Our 27 Favorite Fall Cookie Recipes To Warm Up Your Kitchen
Alison Miksch; Food Stylist: Karen Rankin; Prop Stylist: Josh Hoggle
As soon as the temperature dips even the slightest bit below 70, you better believe we're ready for fall baking. While apple pies and spice cakes will always be seasonal staples, there's nothing like a warm cookie to welcome fall. Whether you're baking a batch for a football party or your church's Thanksgiving potluck, warm cookies full of pumpkin, apple, caramel, peanut butter, or pecan flavor are sure to win over your crowd. Our best fall cookie recipes have everything you're looking for this autumn season. The hardest part just might be picking which of our best fall cookie recipes you should make.
Related: 75 Dessert Recipes That Are Oh-So-Fall
Salted Butter-Pecan Shortbread Cookies
Add an extra crunch to this slice-and-bake shortbread by coating both dough logs with turbinado sugar before slicing them into rounds. The result is a cookie that's the perfect balance of salty and sweet and goes down easy. Good thing this recipe makes more than 3 dozen cookies.
Team Spirit Sugar Cookies
Greg DuPree; Food Stylist: Emily Nabors Hall; Prop Stylist: Claire Spollen
If you're headed to a tailgate or game day party, these sugar cookies are sure to be a hit. Choose sprinkle colors that match your favorite team.
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
The secret to turning a standard chocolate cookie into a smash hit is in the butter. It all comes down to the first (very important) step of browning the butter before you start baking. Add toasted pecans if you like crunch in your cookie.
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Caitlin Bensel; Food Stylist: Torie Cox
All oatmeal cookies make us feel warm inside, but these are even cozier due to two types of chocolate chips. Best of all, the recipe makes three dozen cookies—plenty for the kids (and you) to grab a handful after each busy day.
Ginger Cemetery Cookies
Caitlin Bensel; Food Stylist: Torie Cox
Classic molasses-ginger cookies don't stand a chance against this cookie with a unique history. You're sure to be asked for the recipe anytime you serve these crisp treats.
Chewy Apple-Cran-Oatmeal Cookies
For this recipe, use Granny Smith apples. They're tart enough to balance the sweetness and firm enough for baking.
Fudgy Flourless Chocolate-Pecan Cookies
A delectable, flourless treat, this rich dessert is essentially a cookie brownie filled with toasted chopped pecans and gooey pockets of melted chocolate. Whipped egg whites are the trick to fudge cookies that are crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. Even better, they are practically foolproof to make and come together in a single bowl.
Mom's Butterscotch Oaties
Greg DuPree, Food Stylist: Ruth Blackburn, Prop Stylist: Christine Keely
Butterscotch chips perfectly complement these oatmeal cookies. This dependable recipe offers plenty of tasty, seasonal flare.
Pumpkin Spice Cookies
Pumpkin spice and actual pumpkin collide in these delicious seasonal cookies. A twist on the snickerdoodle, these cookies turn out soft and velvety. Nothing screams fall more than scrumptious Pumpkin Spice Cookies that pair well with a cup of hot chocolate... or a pumpkin spice latte from your favorite coffee shop.
Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies
This blast from the past is just as delicious and simple to make as you remember. A no-fuss treat, the recipe comes from our February 1986 issue. We brought it back to delight your taste buds all fall and winter long.
Laura Bush's Cowboy Cookies
These presidential family-approved cookies are stuffed with chewy, gooey ingredients and a bit of cinnamon spice. Chocolate chip cookies stuffed with oats, coconut, and pecans are so good, they'll have you hollering "Yeehaw!" And as with most things in Texas, Bush's Cowboy Cookies are enormous.
Cranberry-Almond Cookies
This quick and easy dessert is a fruit lover's treat of choice. You'll have decadent cookies with dried cranberries and toasted almond slices in just 20 minutes. They're great any time in fall, but also around Christmas because the cranberries add a festive splash of red.
Seven-Layer Cookies
Fred Hardy II; Food Stylist: Jennifer Wendorf; Prop Stylist: Julia Bayliss
This impressive, flavor-packed treat couldn't be easier—or more delicious. This is the first ever bar cookie recipe that we ever published and it has withstood the test of time for a reason. Seven-Layer Cookies are quick to make, easy enough for an amateur baker, and extra ooey, gooey, chewy, and delicious.
Easiest Peanut Butter Cookies
Hannah Zimmerman / Southern Living
This four-ingredient peanut butter cookie recipe is a must-have for novice cookie enthusiasts and seasoned bakers alike. These treats are easy as can be and come together in just over half an hour with sweet, nutty flavor. Peanut butter cookies are delicious as is, but we also have instructions for adding in chocolate morsels, toffee, or chopped peanuts.
Molasses Crinkles
Classic autumn flavors are perfectly balanced in this cookie with cinnamon, ginger, and cloves galore. They're straightforward and simple, yet oh-so-good with wholesome, warming spices. Press each cookie into sparkling sugar for an extra-sweet crunch.
Bourbon-Caramel Cookies
One of our favorite fall pairings is sweet brown sugar and flakey sea salt. Along with the classic combination of bourbon and caramel, these cookies pack powerful flavors. Soft caramel candies are used for an easy topping.
No-Bake Chocolate-Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
Ready in just 25 minutes without heating the oven, these cookies are great to whip up in a pinch. Chocolate, peanut butter, and oatmeal flavors are so tasty though, they just might become your dessert of choice even when you have all the time in the world. And they're packed with healthy ingredients, too.
Texas Sheet Cake Cookies
Texas Sheet Cake is one of our favorite desserts of all time. Now, we've outdone ourselves with a cookie version. This cookie recipe takes all of our favorite notes from the classic cake, even using cake mix in the cookie dough, but has a few additional surprises to one-up its inspiration.
Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookies
We've spent years tirelessly curating the perfect Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. These cookies make the most out of that classic flavor combination of chocolate and peanut butter to make stunning treats that are delightful in their simplicity. And the recipe makes five dozen, enough to cover your hungry family and that upcoming potluck.
Grandma's Chocolate Drop Cookies
Personalize these cookies to suit your dessert craving or rejoice in their old-fashioned charm as is. Try substituting mint chocolate chips over this recipe's semi-sweet if you please, but no matter which path you take, don't cheat yourself of a hefty dollop of chocolate icing on each soft cookie.
Brown Butter Snickerdoodles
Sugar cookie fans won't be able to get enough of these warm cinnamon-sugar cookies. They stand apart from the pack thanks to browned butter that contributes deep, nutty flavor. Make extra dough and freeze until you're craving the next batch.
Cranberry-Orange Butter Cookies
Traditional butter cookies are made even better with dried cranberries and orange. This versatile recipe can also be made with dried cherries and lemon zest. Butter cookies are supremely satisfying with your morning coffee and also great for guests.
White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
Dried cranberries are complemented by the delicate, creamy sweetness of white chocolate in this recipe. Chopped chunks of white chocolate hold their gooey shape best, but you can also use morsels. Allow these light-colored cookies to cool on a baking sheet, which allows them to finish cooking without getting too brown in the oven.
Brownie Cookies
Victor Protasio; Food Stylist: Emily Nabors Hall; Prop Stylist Shell Royster
Whipping up these cookies is as easy as opening up a box of brownie mix. We've supplemented it with chocolate chunks and toasted walnuts, which provide a hint of warm fall flavor. Sticking the dough in the freezer for a few minutes keeps the cookies from spreading too much while they bake.
Chewy Molasses Cookies
Caitlin Bensel; Food Styling: Torie Cox
This unadulterated cookie will allow you to indulge in your love of molasses without any spices to distract you. We recommend using dark molasses, which has more flavor than light but is less bitter than blackstrap. Make your dough balls equal in size so they all crackle and have a perfectly chewy center.
Turtle Cookies
Antonis Achilleos; Food Styling: Emily Nabors Hall; Prop Styling: Missie Neville Crawford
These cakey cookies will delight kids and adults alike. The kids will have loads of fun decorating the turtles, while a touch of coffee in the chocolate frosting deepens the flavor for adult palates. Use parchment paper so your carefully crafted cookies don't stick to the pan.
Persimmon Cookies
Alison Miksch; Food Stylist: Karen Rankin; Prop Stylist: Josh Hoggle
We wait all year for persimmons to arrive on trees and in farmers' markets. As soon as they do (and as soon as they're ripe), we make these persimmon cookies. Pumpkin spice and a glaze topped with pecans pack in the fall flavor.
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