Making the pumpkin cookies

• Preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C). Line 2 baking sheets with parchment

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  .
• Cream the butter and the brown sugar until it is light and fluffy. This will take about 2-3 minutes in a stand mixer or a hand mixer depending on how soft your butter is.
• Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then mix in the egg and whiskey (or vanilla) until you have a smooth batter.
• If you’re using whole spices, grind them all together in an electric coffee grinder

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  or a mortar and pestle (see note on amounts). 
• Whisk the flour with the baking powder, baking soda, salt, and the pumpkin pie spice in a small bowl to distribute the spices and leavening throughout the flour.
• Alternate wet and dry ingredients.Add about one third of the flour mixture to the butter, then mix for a few seconds. It doesn’t need to be smooth. Next, add about half of the sour cream and half of the apple butter, mixing again for a few seconds. Continue alternating adding the flour and the sour cream/pumpkin, ending with the flour. Be sure not to overbeat the mixture. No more than 5 seconds of beating with each addition is about right.
• Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix the batter a few turns by hand to make sure everything is well-incorporated.
• Scoop 2 Tablespoons of batter onto your prepared sheets. Spread out the cookies well with no more than 8 cookies to a sheet.
• Lightly dampen your hands with a few drops of water, then press down on the tops of the cookies to flatten them to about 1/2″ thick. 
• Bake the cookies for 15 minutes, rotating the pans top to bottom and spinning them 180 degrees halfway through baking. The finished cookies will be lightly browned on the bottom and the centers of the cookies will spring back when you lightly touch them.
• Repeat the baking with the remaining batter.
• Cool the cookies completely.
• While the cookies are cooling, make the cream cheese icing. Beat together all of the icing ingredients until you get a smooth, fluffy icing with no lumps. Scoop the icing into a piping bag with a decorative tip you like, then pipe a half-dollar size dollop in the center of each cookie.  Sprinkle a bit of cinnamon over the top of the cream cheese frosting.
• Cookies are best the day that they’re made, though you can keep them in the fridge on the same cookie sheet you decorated them on for up to 3 days.