Tag-Archive for ◊ pumpkin ◊

16 Oct 2010 Pumpkin Chocolate Cake
Author:  |  Category: Cakes & Cupcakes, Holidays & Events, Sweets  | Tags: , , , , , , , ,  | 2 Comments

I took twelve slices of this cake to my clay class yesterday.  I think it made everyone very happy.  The class was certainly more social than usual!

I’ve had a request to post this recipe, so here it is, just in time for Halloween and Thanksgiving. It looks great, doesn’t it? This is truly a special event cake.  The pumpkin doesn’t really add taste, but it sure enhances the chocolate and keeps the cake moist.  The cake tastes sooo good. The frosting is cream cheese, powdered sugar, cocoa powder, and a bit of cinnamon. YUM! (I think the frosting is the magic of this recipe) To gild the lily (I think that’s the right expression) the whole thing is glazed with bittersweet chocolate.  How can this be anything but good?

You can do this! My instructions are pretty explicit so if you have trouble with them, let me know! This has been Abby’s signature cake for a few years now, and a couple of her friends request it for their birthdays (even August birthdays!). This recipe is from a 2007 “Country Living” magazine.

Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

For the Cake:

1 ½ c. flour
2/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder (Hershey’s Special Dark is good)
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 cup canned pumpkin
½ c. buttermilk
2 tsp. vanilla
¾ c. butter, softened
1 c. dark brown sugar
1 c. sugar
3 eggs plus one egg yolk

Preheat oven to 375º. Line the bottoms of two 9″ cake pans with parchment paper and lightly butter (or spray with Pam for Baking). Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. In another bowl stir together the pumpkin, buttermilk, and vanilla. In the bowl of an electric mixer beat together the butter and the sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, and then the egg yolk. Reduce speed to low and beat in 1/3 flour mixture, and then 1/3 pumpkin mixture. Repeat until all ingredients are used. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake until cake passes the toothpick test, about 35 minutes. Cool, frost and glaze as directed below.

For the Frosting:

6 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
¾ stick butter, softened
1 (16-oz.) box powdered sugar
3 T. cocoa powder
½ tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
Maybe, 2 – 3 T. cream (you might not need ANY…)

orange paste food coloring, optional (the orange color, with the cocoa, makes for a sort of rust colored frosting.  I like it, but it’s purely optional.  There is no food coloring on the top, whole cake picture.  The second picture, the fuzzy close-up one, does have some orange food coloring in the frosting.)

Beat cream cheese and butter together until well blended. Stir in powdered sugar, cocoa powder, cinnamon, vanilla, orange color, if using, and enough cream (IF needed) to make a stiff spreading consistency. Spread 1 cup frosting between the two layers, and use the remaining frosting for the tops and sides. Chill cake for a minimum of 30 minutes before glazing.

For the Chocolate Glaze:

4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 T. butter
3 T. corn syrup
½ c. heavy cream

Place chopped chocolate, butter, and corn syrup in a small bowl. Heat heavy cream until boiling. Pour hot cream over chocolate mixture in bowl. Let sit for 3 minutes then blend with whisk until smooth. Let glaze sit for 15-45 minutes to thicken slightly. Pour the glaze on top of the chilled and frosted cake. Smooth out glaze to edges, and then let drip down the sides. Refrigerate to set glaze.

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today. This is one of my “signature” cakes.  You have to make it at least once this Fall.  Send me a picture when you do!

16 Oct 2010 Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
Author:  |  Category: Breakfast & Brunch, Cakes & Cupcakes, Holidays & Events, Muffins, Seasonal  | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,  | 3 Comments

My new favorite pumpkin recipe, and my new favorite muffin recipe, just in time for your fall weekend baking:  Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin!  Am I your favorite food blogger, or what?!  This recipe is all over the food blogs right now, and I am a bit late-for-the-train in posting it (one of the casualties of the lost camera saga).

This muffin has been likened to the Starbucks Cream Cheese Pumpkin Muffins.  I think that’s a fair comparison, but I like this recipe better, for two reasons.  One,  I think the Starbucks muffin cook is heavy handed with the cloves, this recipe has no cloves, and that’s a very good thing.   Two, you can make two dozen of these muffins for the cost of buying just two muffins from Starbucks. Yes.  I said twenty-four muffins.

Unfortunately this recipe makes 24 muffins.  Not that I am opposed to 24 muffins, but I hardly ever need or want that many.  I try to have each muffin recipe make 12 muffins, which is usually more than enough for a home cook. I tried to cut this recipe in half and I tried to cut it down to two-thirds.  Neither attempt worked.  The muffins were dry.  The twenty-four muffin recipe is not dry, so you’ll just have to make them all.  Invite the neighborhood over!  Drop some off at a friend’s house! Have a bake sale!  Give some to the gardener or your child’s teacher! These muffins stay moist for several days.

