Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies with Browned Butter Frosting

This recipe takes me back to braces and frizzy hair.  My very own adolescent years (insert sigh here).  As a young woman I was very involved with my church youth program and one of my first years as a teen I made pumpkin cookies to pass off a "merit badge" of sorts in the Young Women's program.  I decided to bake them, plate them and present them at a "Young Woman in Excellence" event.  Look at me, all "homemaker" at the tender age of 13 (ish).  I even had to give a speech...it had something to do with Julia Child, I didn't even know who that was back then...my mom helped and parents in the audiences laughed.

But as much as I have tried to blot my teen years from my memory, this cookie recipe is one warm spot on my reminiscent heart.  The perfect cookie for fall:

{Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies} 

with Browned Butter Frosting, if you like that sort of thing, which I do

2 ¾ cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 ¼ tsp salt

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

1 ¼ tsp ginger

¾ tsp nutmeg

¾ cup butter

2 ¼ cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 ½ cup pumpkin

¾ cup evaporated milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix together baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, flour and nutmeg in a bowl.  Cream butter and brown sugar on medium speed for 3 minutes.  Add eggs, pumpkin, milk and vanilla.  Mix until combined (about 2 minutes).  Add flour mixture.   

Drop tablespoon scoops (I heap the spoon) of batter onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for about 8 minutes (if you press the cookie gently and it doesn't spring back up--or stays indented--they aren't done).

For icing: Put 5 Tbsp butter in sauce pan over medium heat.  Cook until golden brown (careful not to burn--as soon as you see a hint of brown turn it off).  Pour butter over 2 cups powdered sugar and add 3 to 5 Tbsp milk.

***if you love the frosting you may double this.  I only frost half of my cookies.  The other half I use for snacks during the week and I feel better about giving my kids cookies for a snack when they are not covered with frosting...look at me so healthy ;)