Ingredients

• • 1 box yellow cake mix
  • 1 can pumpkin puree
  • 1 teaspoon pumpkin-pie spice
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • cooking spray

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease two cooking sheets with cooking spray or line them with silicone baking mats.

  Using an electric mixer or a heavy wooden spoon, thoroughly mix together all the ingredients in a large bowl.

  Drop tablespoonfuls of the batter 1 1/2 to 2 inches apart onto the cookie sheets. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Use a spatula to remove the cookies from the sheets and cool them on a rack.

Additions

• Embellish this basic recipe to your liking. Add chocolate chips, dried cranberries or cherries, raisins or chopped walnuts. Frost with a store-bought or homemade cream cheese or vanilla icing; ensure the cookies are completely cool before doing so.

Recipe Variations

• An even easier version of this recipe is to mix together a prepackaged spice-cake mix and a can of plain pumpkin puree. Follow the same baking instructions as the yellow-cake version. The disadvantage to using a spice mix is you can't adjust the level of spice in the cookies as you can when you add pumpkin-pie spice on your own.

  These cookie recipes call for plain pumpkin puree, not pumpkin-pie filling, which is sweetened and spiced.