Start this recipe the night before.  The cream cheese filling needs to sit in the freezer for at least a few hours, and overnight is fine, before baking.  That’s ANOTHER great thing about this recipe. FINALLY, a method that works for inserting a cream cheese layer into a baked goods.  Ohhh, it’s a good day to be stopping by my kitchen!

I have inserted three options for the topping of the muffins.  The fourth option is to not add a topping to the muffin.  These muffins really don’t need a sweet topping. The cream cheese layer, and the muffin itself, are sweet enough.  I found the struesel layer to be just a bit too much.  Imagine me saying that!  Me,  a Sweet Tooth Queen!  I like the idea of sprinkling a few pumpkin seeds on top (the green ones, pepitas), which is what Starbucks does, but I couldn’t find pumpkin seeds the last time I was at the store.  The muffin above has a slight sprinkling of raw sugar on top. I like the little crunch.

So, without any further ado…

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Cream Cheese Filling

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla

Optional Streusel Topping (see notes above):

½ cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
¼ cup pecans, chopped finely
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
½ teaspoon cinnamon

Alternate toppings: a sprinkling of green pumpkin seeds (Pepitas) or raw sugar

Pumpkin Muffin Batter:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 tablespoons pumpkin pie spice
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups canned solid-pack pumpkin (or 1 ¼ cups fresh pumpkin puree, drained)
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1/3 cup vegetable oil
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

The night before: Make the cream cheese filling. In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Add the vanilla, and blend to combine. Form the mixture into a log on a piece of plastic wrap, wrap it, and freeze it overnight, or at least an hour or two.

Preheat oven to 350 ºF. Line two 12-cup standard muffin tins with paper liners. Set aside.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and spices in a large bowl. In another bowl, lightly beat the pumpkin, eggs, oil and vanilla.  Make a well in the center of the flour mixture, and pour the pumpkin mixture into the well. Mix with a fork just until moistened.

Remove the cream cheese from the freezer, and divide it into 24 slices. (I usually cut the log into 12 pieces then cut each of those pieces in half)

Evenly divide half of the batter among the muffin cups-about one tablespoon of batter in the bottom of each muffin cup. Place 1 slice of the cream cheese filling in the center of each cup.  Top the cream cheese with another tablespoon of batter.  Cover the cream cheese completely.

Sprinkle top of muffins with pumpkin seeds, raw sugar OR this Pecan Streusel. In a medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, pecans, butter and cinnamon. Sprinkle some of the pecan streusel on top of each muffin.

Place muffins in a preheated oven and bake until golden, about 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on wire racks.  Muffins should be served at room temperature.  Hot cream cheese is really not very appetizing.

Happy Fall!  Go on, bake a batch of these, enjoy them with your family, friends and neighbors.  Here’s a picture of my grandson enjoying his.  He loves his Grandma’s muffins <3

22 Sep 2010 Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies with White Chocolate and Cherries
Author:  |  Category: Cookies & Bars, Seasonal, Sweets  | Tags: , , , , , , , ,  | Leave a Comment

This recipe has been floating around the internet quite a bit lately.  Everyone is making it! I found the recipe at My Baking Addiction. My verdict?  This is a good seasonal cookie.  The white chocolate and dried cherries do elevate it to something special, but neither the pumpkin flavor nor the oatmeal flavor is pronounced, which is a negative in my book (You might be able to enhance the pumpkin flavor by upping the pumpkin pie spice by 50% or so). This is a good seasonal cookie though, don’t get me wrong.  It’s just not the best pumpkin cookie nor the best oatmeal cookie. It is, however, a nice change.  I think you’ll get a lot of really positive comments if you were to show up to your next event with a plate of these :).

I found this dough to be softer than most cookie doughs, it was a bit like a very thick cake batter, but the cookies cooked up just fine.  My butter was a bit too soft, so that might have created a softer dough. These cookies don’t stack well. After a day or so they start to stick together.  To prevent this, if you do stack, put a piece of wax paper between each layer.  This recipe makes about 48 cookies, but, of course, that depends on the size of your scoop!

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

with White Chocolate and Cherries

2 cups all purpose flour
1 ½ cups old-fashioned oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter; softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup sugar
1 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie mix)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup dried cherries; roughly chopped (I used dried sour cherries.  Certainly dried cranberries could be substituted)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper (this isn’t critical, but the cookies do seem to cook better when placed on parchment paper)

Combine flour, oats, baking soda, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and salt in medium bowl and set aside.

Beat butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar in large mixer bowl until light and fluffy.  Add pumpkin, egg and vanilla extract; mix well.

Add flour mixture to butter mixture; combine until all ingredients are incorporated. Fold in white chocolate chips and dried cherries.

Drop by rounded tablespoons onto prepared baking sheets. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

I love the flavors of fall.  Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today.

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