Spiced pumpkin Snickerdoodle - Meet the Smuffincoodle

It’s a muffin, it’s a cookie, its a Smuffincoodle!

If you’re anything like me when searching for recipes, you’ll likely scan down to the bottom of the page and ignore everything I write here.

But I wanna tell you about how I came across this little gem in the first place. You see, our family is very multicultural. My grandparents on both sides migrated to Thailand from China, and then my parents spent most of their lives in Thailand but then eventually emigrated to the US with their siblings and started a business in California.

They owned a little motel, but that’s a story for another time.

Circa 1981

My sister, my sister and me standing outside our Motel in Anaheim called King’s Motel. I’m the cute one.

I was born in California but moved to Thailand when I turned 4, and for the rest of my childhood, spent most summers in the US visiting my cousins. Fast forward a couple of decades later, my sister decided to move back to the States but this time with her then-boyfriend (now husband) and settled in Texas. 

I on the other hand met a Welshman and settled in beautiful North Wales and the rest is history.

So you see, we are a rather diverse family and because our kids have a mix of different cultures, it’s always been really important to me that we celebrate diversity through food.

In my quest to merge cultures whilst simultaneously creating nutrient-dense and kid-friendly treats, I came up with the idea of making snickerdoodles.

What is a snickerdoodle?

Well according to Joy of Cooking, the snickerdoodle is likely a corruption of the word Schneckennudel which is a sweet bun of German origin. Snickerdoodles however are more like cookies, but soft and covered in sugar and popular in the US.

The birth of the Smuffincoodle

One thing you have to know about me is that I’m a big-time recipe creator. This means that I experiment with stuff and well… Often I get it wrong.

On this occasion though, I somehow got it so wrong, I accidentally created magic.

You see, I was looking for a way to make a pumpkin snickerdoodle, but in the end, it rose so much in the oven that instead of it coming out with a characteristically flat appearance of a cookie, it looked more like a muffin, so my kids decided to call it the Smuffincoodle, which I thought was very fitting.

Since that happy accident in my kitchen 4 years ago that resulted in a culinary miracle, I have baked these little treats every fall.

Time-saving strategies

If you’re short on time you can buy canned pumpkin puree, but I happened to have real pumpkins so I steamed them and blitzed them in my food processor. If you’re not too thrilled about getting all the kitchen appliances out, I have no doubt this recipe will be just as delicious with canned pumpkins. 

Notes on the chocolate

I LOVE milk chocolate, however for this recipe I decided to use really dark chocolate since the recipe was already pretty sweet. I feel like juxtaposing the sweet and bitter helps to bring out the flavours of the cookie, kinda like drinking black coffee whilst eating cake. Hmmm!

I struggled to find dark chocolate buttons for this particular recipe, so I bought regular dark chocolate and chopped them up into little pieces.

What kind of baking sheet should I use?

I have baked this recipe several times using different methods and I have to say that it’s pretty versatile. Baking them in muffin tins works just as well as baking them on parchment paper straight onto the baking tray.

The nutritional profile of this post-workout cookie

This recipe makes 24 cookies and because of this high carb and relatively low-fat content, it makes a fantastic post-workout carb.

Per serving

Calories: 166kcal

Carbs: 26g

Fats: 6g

Protein: 2g

What you’ll need:

• 1/3 cup softened salted butter

• 1.50 cup light brown sugar

• 1 large free-range egg

• 300 g self-raising flour

• ½ teaspoon baking powder

• 200 g super dark chocolate chips 

• 2 cups, of Organic Pumpkin Puree

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional but delicious!)

Let’s make it!

1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C. 

2. Start by mixing the butter, eggs and sugar until well combined

3. Add the pureed pumpkin and mix again

4. Fold in the flour and baking powder

5. Add the chocolate pieces and mix until smooth

6. Either place them in dollops on a baking tray lined with parchment paper or if you have a muffin tray they can go in there

7. Bake the smuffins for around 12 minutes or until they turn slightly brown around the edges

Enjoy!

Leave your comments!

I’m not a food blogger as you guys probably know by now, so if you do end up trying this and sharing the recipe, let me know how it goes!

Have a great week athletes!