Devon and Will lifted off the mild Arizona mountainside and touched down as Philly, et al., settles into the rusty hues and tart air of the beloved season of breathtaking decadence and...well I suppose I've already mentioned my feelings on autumn. Long story short, it's fall here on the East Coast, where we have flamboyantly distinct seasons with their own layers and flavors. Family at Philadelphia International means family at the dinner table, which, to me anymore, means a captive audience for dessert-time concoctions.

Enter pumpkin cookies with brown sugar glaze - a twist on my grandmom's recipe (who even gave me the can of pumpkin I used to make these - big ups to Mom-Mom.)


Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar (I super-stealthily substituted 1/2 cup Splenda, but do your thing.)
1 cup canned pumpkin (Libby's, for sure)
1 egg
1 t. baking soda
3/4 t. baking powder
3/4 t. ground cinnamon (blah blah blah toss some cinnamon in there)
1/2 t. ground nutmeg (didn't have, went with a pinch of allspice - Macgyver Stewart)
1/2 t. salt
2 cups all-purpose flour

(Glaze:)
3 T. butter
4 T. milk
1 cup confectioners' sugar
3/4 t. vanilla extract
1/2 cup packed brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 and grease cookie sheet.

Cream 1 cup butter, granulated sugar, and pumpkin.
Add egg and mix well.
Add baking soda, baking powder, ground cinnamon, nutmeg/allspice/what have you, salt, and flour - Mix well.

Scoop batter into lumps on cookie sheet, and, using a wet finger, smooth peaks down on tops.
Bake 14-16 minutes or so, until you get a clean toothpick test.
Transfer to cooling rack.*
Let cool about 15 minutes before icing. (With what? you ask? We-heh-helll...)

Cook rest of butter with milk, and brown sugar until dissolved.
Cool and add confectioners' sugar and vanilla.
Place the cooled cookies on a piece of wax paper (or put wax paper under cooling rack, if it's not tucked under a cabinet) and go to town drizzling those suckers with your glaze. It seemed to make a whole lot, but that was a good thing; I ended up double-layering to give them a nice even sugar stratum.

I opted to let them cool on the wax paper and keeping them in the fridge overnight in a big Tupperware container for easy after-work transport. Well, minus three I ate with milk and about six Paul ate in two handfuls. Those didn't stand half a chance for making it to outdoor transport. Paul's family all seemed to enjoy the soft, cakey, almost doughnut-like treats - in fact, I have yet to get my Tupperware container back since no one seems willing to part with the final scribblins. Great success!

* Macgyver Stewart strikes again. One woman's under-desk storage tray is the same woman's cooling rack, when hot cookies enter the picture. Perhaps your kitchen cabinets also have tension rod-friendly sections of underhang, in which case you can simply rig a basic balancing act of sorts.