Posts Tagged ‘Pumpkin’

Holiday Baking

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Holiday Baking

This last weekend Sean and I headed over to Victoria to his mom’s house to celebrate an early Christmas with his family.  With all of us going in different directions around Christmas we decided to celebrate early so that everyone could make it.  We were all very happy to have Sean’s youngest brother fly over from Nelson to join us.

Other than my mother in laws famous rum ball we weren’t going to be exchanging gifts so I thought I would bake up some holiday treats to bring over with me.  But in the interest of keeping them fresh I decided to get up early Saturday morning before we left and bake.

With only 3 1/2 hours available for baking, I could only get up so early, I got started on my mom’s brownies.  These brownies are really amazing.  They are quick and easy and the perfect base for just about any add ons.  For today’s brownies I decided to add mint chocolates since my mother in law like mint chocolate as does my husband.

Once the brownies were in the oven I started working on the pumpkin biscotti, a recipe that I got from older sister.  Having only made biscotti once before I wouldn’t say that I was confident about this.  I mixed everything together and formed my dough and popped it in the oven.

The recipe said to cook it until it is firm in the middle, which I thought I knew what firm was until I started cutting up my biscotti.  I didn’t want to over cook the biscotti so I pulled it out when apparently it wasn’t quite firm in the middle.  I had a dilemma on my hands do I put the pieces back together and put it in the oven to cook a little more or do I move on to the next step and just hope that it finishes cooking.

In the interest of time I decided to move onto the next step and keep my fingers crossed that it would not be gooey.  My finished biscotti were cooked but really lacked that crunch you would normally see in a biscotti.  The taste was good and when dunked in some coffee or tea you wouldn’t know the difference.

Now on to the final recipe, peanut blossoms.  These cookies are something that I have been making for as long as I can remember.  They are one of my dad’s favourite cookies so I remember making them for him on various occasions over the years.

As was a theme in that morning I hit a snag when I realized I didn’t have any baking soda.  Thanks to google I did a bit of research and found that if I added extra baking powder it should still work…

Unfortunately I was led astray by my information and ended up with some very flat cookies.  But I have to say I wasn’t too upset because they tasted soooo good.  That warm peanut butter cookie with a hershey kiss on top can’t be beat, they really are great cookies even if they were flat.

So after my marathon baking we hit the road with the cookies still on the cookie sheets hoping they would cool while on the ferry so I could package them up.  Fast forward 2 hours and you find me in the back seat of my car, down the street from my mother in laws house, packaging everyones fresh baked goods.

No one would be the wiser :)

You may notice there is a lack of pictures, I was so busy baking I didn’t have time to stop and take any more pictures than the first one.

Mint Chocolate Brownies

Adapted from my Mom’s recipe

3/4 cup melted butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

3 eggs

3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Chopped up mint chocolates

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix butter, sugar and vanilla.  Add remaining ingredients.  Put in an 8×8 pan and bake for 40-45 minutes.

Pumpkin Biscotti

Adapted from Simply Recipes

2 1/2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, ginger and cloves

Pinch of salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup of pumpkin puree

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350

Sift together the flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, and spices into a large bowl.

In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, melted butter, pumpkin purée, and vanilla extract. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture. Give it a rough stir to generally incorporate the ingredients, the dough will be crumbly.

Flour your hands and a clean kitchen surface and lightly knead the dough. Lightly grease a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper. Form the dough into a large log, roughly about 15-20 inches by 6-7 inches. The loaves should be relatively flat, only about ½ inch high. Bake for 22-30 minutes at 350ºF, until the center is firm to the touch. (Feel free to also form two smaller logs for cute two-bite biscotti; just cut the baking time to 18-24 minutes.)

Let biscotti cool for 15 minutes and then using a serrated knife cut into 1 inch wide pieces. Turn the oven to 300ºF and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes. Cool completely.

Peanut Blossoms

1 3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup shortning

1/2 cup peanut butter

Hershey’s kisses

Preheat oven to 375.

Mix all ingredients in a bowl except the kisses and mix with electric mixer.  Make balls of dough and bake 10-12 minutes..  Remove and place 1 hershey kiss in the center.  Press down until edges crack.  Let cool.

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Belated Thanksgiving

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

As I am going through the many pictures on my computer I come across a picture of the dessert I made for thanksgiving dinner back in October and for some reason never blogged about.  Better late than never.

Pumpkin Pecan Cream Cheese Tart

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Tart

For my first Canadian Thanksgiving Sean and I went over to his dad’s house for dinner.  Since I wasn’t the one in charge of making all the food I thought I would contribute by making a cold green bean salad with a roasted onion balsamic vinaigrette and dessert.

For dessert I knew I wanted to do something with pumpkin and to take another stab at pastry so I settled on adapting my lemon curd tart to a fall recipe with classic flavours.  I quickly decided that I would make the same cream cheese base and mix in homemade pumpkin puree and then sprinkle some pecans on top which would be a play on a pecan pie without all the fat.

