Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Place ½ cup white sugar into a bowl. Set aside
Whisk together the flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl.Set aside.
In a medium bowl, cream together the shortening, pumpkin, brown sugar, and ½ cup white sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs. Stir in the vanilla. Gradually add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture. Dough will be sticky.
Using a cookie scoop, add dollops of dough to the bowl of white sugar. Roll in sugar until completely coated. You can handle the dough after coating in sugar, rolling in your hands to create a smoother cookie.
Place cookies about 2 inches apart on your baking sheet. Do not flatten. Put baking sheet into the refrigerator for 10 minutes.
Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes. While baking, add ½ cup Nutella to a pastry bag or plastic bag and snip off one of the tips. This will make filling the cookies much easier!
Once cookies are done baking, remove from oven and immediately press into the middle of the cookie with a utensil of your choosing – I found that my ice cream scoop was the perfect size and shape. Then, pipe Nutella directly into the center of each cookie.
Recipe by Not Your Momma’s Cookie at https://notyourmommascookie.com/2012/10/nutella-pumpkin-thumbprint-cookies/