Pumpkin Spice Shortbread

I normally wait until October to start enjoying pumpkin spice treats, but not this year. I had a Salted Caramel Pumpkin Spice Concrete Mixer from Culver's over the weekend, and boy, was it good. Afterward, I wondered what would happen if I added a bit of pumpkin spice to my favorite shortbread recipe.

So I added some pumpkin pie spice to my trusty old recipe and gave it a try. Would you believe I apparently don't own a pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter? So I opted for my fall leaf-shaped cookie cutters instead.

And someone asked previously when I shared this (unspiced) shortbread recipe, but no, you don't have to punch the little holes in the cookies with the tines of a fork, though I think they're prettier that way.

This is the same brown sugar shortbread recipe that my tea friend Sandy shared with me years ago, simply with that little touch of spice added. It seemed to make the cookies a tad crisper, and it resulted in that light taste of fall that I was seeking.

Pumpkin Spice Shortbread

1/2 cup softened butter (no substitutions)

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Cream butter and sugar using an electric mixer. Gradually stir in flour and spice. When blended, turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead till smooth, about 3 minutes. I like to use a rolling pin that flattens the dough into a perfect 3/8-inch thickness before cutting out the cookies with various cookie cutters. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet, prick with a fork, and bake for 25 minutes, just until bottoms are beginning to brown. Yields about 20 (2- to 3-inch) cookies. 

And in other news … To make it easier for you to leave comments, I have created a Tea With Friends Facebook page! I set it up last week and wanted to give it a test run to be sure posts appear automatically, as I intended, and so far so good. If you don't have a Facebook page, you'll still see all of my blog posts here, just like always, but I know that for some readers, seeing these posts in your Facebook feed is simply an easier way to keep up with them. You can go here to "Like" my page, and I also plan to use this FB page to share other tea tidbits I come across that I think will be of interest to my tea friends. I hope you'll enjoy it!