pumpkin molasses cookies

My daddy brought over some plants for my garden that he had sprouted this spring. I thought I planted a couple zucchini, a couple watermelon & a couple cucumber plants. 

Well, what grew the fastest (kinda took over both raised beds with its foot-diameter leaves...) turned out to be a pumpkin vine.

So far I've seeded  2 of them (the seeds are cleaned, 

salted & sun-drying as we speak) 

and cooked them up in the crockpot. 

After processing, I think I have about 4 cups of pumpkin pureé in the frig.

Decided I would try to come up with a molasses cookie of sorts. Here's what I wanted it to look like:

(source)

In the food processor I creamed 1/2 c. butter with 1/2 c. molasses. I added one cup pumpkin pureé and one teaspoon vanilla. After those were smooth and creamy, I beat in an egg.


I sifted in these dry ingredients: 3 cups gluten-free flour, 1 & 1/2 teaspoons guar gum, 3 "mini-scoops" Stevia, 1 T. ground ginger, 1 T. cinnamon, 1/8 teaspoon cracked black pepper, 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves, 1 t. sea salt, & 1 teaspoon baking soda. I pulsed until I had a nice dough to refrigerate for an hour.

After preheating the oven to 350°, I rolled tablespoon-sized balls & set on my parchment-covered cookie sheet. (OK, gotta admit, the dough was still quite sticky.) I baked them for 20 minutes.


I liked the flavor of the baked cookie, but wanted the outside to have a little more texture & sweetness. My substitute for rolling in sugar was 1/2 cup unsweetened ground coconut mixed with a "mini-scoop" of Stevia.

Gorgeous.

So I baked & cooled about 3 dozen of these things:

The cookie reminded me slightly of those coconut covered donut holes...

Where's my coffee!?!