Pumpkin Snickerdoodles with Maple Buttercream

This is one of those posts where I made something for the first time, it turned out amazing, so I immediately shot some quick photos, sat down at my computer, and started writing this post. These little guys got me pretty excited, and I owe it to the recipe genius at Whole New Mom for posting the snickerdoodle recipe (here) that I slightly adapted below. However, the maple buttercream was all my sinful-sugar-loving-heart's doing. Together, these flavors capture the sweetness of fall flavor in a bite. Or two.

Ingredients
Snickerdoodles
1/2 cup (1 stick) Earth Balance vegan butter
3/4 cup cane sugar
1 Ener-G egg (or other egg substitute)
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour (could substitute all-purpose GF flour)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cinnamon Coating
1/2 cup cane sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Maple Buttercream
1 stick Earth Balance vegan butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup

Preheat your oven to 350 F. In a large mixing bowl, combine all your dry ingredients. In a smaller mixing bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients and mix until smooth. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and mix well (I used my hands to fully mix it towards the end). Using a cookie scoop, or spoon, scoop rounded spoonfuls into your hands and roll into smooth balls. Then roll each ball in the cinnamon sugar coating, place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, and gently press down on the tops to slightly flatten each cookie. Bake for 10 minutes. Let cool. Then whip the maple buttercream ingredients together in a small mixing bowl, and sandwich the cream between the cookies to create sweet little bites of maple and pumpkin goodness. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.