Preheat oven to 325°F.
Take unsalted butter out of the refrigerator so that it can begin to come to room temperature. It will need to sit out of the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes. Room temperature butter will still be firm and cool, but will give a little when you press on it with your finger tip.
While you wait for your butter to come to room temperature, gather up all of your ingredients and equipment.
In a mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cloves, cinnamon and salt. Whisk well to combine.
Chop pecans and divide them in half (half will be folded into cookie dough and half will be sprinkled on top of the cookies once they've been iced).
Cream butter and sugars together with an electric or stand mixer. Mix on medium speed for 3-5 minutes. Stop mixing occasionally and use a rubber spatula to scrape butter and sugar from the sides of your bowl so that all ingredients are incorporated.
Blot your pumpkin puree. Place high quality paper towels in a small bowl and place pumpkin puree into the paper towels. Fold the edges of the paper towels over the puree to soak up excess moisture.
Add egg, maple syrup and blotted pumpkin puree to creamed butter and sugar. Mix on medium/high speed for 2 minutes.
Add a third of dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix on low speed. Repeat until all wet and dry ingredients have been combined.
Add half of your chopped pecans and fold them into the cookie dough.
Use a cookie scoop or round measuring spoon to create 2 tablespoon balls of cookie dough. (Use either a 2 tablespoon cookie scoop or heap dough into 1 tablespoon round measuring spoon to create approximately a 2 tablespoon ball). Space cookies about 2 inches apart on a large cookie sheet. Bake for 13-15 minutes at 325°F.
Place baked cookies on a cooling rack with a cookie sheet under it.
While cookies cool, make your maple icing. Combine powdered sugar, maple syrup, cinnamon and cloves. Whisk ingredients together.
Once cookies have cooled, drizzle them with maple icing and sprinkle them with remaining chopped pecans. The icing will begin to dry quickly, so I recommend icing 2-3 cookies at a time and then sprinkling them with pecans so they stick to the icing.
Enjoy!