Bake a harvest of gourd cookies to welcome fall and Sukkot

One of my favorite family activities during fall is visiting a pumpkin patch. There’s so much excitement picking out the perfect pumpkin and bringing home a basket filled with small gourds.

pumpkin cookies — A basket of gourd cookies!!!

I love decorating with gourds during fall and especially for the Jewish holiday, Sukkot. There’s a children’s story about a little imperfect gourd who tries to find his place among all the Jewish holidays. He visits each one, and while the other holidays are nice, they all had their own special fruits and veggies. With all his knobs and ridges, he didn’t really feel like he belonged. Finally, he made his way around to Sukkot, and there he knew he found the perfect holiday among all the other pumpkins and gourds under the Sukkah (little booth). This is because during Sukkot, everyone is welcome inside the sukkah even the bumpy little gourd.

We thought it would be lovely to welcome fall and Sukkot by making our own harvest of gourd cookies. I adapted two different Russian mushroom cookie recipes (“Gribochky”) for the perfect dough and glaze. This was a wonderful afternoon activity if you would like to make your own harvest of gourds. I made them with my mom, and they came out super adorable and made us both smile.

pumpkin patch cookies — These gourd cookies are resting on oreo cookie crumb dirt, scattered with wasabi peas, dried chickpeas and fresh oregano.

Fall Harvest Gourd Cookies

Here’s what you’ll need to make about 20 gourd cookies:

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 sticks unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
1 large egg, beaten
1 large egg yolk, beaten
1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
Whole cloves

For the colored icing:

1 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 TBS milk (more if too thick)
Natural food coloring (green, orange, yellow)
Paintbrush

Top the gourds with:

Confectioners’ sugar for dust
Bee pollen for gourd’s bumps

Here’s how to make the cookies:

1. In a medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the butter until smooth. Then add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla to the creamed butter and mix to combine.

2. Add the dry ingredients in small batches into the creamed butter and egg mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. Press the crumbs together with your hands to form a ball of dough. Chill for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

After the dough has chilled, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set it aside. Place a large plate on a shelf inside the refrigerator.

3. Take a heaping tablespoon of dough and shape it into a gourd (kind of like playing with play dough). Stick the ball end of a clove into the top of the cookie for the gourd’s stem. Place the gourd on the plate in the refrigerator to keep it cold until baking.

Helpful tip: I like to work with small batches of dough, keeping most of it in the refrigerator and only taking enough to make one or two cookies at a time.

4. When you’ve shaped all your cookies, take them from the refrigerator and place them on the lined baking sheet.

5. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until slightly puffed and firm.

7. While the cookies are in the oven, make the sugar glaze. In a bowl, mix the confectioners’ sugar and milk and stir until smooth. If the glaze is too thick, add a little extra milk.

8. Divide the glaze into three small bowls and add natural food coloring to each one.

9. Paint the glaze onto the cookie, and finish with a sprinkle of bee pollen and confectioners’ sugar. Bee pollen does have a strong smell and taste, so if you don’t like it, just omit.

Place your painted cookies on a tray and let the glaze completely harden.

And there you have it, a harvest of gourd cookies. We love the Jewish custom of extending hospitality to friends during Sukkot, and we have a lot of plans for these cookies -including gift cookie baskets and a Sukkot themed dessert table.

How are you celebrating fall and Sukkot this year? Let us know in the comments below, and let us know if you make a harvest of gourd cookies.

For more about bringing in the fall harvest and hospitality during Sukkot (the Jewish value Hachnasat Orchim), click here - it’s super cute for littles. For more family fun in the kitchen during sukkot, you can: