goods, though :
Pumpkin Snickerdoodles! I was hoping my children would like them because my son loves everything pumpkin (like I do), and we all love cinnamon! So when I ran across this recipe I’ve had, I decided to start with it.
Actual snickerdoodles call for you to roll a ball with the dough and kind of squish it down with a sugared glass, but I have this cute pumpkin shape cookie cutter I wanted to use. I cut out my dough with the cookie cutter and brushed water over the top of the dough and sprinkled on the cinnamon/sugar/spice mix and it worked just fine!
They turned out yummy! My daughter that doesn’t even like pumpkin was drawn in eventually by the temptation of a cookie and tried it. She ate the whole thing (not any others, but it’s a start!). I hope the neighbors liked them, too. hahaha. I can’t have 2 dozen cookies sitting in the house.
Seriously, I don’t know what it is with me and smelling pumpkin spice (thanks, Michaels, for that candle that got me baking and decorating!), but I want to keep on baking. Maybe it was also the pent-up energy from getting over strep throat. Next up: new recipe for pumpkin streusel muffins. I am trying to find just the right combination of muffin, streusel, and icing to copy the one from Dunkin Donuts. You know the one I’m talking about. Mmmm, I could eat one every single morning during the season. I HAVE to find a good copy because I can’t head to DD every morning. So, my first try this morning was one part from 3 different recipes and it turned out pretty close. I will try one last thing this week in hopes that it does the trick! But here’s what I have so far:
I hope they freeze well, also, because I bagged them up in fours and froze them for a quick CC breakfast. I will share the recipe for the muffins after I tweak it to be a close enough copycat! Here is the recipe for the snickerdoodles,though…enjoy!!
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Sugar/Spice Topping:
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 Sprinkling of allspice
In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Whisk together to blend. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugars on medium speed until well combined. Next, still on medium speed, beat in pumpkin. Then, add the egg and vanilla extract. Lastly, add in the dry ingredients. Beat until combined, but do not over mix. Cover the dough, and refrigerate for one hour, until firm.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Line baking sheets with parchment paper. In a small bowl, mix together the sugar and spices for the sugar coating. Scoop dough (approximately 2 1/2 tablespoons) and roll into a ball. Roll the dough ball in the sugar mixture, and place on the lined baking sheet, leaving about 2 inches between each cookie. Take a drinking glass with a flat bottom and moisten with water. Dip the glass in the sugar mixture, and use it to flatten the dough balls. Re-sugar the glass as needed.
Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes. Remove when the centers of the cookies have set. Let cool on the baking pan for approximately 5 minutes, and then transfer to wire cooling racks to cool completely.
Here is a link to print it directly:
lovelifecelebrateblog 
Yummmmmm!!!
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