Cassava Flour Pumpkin Thumbprint Cookies

These cassava flour pumpkin thumbprint cookies are a cake-like cookie with a delicious pumpkin-spiced frosting in the middle. The combination of flavors and textures work well together for a mouth-pleasing cookie treat. And the best part? They’re grain free because they’re made with cassava flour. This post contains affiliate links. Please read my disclosures.

I had some leftover canned pumpkin from making my fluffy pumpkin pancakes… and you know what you need to do you do when life gives you bonus pumpkin puree. You need to make pumpkin cookies! At least that’s what I do.

Not wanting to let the pumpkin puree go to waste, I decided to whip up some grain-free and gluten-free pumpkin thumbprint cookies.

These cookies are cakey and moist. They taste so soft and delicious. I’m in heaven and I can’t wait to share them with you.

Before I talk about how to make them, I want to share a bit more about the flour I used because it’s different than the 1:1 gluten-free flour I typically use. 

In this recipe, I used cassava flour, which is a flour made from the yucca root (which is a starchy root vegetable). Cassava flour is gluten- and grain-free as the flour comes from a root vegetable vs. a grain.

When you bake with cassava flour, you simply measure it, by weight, as a one-to-one swap with wheat flour. For example, if your recipe calls for 130 grams of wheat flour, you simply use 130 grams of cassava flour and go about your baking business.

(Please note 130 grams is the approx weight for 1 cup of wheat flour. I highly recommend investing in a kitchen scale if you’re going to bake with cassava flour.)

Alternatively, you could measure 3/4 cup of cassava flour for every 1 cup of gluten-free or wheat flour. It won’t be as exact, but it will work.

Two brands I know make cassava flour, Otto’s Cassava Flour and Bob’s Red Mill. I use both. It just depends what I have on hand.

How to Make these Cookies

These cookies come together so easy and quick in a few simple steps.

Step #1: Gather Your Ingredients

Always make sure you have everything you need before getting started.

For the cookie dough, you’ll need:

• Cassava flour
• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Ground cinnamon
• Pumpkin pie spice
• Kosher salt
• Brown sugar
• Canned pumpkin puree
• Avocado oil or other vegetable oil
• An egg
• Vanilla extract

For the frosting, you’ll need:

• Butter
• Powdered sugar
• Vanilla extract
• Pumpkin pie spice
• Milk or milk substitute

Step #2: Make the Cookie Dough

Start by combining the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk together brown sugar, pumpkin puree, vegetable oil, egg and 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract until well combined.

Then add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix together until everything is just incorporated.

Step #3: Bake

Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto your baking sheet, using lightly wet fingers to help shape the dough into round mounds about 2″ apart. Do not flatten.

Bake in a 350º F preheated oven for 6 minutes, then remove from oven and use your thumb or the bottom of a tablespoon to press an indent into the center of each cookie.

Bake cookies for another 5-6 minutes until done. Cookies are soft when done. Do not overcook. Allow cookies ample time to cool before frosting.

Step #4: Frosting

To make the frosting, combine butter, sugar, vanilla, pumpkin pie spice and milk in the bowl of your standing mixer and mix until well combined.

Add frosting to a piping bag and then pipe frosting into the center of each thumbprint cookie.

Voila, you have beautifully frosted thumbprint cookies to share that taste great on day #1 and continue to taste soft and moist through day #3.

This gluten-free pumpkin thumbprint cookie is one moist, delicious soft-baked cookie that will melt in your mouth. It tastes almost like a cookie muffin because it’s soft and yummy!

Best of all, it’s filled with good for you ingredients (well, except for the sugar, shhh!). In fact, the cookies are loaded with fiber thanks to the pumpkin puree (1/2 cup of pumpkin puree is about 3-4 grams of fiber).

The cookies I made lasted less than 24 hours (they were gone after breakfast the next morning). We ate them all. Fast. Gone. Delic!

On my next go round of making these cassava flour pumpkin cookies, I plan on doubling the recipe. I highly recommend you do, too. You will have leftover frosting, so you might as well double the cookie dough and put that excess frosting to good use.

Other Recipes You Might Like

Here are some other delicious cookie recipes you might enjoy too:

Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

Gluten-Free Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies

Gluten-Free Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies

Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Blossoms