Food allergies have always played a part in our family’s diets. My mom originally had the most, which she discovered after multiple rounds of allergy testing a while ago, ranging from tomatoes and sweet peppers to walnuts and shellfish. I had the least, with just a handful of allergies. (You’ll never see any recipes with mushrooms, avocado, shrimp, or water chestnuts appear on the blog!)
However, in the past few years, my brother’s allergy list slowly grew. It started with cantaloupe and bananas, then branched out to lettuce, oranges, and watermelon. Last year, he discovered a severe allergy to eggs, as well as becoming lactose intolerant. Poor guy!
As a result, birthdays and celebrations changed a bit. It’s practically impossible to purchase any desserts from the store since everything revolves around eggs and dairy.
When we tried to pick up a treat for my dad’s family birthday dinner in September, four of us meticulously read through the ingredients labels on all of the cakes, crumbles, and pies in Safeway’s bakery department. We literally scoured every shelf until we found an egg-free dessert my brother could eat!
This Thanksgiving, I’m tweaking a few things on the dessert menu. Along with the traditional pumpkin and pecan pies (a requirement for my parents and me!), I wanted to bake something special for my brother, without any eggs or dairy, so he could still enjoy a sweet treat to finish the feast.
After some thought and creativity in the kitchen, I came up with these Pumpkin Cheesecake Sandwich Cookies! They’re sweet, indulgent, and seriously addictive. I scarfed down two as soon as I finished photographing them!
Let’s start with the cookies. Pumpkin cookies are prone to being cakey instead of chewy. This is because pumpkin purée adds a lot of moisture to the cookie dough. Eggs add lots of moisture too, so to compensate for the pumpkin, I completely omitted the eggs. Since the pumpkin purée also provides structure like eggs, you can’t even tell. Perfect for my brother!
When you first mix up the cookie dough, you’ll probably stare at the bowl and think, “Oh my gosh, is Amy crazy?? How am I supposed to get 26 cookies out of this small amount of dough?”
Trust me, I called myself insane at first too!
However, after rolling out the cookie dough into 26 small balls, we’ll flatten them on the baking sheet to about the diameter of an Oreo cookie, if not slightly larger. Because of this, they end up looking bigger than you first imagined!
Because they’re thin, we only bake the cookies for a few minutes. Just like with almost all of my cookie recipes, we’ll underbake them by a tiny bit, then let them sit on the warm baking sheet to cool.
It’s extremely important to slightly underbake these because we’ll actually store the sandwich cookies in the refrigerator due to the cream cheese in the filling. The cookies stiffen when chilled, so you don’t want to overbake them and dry them out. That would result in rock-hard cookies!
The cheesecake filling is incredibly simple: just soy cream cheese, sugar, and a touch of vanilla. I opted to use Toffutti cream cheese because it contained the least amount of fat and calories of the soy cream cheeses I saw at the store, but any brand will work. Because the filling is completely dairy-free (and vegan too!), I’m pretty certain my brother and I would fight over who got to lick the beaters!
Tip: Use clear vanilla extract for the cheesecake filling to preserve the bright white color. I’ve found this kind in Walmart on their wedding aisle. It comes in a large 8 oz brown bottle and is fairly cheap!
When we sit down for our Thanksgiving feast later this month, I guarantee we’ll end up with twice as many leftovers of the savory dishes compared to previous years. With how indulgent these Pumpkin Cheesecake Sandwich Cookies taste, everyone will be saving room for dessert… And they just might become more traditional in our household than pumpkin pie!
The Soyfoods Council is celebrating a #SoyInspired Thanksgiving with a giveaway certain to make holiday entertaining easier: a $200 Williams Sonoma gift card! Enter here: https://www.facebook.com/thesoyfoodscouncil/app_228910107186452
These fun sandwich cookies are absolutely irresistible! Between the chewy pumpkin cookies and sweet cheesecake filling, the always disappear in seconds. Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to four days.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F, and line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- To prepare the cookies, whisk together the flour and next 6 ingredients (through salt) in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, stir together the butter, pumpkin and vanilla. Mix in the sugar. Add in the flour mixture, stirring just until incorporated.
- Divide the dough into 26 small pieces, and roll each into a ball. Place on the prepared baking sheets, and flatten to about 1/8” thick. Bake at 350°F for 6-8 minutes. Cool completely on the baking sheets.
- To prepare the filling, cream together the soy cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla in a small bowl. Spoon the mixture into a zip-topped plastic bag, and cut off one corner.
- To assemble the sandwiches, pipe the filling onto the bottom side of 13 cookies, and place the remaining cookies, bottom-side down, on top. Gently press down. Place the sandwiches in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before serving.
Notes: For a vegan version, use Earth Balance Buttery Spread as the margarine.
If rushed to serve, place the cookies in the freezer for 5-10 minutes before serving instead of chilling for 1 hour in the refrigerator.
{vegan, low fat, low calorie}
Yum! My brother is also dairy-free AND pumpkin is his favorite cookie – sending this his way! (In secret hopes that he bakes them for me…). Hope you have a delicious Thanksgiving this year!
You’re way too cute Sarah! And if you give me enough advanced notice, I’ll totally make you a GF batch when you visit next month. Or when I come down to my brother’s and can visit you. 🙂
You are such a good sister for making your brother his own special dessert for Thanksgiving. I’m sure he is going to be so grateful. These cookies look amazing! I would gobble them up with a quickness.
Thank you so much Jen! I’ve been trying to save a few for him for when I see him soon, but… It’s been nearly impossible. 😉 Thank goodness he’s the best brother I could ever ask for; that’s how I keep reminding myself to let them be!
These sound awesome Amy! I love the no-eggs-in-pumpkin-cookies. It’s amazing how much they still puff up. And you can eat all the dough without any worries… Not that I am usually worried, but still. 🙂 Your bro will love you for this!
Thanks Karen! It’s so true about the egg-free pumpkin cookies. I always end up with one cookie less on the baking sheet because I eat so much dough… 😉
Amy, these cookies look soooo delicious! I used the same cream cheese for my recipe! That tofutti stuff was surprisingly good!
Thanks Lisa! I couldn’t believe how authentic is tasted. And your pumpkin cheesecakes… Oh goodness, I would’ve gladly traded some of my cookies for those!