Easy Copycat Vegan Pillsbury Pumpkin Sugar Cookies

Measure out all ingredients, except for the food coloring. Read through all instructions before beginning. If you don’t have a pumpkin cookie cutter, see below instructions for making these cookies without a cookie cutter.

In a large bowl, use a whisk or hand mixer to cream the vegan butter until fluffy, about 1-2 minutes. Then add in the powdered sugar, vanilla extract, baking powder, and sea salt, and mix again until well combined. It will resemble a buttercream frosting. Then add in the flour, followed by 1 tablespoon dairy free milk. Use a silicone spatula to fold the flour into the wet ingredients, adding another tablespoon of dairy free milk only if you really need it. The flour will take a bit of work to fully incorporate, and that’s okay/normal. It will come together.

Divide the dough in half, then divide one half of the dough in half again (to have 2 quarters of dough). Remove one quarter of the dough and place it into a small bowl (this will be for the orange food coloring). Then divide the remaining quarter of dough in half, and take the now eighth of dough and place it into another small bowl (for the green food coloring). The dough in the large bowl should have 1/2 the full batch of dough + 1/8 of the dough remaining.

To the eighth cookie dough, add 1 drop vegan blue food coloring and 3-4 drops vegan yellow food coloring. Use food-safe gloves to mix the coloring into the dough like play dough. You can also use a separate spoon or spatula, but it takes a bit more time for the color to evenly distribute. Adjust the color accordingly to your preference.

Wrap each cookie dough (vanilla, orange, and green) in separate plastic wrapped discs. Place the cookie dough into the fridge to chill for 2 hours.

Remove all cookie dough from the fridge. Set aside the vanilla cookie dough to just rest at room temperature. For the orange and the green, we’ll form a log to use our 1.5″ cookie cutter. Take the orange cookie dough and shape it into a long log that’s about 1/2″ wide and 1 1/4″ in height (about 10-12 inches in length). It will look long and semi-flat. Use a rolling pin to roll the top to get it smooth (see video here). Then take the green, and shape the cookie dough into a long log again that’s about 1/2″ thick, and this time, about 1/4-1/2″ in height (about 10-12 inches in length). Line up the green cookie dough along the orange cookie dough, so you have one large log with green and orange cookie dough.

Take your pumpkin cookie cutter, and start to cut the pumpkin cookie shapes along the log, lining the stem of the pumpkin up with the green, and the orange for the main pumpkin. Place each pumpkin cookie stacked on top of each other (either stacked up tall or lengthwise,  lining up- see photos in blog or video). Any scraps, you can reform into a smaller orange and green log, and begin cutting again. You can also use some of the scraps to connect the log all together if the stems need to be lined up more or there are gaps between the orange pumpkin shapes, being careful to maintain the integrity of the pumpkin shape. Once the cookie dough is used up, carefully wrap the log of pumpkin cookie cut outs in one of the plastic wrap pieces, and place into the freezer to chill for 20 minutes.

While the pumpkin cookies are chilling and setting together, we’ll roll out the vanilla cookie dough. Lay the plastic wrap from the vanilla cookie dough flat. You can take one of the extra plastic wrap pieces from the remaining cookie dough discs and place it on top to roll out the vanilla cookie dough. You’ll roll the dough to be about 12″ by 4-5″ long. Remove the top plastic wrap piece and discard. We’re going to slice the cookie dough a bit to help mold the pumpkin cookies perfectly into the vanilla.

Remove the pumpkin sugar cookies from the freezer, and place the log onto the vanilla cookie dough right in the middle, aligning the length of the log with the length of the rolled out cookie dough. Pick up each side of the vanilla cookie dough, and practice wrap the pumpkin cookies, seeing where the dough will overlap. Then use a sharp knife, and slice off the overlapping pieces. Take those pieces and roll them to be two long 12″ logs. Place those logs on either side of the pumpkin stems. Press them into the pumpkins to shape the pumpkins into one large cylinder (so that the stem’s integrity is maintained when we roll it into one large cookie dough log). Then wrap the vanilla cookie dough over the pumpkin sugar cookies, gently rolling the log so that the vanilla cookie dough presses into the pumpkin cookies and forms one large log. Wrap the log again in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes to 1 hour in the fridge.

Preheat the oven to 375, and line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Remove the cookie dough from the fridge, and slice the cookie log into 1/4″-1/3″ thick cookie slices. Place the cookies onto the baking sheets, spacing them about 2″ apart.

Place the cookie sheets into the oven to bake for 12-14 minutes, or until the edges of the cookie dough are slightly golden. Remove the cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool for 5-10 minutes before enjoying.

Enjoy your copycat Pillsbury pumpkin sugar cookies, and store any leftover dough for up to 2 weeks well wrapped in the fridge or 3 months frozen in the freezer!