Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prep your cookie sheets with parchment or spray with non-stick spray. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the butter and sugar and cream until smooth.

Add in the pumpkin pie spice, vanilla and egg - mix well.

Pour in all of the flour and switch the whisk attachment to the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until the cookie dough combines and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Sprinkle a little bit of flour on a clean work surface and roll out until approximately ⅜ of an inch thick. Use more flour on your rolling pin and work surface when needed to prevent sticking.

Cut out your desired shapes and transfer to the prepared baking sheet.

Bake in the oven for 12 minutes. The edges should be set and very slightly starting to brown. It does not take much to overbake these at which point, they will be hard and dry. We want them just right with a soft bite! Allow to cool completely before decorating.

To make the buttercream: In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the softened butter, vanilla and salt.

Add in the powdered sugar and mix on low speed for one minute. Add in a tablespoon of milk at a time just until the frosting no longer looks dry. Whip on high speed for one minute.

Transfer the frosting to four small bowls. One bowl needs only about ¼ or less for the brown stems. The rest can be divided equally - yellow, orange and blue. Once you’ve tinted the color tones however you’d like, transfer each of the frostings to a piping bag fitted with a star tip.

To decorate: Begin with the stem. Pipe two small lines just down the stem of the cookie.

For the main body of the pumpkin, choose one color. We began at the upper left corner of the pumpkin - slowly and steadily pipe a continuous line from the upper left corner and zigzag back and forth across the cookie a few times until it is evenly covered in buttercream. Continue until all the cookies are decorated.

This is a crusting buttercream - if allowed to set out, it will dry out and harden. We recommend storing them flat in an airtight container and not stacked until ready to serve if you want them super soft.