Making the pumpkin puree was a pretty easy process but not always necessary when you can just buy canned pumpkin puree.  My thought on the whole thing is that making it yourself is a fun part of the process so if you have the time you might as well do it.  The method I used was cutting up the pumpkin after discarding the seeds and stringy bit and removing the skin.  I then steamed the pumpkin until it was soft and transferred it to my food processor to create the puree.

It was at this point I realized that pumpkin doesn’t have much of a flavour so out came the cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg.  Once adding these spices I was left with the taste I have always associated with pumpkin.  It was ready to be added to the cream cheese mixture.

Once it was all mixed together I was ready to add it to the shell sprinkle with pecans and put away in the fridge to set.

Pastry making…

Pastry is something that has eluded me for quite a while.  Last thanksgiving I made a great apple cranberry pie with a homemade shell that turned out pretty good, unfortunately that must have been a fluke.  I have failed to make a sucessful flaky crust since then.  Every time I try I psych myself out and end up cheating by just pressing the crust into the pan instead of rolling it out.  This is another one of those times.

The first attempt at this crust was pretty good, except that the bottom was thick with the sides crumbly.  I decided to abandon the crust and try out more of a shortbread crust my mom had given me.  Unfortunately the bottom of that crust was too thin and it ended up cracking.  So this left me with 2 options: try a third crust or go back to the first one and make it work.  Since we were going over to dinner later than night I went with crust number 1.

In the end a very yummy dessert was enjoyed by everyone at dinner and little did they know the crust dilemmas I had through out the day.  I am convinced that I will conquer the pastry crust one day, even if it means dozens of failed attempts between now and then.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Tart

2 oz. cream cheese

3 Tbsp granulated sugar

1/2 C heavy cream or whipping cream

1/4 C pumpkin puree

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg

With a whisk attachment, using a stand mixer or hand mixer, beat the cream cheese and sugar on medium high speed until fluffy. Slowly drizzle in the whipping cream and whip until stiff peaks form. Fold in the spiced pumpkin puree.  Place in tart shell and top with pecans.

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Daring Bakers October Challenge

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Masala Chai Macaroon

French Macaroons

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

For months I have been watching Daring Baker blog posts and secretly wanted to be a part of it.  I went back and forth on whether or not I should join feeling that my baking skills were pretty beginner and many of the recipes seemed much more advanced.  After thinking it over for a bit I made the decision to apply to Daring Kitchen and become a Daring Baker.

I am happy to announce that I have completed my first daring baker challenge, Macaroons, and am very happy with the results.  Although my macaroon is not super fluffy the taste makes up for it.  I decided to go with a masala chai macaroon with a pumpkin cream cheese filling.  What an amazing taste!

It seems like I am always looking for a way to use chai in a recipe but never end up doing it because I have been unable to find a good chai powder, similar to a matcha powder.  After putting it off for far too long I ended up just taking some masala chai I got while in India last summer and put it in the spice grinder, making sure to sift it before putting it in the recipe.  It worked much better than I thought it would and the end result was a macaroon with a hint of chai.

The filling was my tried and true base of cream cheese and sugar whipped in the stand mixer with some whipping cream mixed in.  Once the stiff peaks form you fold in some pumpkin puree with spices added.  The end result is a creamy light filling that can be used in a variety of ways.

Macaroons seem like a recipe that take a bit of practice and finesse.  Making sure your egg whites are beat just right before folding in the almond flour, but then making sure you don’t over mix to lose the fluffiness.  There are many things I have learned in this first attempt at macaroons that will improve the results for my future tries.

But I have to say…

Feet on a Macaroon

Nothing is better than when you watch the feet form on your macaroon and know that atleast one part of your recipe is going according to plan.  My husband who is always supportive came over and gave me a high five when he saw how excited I was.

I have decided with baking that even if it doesn’t go according to plan there is always something great that results from your baking, who knows it may become a new favourite recipe.

Masala Chai Macaroon

2 1/4 cups confectioners sugar

2 cups almond flour

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

5 room temperature egg whites

1 tablespoon masala chai powder

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.  Combine the confectioners sugar almond flour and masala chai powder in a medium bowl.

Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks.  Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.

Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine.  Sift the remaining flour in two batches.  Be gentle!  Don’t over fold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.

Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plan half inch tip, or use a ziploc bag with the corner cut off.  Pipe one inch sized mounds of batter onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes.  Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 35 degrees.  Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pan back in the oven and bake for an additional 7-8 minutes, or lightly colored.

Cook on a rack before filling

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Filling

2 ounces cream cheese

3 tablespoon granulated sugar

1/2 cup heavy cream or whipping cream

1/4 cup pumpkin puree

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves

With a whisk attachment, using a stand mixer or hand mixer, beat the cream cheese and sugar on medium high speed until fluffy. Slowly drizzle in the whipping cream and whip until stiff peaks form. Mix pumpkins and spices and then fold into the cream cheese mixture.

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