Made a double crust but only ended up using one for your pumpkin pie? Have store-bought pie crust in your fridge that’s about to hit its expiration date? Pie crust cookies are the simple and fast way to turn “don’t know what to do” to “I know what I’m craving right now!”. 

THE INGREDIENTS:

Pie Crust: This can be store-bought or homemade. Thanks to this pie crust, we don’t have to worry about making any actual cookie dough. 

Melted Butter: We need a liquid to help our sugar mixture adhere best to the pie crust. In addition to that, what doesn’t taste better with butter? It adds a nice fatty bite to pie crust, which is usually more flaky and dry. We use unsalted butter for all of our recipes. Since this dessert is not overly sweet anyway, we wouldn’t want to introduce extra salt. Melted butter is easy to apply with a pastry brush on top of the pie crust, but you can also use softened butter. The main difference that this would cause would be that you would need to use more butter.

White Sugar: Pie crust alone is not sweet-tasting, often minimally sweetened or not sweetened at all. To make up for that, we need to add some sugar on top! We’ve made these cookies with less sugar before, but have found that 3 tablespoons is the “sweet spot” for this recipe. Anything less will still have a good pumpkin pie spice flavor, but you might have to consider adding a basic cinnamon roll glaze on top after they’ve cooled down. It adds sweetness if the cookies aren’t as sweet as you like after they’ve already been baked. You can also add another tablespoon of sugar to this recipe if you like your pie crust cookies thoroughly sweetened. You can replace the white sugar with brown sugar in this recipe, but it doesn’t shake onto the pie crust as well. So, you’d have to add more brown sugar in order to evenly cover the cookies. It all depends on what flavor you prefer! 

Pumpkin Pie Spice: If you grew up eating pie crust scrap cookies made for you by your grandmother or mother, you might be used to a cinnamon sugar mixture topping the crust. However, pumpkin pie spice is the secret ingredient to making these pie crust cookies better than the rest! 

What is Pumpkin Pie Spice? Pumpkin pie spice can vary a little from brand to brand, but it is often a combination of cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg, and cloves. If you don’t have pumpkin pie spice at home, you can mix together these spices. If you don’t have them all, don’t worry! Omitting a spice or two will still lead to a good tasting pumpkin pie spice. 

KEY INFORMATION: 

Shaping the Pie Dough: Maybe you rolled out your pie dough and there are so many cracks around the edges that you can’t use your cookie cutter too efficiently. Maybe you’re tired and rolling your pie dough into an even slab is just too much (we’ve all been there!). Luckily, you can just roll your uneven scraps flat instead of combining them together and rerolling. You can put them in the oven, regardless of their shape! The flavor is much more important than appearance, anyway. 

Rubber Spatulas: Whether you’re making sugar cookies or pie crust cookies, nudging a rubber spatula between your dough and the counter is the best way to get the cookie off the counter without it losing its shape. Make sure it’s rubber so you don’t damage your countertop! 

Variations: Pie crust cookies, normally just made with cinnamon and white sugar, already get a little change here thanks to pumpkin pie spice. However, this recipe is so versatile! You can use brown sugar instead, change the amount of sugar, or even add a cinnamon roll glaze on top to elevate these cookies even more.