Friday, November 4, 2011

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

As promised, the follow-up pumpkin recipe.  Soooooo goooooood!  Makes about 2-3 dozen cookies.

Chocolate chip pumpkin cookies: 
2c flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 1/8 tsp cloves)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter (room temp)
1 c sugar
1 egg
15 oz pureed pumpkin
1 c chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Whisk together dry ingredients, except sugar. Cream butter and sugar in a separate bowl. Add egg. Add alternatively the flour mixture in two parts, adding the pumpkin puree in between. Do not over-mix! Dough will be somewhere between cookie dough and muffin batter texture. Fold in chocolate chips. Drop dough by heaping Tbsp onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (or Silpat mats if you have them). Space cookies about 1.5'' apart (do not spread much while baking). Bake approx 15-20 min until edges are golden and cookies are springy to the touch.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Queen of Pumpkin?

This fall, I have been doing a lot of baking.  This may be due to the fact that I have also been doing a lot of cyclocrossing, and cross is definitely better with a beer in one hand and fresh baked goods in the other.  At any rate, people have been quite taken with my pumpkin-related recipes - no idea why, but this year is the year of pumpkin EVERYTHING (just type pumpkin into Google and see what the most-searched terms are!) and I guess I've been perpetuating that trend.

So, without further ado, I post my very first blog recipe!  Yay!  Next Installment will be Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Enjoy ~ Happy Deeds

Pumpkin Bread (from a dear friend of my mother's).  It tastes like pumpkin pie, but without all the rolling and shaping of the crust!  I would post a picture but this gets eaten too quickly to be caught on camera!

Group A Ingredients:
2c canned or home-pureed pumpkin
3c sugar
1c water
1c vegetable oil
4 eggs

Group B Ingredients:
3 1/2 c flour
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
3/4 tsp. ground cloves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour two 9'' x 5'' baking pans.  In a large mixing bowl, combine Group A Ingredients and beat until well-mixed.  In a separate bowl, combine Group B Ingredients and whisk until mixed.  Add Group B to Group A and beat until smooth.  Pour batter into pans.  Bake 40-70 min or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool 10-15 min before removing pan from rack.  Serve plain, buttered, or with cream cheese/cream cheese frosting.

This also works well as muffins (makes at least 1 dozen - reduce cooking time to 10-20 min).