Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Happy Autumn! Here's some chocolate and pumpkin deliciousness.

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400° F. Line or grease 12 muffin cups.
2. Combine flours, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl whisk together vanilla, sugar, egg, puree, milk, and vegetable oil until smooth.
pour into flour mixture and stir until batter is just blended.
4. Fold in chocolate chips.
5. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 18 minutes in a preheated oven.
Allow to cool for ten minutes before moving them to a cooling rack.

This recipe can easily be made vegan.
If you don't like pumpkin but still want a delicious muffin then replace it with yogurt.

Dupa Demands Mini Reeses Pieces Cookies!

The recipe I used for this is the same as the Chocolate Chip Cookies with the obvious substitution.

Looks like he's trying to say something

His evil plain is coming to fruition

Success

 

 

Pannekoeken (Apple Pie Pancake)

Today my mom saw something about Pannekoeken on TV and wanted me to make it, so I did.

 

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg 

2 medium apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced 

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (optional)

1/2 cup whole milk (I used heavy cream)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract 

3 eggs (2 would work better if you don't like the egg flavor)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour 

1 teaspoon granulated sugar 

1/2 teaspoon salt 

1/2 cup brown sugar 

4 tablespoons cold butter

 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Add the cinnamon, nutmeg, apples and applecause to a pan. Saute the apples over medium-low heat until slightly soft, 3 to 5 minutes.

Prepare the batter: Mix the milk, vanilla and eggs in a bowl. Add the flour, granulated sugar and salt and whisk lightly (It might be slightly lumpy, don't overmix).

Increase the heat under the apples to medium and add the brown sugar and butter. Cook until a syrup forms, about 3 minutes, Stirring often.

 

Add the batter all at once to the center of the pan. Swirl the apple syrup mix through the batter, using a heatproof spatula, to form ribbons (you do not want to fully combine the apple-sugar syrup into the batter). Cook until small bubbles form around the edge.

 

Finish cooking the pannekoeken in the oven, 15 minutes. 

To serve, invert a 12-inch plate over the pan and flip the pan to turn out the pannekoeken. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and enjoy!

Berry-Lemon Bars

This is a variation of this recipe: Lemon Bars

I wanted to make it a bit different so I grabbed a bag of frozen blackberries, defrosted them and threw them in the blender with the rest of the ingredients, they turned out awesome! Fresh berries would also work but the produce stand didn't have any.

I love the color!

Pumpkin Cheesecake Filled Gingerbread Cookies

Sorry to say I don't have a gingerbread recipe to post, I've made it from scratch plenty of times but I can't find the recipe I used this last Christmas.

Recently I was given a huge thing of pre-made gingerbread dough and wanted to do something with it, so this was the result.

Filling:
4 ounces Cream Cheese (Room temp)
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2-3 teaspoons pumpkin powder or puree.
Cinnamon, ginger, clove and nutmeg to taste

Prepare your dough and filling, refrigerate both until it's easy to work with (About 20- 30 minutes). Pre-heat oven to 350.

Method One: Whoopie-Pie pan
1. Press dough into bottom of the whoopie pan cavities.
2. Take a small amount of filling and place it in the center, flattening slightly.
3. Cover it another another piece of flattened dough
4. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top (optional)
5. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Allow to sit for ten minutes before trying to remove from pan.

Method 2: Hand-Rolling
1. Take some dough and roll it into a ball then flatten in your hand (You might have to flour your hands to keep it form sticking).
2. Take a small amount of filling and place it in the center, wrap dough around it.
3. Roll in cinnamon and sugar mixture (optional)
4. Place on a cookie sheet and bake 7-10 minutes.
5. Allow to sit on the pan for a few minutes before trying to transfer to a cooling rack.

Pumpkin Spice Snicker Doodles

Recently I've been wanting to fix a problem I have with pumpkin cookies, they come out too cake like. I decided to order some pumpkin powder from Barry Farm. This was my first test with it but I have other ideas.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter (Room temp)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup pumpkin powder
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
Cinnamon, nutmeg and clove to taste

To roll your cookies in/sprinkle on top:
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin powder

1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars with an electric mixer on high speed. Add the egg and vanilla, beat until smooth.
2. In a medium bowl sift the pumpkin powder, flour, salt, baking soda, cream of tartar, and spices.
3. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix well. 
4. Let dough chill for 30 minutes to one hour.
5. Preheat your oven to 300° and line a baking sheet.
6. In a small bowl, combine the sugar with the cinnamon for the topping.
7. Roll dough into small balls and toss in sugar mixture. Press lightly onto baking sheet.
8. Bake 12-14 minutes then allow to cool (They won't seem done in the middle but they need time to set up, if you bake them too long they will get hard).

So how did they turn out flavor wise? Honestly I feel the pumpkin is lost. I will add more next time.

Homemade Spice "Drops"

Recently I've been wanting to try and make more candy and I thought "Hey, why not spice drops?". Well like most times when I make candy, the first attempt is usually a "learning experience" haha. These look great but I needed to add more flavoring, they ended up tasting kinda like gelatin still. But they look pretty!

Ingredients: 

4 Tbsp gelatin (that’s about 6 envelopes)

1 cup cold water
1 1/2 cups boiling water
4 cups sugar
Orange Extract

Pumpkin Spice Extract (Candy oil)

Food coloring (I used four colors)
extra sugar for coating

Directions:

1. In a large pot, soften gelatin in cold water for five minutes. Stir in boiling water until gelatin dissolves.
2. Stir in sugar and bring to a boil over medium-high heat and boil for 25 minutes. Stir constantly.

3. Pour mixture into 4 – 3X5 pans. (I used smaller pans so I could do other colors)

4. Add extracts and food color to each pan. Stir until thoroughly combined.
5. Cover pan and chill overnight in the fridge.
6. Cut gelatin mixture into 3/4 inch cubes using a knife dipped in hot water.
7. Separate cubes and roll in sugar until coated on all sides.
8. Place on wax paper and leave at room temperature for two days to crystallize.