New Pumpkin Pie

Boy, have I got a lot to catch up on. The holidays are always crazy for me and then I was out of town just after for another two weeks! But all is well and I'm back, ready to share what went down over the last two months.

First, I made a new pumpkin pie recipe from a highly repinned Pintrest note... You know, I can't decide about Pintrest. There's pretty pictures, yes, but then I see people that try a recipe or craft and bemoan how misleading or awful it turned out! You go in thinking these are reliable, tested ideas! Alas it's just people promoting their own stuff a lot of the time so I guess I have to train my eye to recognize what's legit and what's not.

This one turned out to be a Cook's Illustrated adaptation and while it was okay, I dunno.  The cream and milk diluted the pumpkin a bit and I like a looooot of pumpkin in my pie. My family liked it but, meh.  For Christmas I went back to good ol' Libby's and it was way better, IMHO.


This recipe actually made too much for my pretty deep dish pie plate so I made a mini one extra - which I enjoyed by myself days later. mwha. Mini pie!


Pumpkin Pie
Cook's Illustrated, 2008

1 recipe for single pie crust (I used Williams-Sonoma's Basic Pie Dough)

1 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
3 eggs plus 2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin
1 cup drained candied yams (from 15-ounce can)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt


1. Prepare the crust and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

2. Adjust the oven rack to the lowest position, place a rimmed baking sheet on the rack, and heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and roll it out on a lightly floured work surface to a 12-inch circle about 1/8 inch thick. Roll dough loosely around rolling pin and unroll into pie plate, leaving at least 1-inch overhang on each side. Working around circumference, ease dough into plate by gently lifting edge of dough with one hand while pressing into plate bottom with other hand. Refrigerate 15 minutes.

3. Trim overhang to ½ inch beyond lip of pie plate. Fold overhang under itself; folded edge should be flush with edge of pie plate. using thumb and forefinger, flute edge of dough. Use a fork to prick the dough all over the bottom and sides of the pie plate. Refrigerate dough-lined plate until firm, about 15 minutes.

4. Remove pie pan from refrigerator, line crust with aluminum foil or parchment paper, and fill with pie weights or dried beans, filling the whole way up to the rim of the pie plate. Bake on rimmed baking sheet 15 minutes. Remove foil/parchment and weights, rotate plate, and bake 5 to 15 additional minutes until crust is golden brown and crisp. Remove pie plate and baking sheet from oven.

5. While the pie shell is baking, whisk cream, milk, eggs, yolks and vanilla together in a medium bowl. Combine the pumpkin, yams, sugar, maple syrup, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan; bring to a sputtering simmer over medium heat, 5 to 7 minutes. Continue to simmer pumpkin mixture, stirring constantly and mashing yams against sides of pot, until thick and shiny, 10 to 15 minutes.

6. Remove the pan from heat and whisk in the cream mixture until fully incorporated. Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer set over a medium bowl, using the back of a ladle or spatula to press solids through strainer. Rewhisk mixture and transfer to warm prebaked pie shell. Return pie plate with baking sheet to oven and bake pie for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 300 degrees and continue baking until edges of pie are set and the center looks firm but jiggles slightly (instant-read thermometer inserted in center registers 175 degrees), 20 to 35 minutes longer. Transfer pie to wire rack and cool to room temperature, 2 to 3 hours. Serve with whipped cream.

Happy Halloween!

I think these are kind of perfect in every way. Cute, Halloween-y, pumpkin, bite size; the list of their attributes goes on and on! I found them posted on Facebook by a friend and was shocked to find I'd never heard of Bakerella before. Her blog is AMAZING. It's such a treat to find a baker that is both creative and imaginative in their recipes. I want to thank Bakerella for sharing such darling ideas with the world!


I took these little cuties to work for the Halloween bake sale and they went like hot cakes! I was a little sad to see them go so fast, to be honest; I would've made more if I had known two pie crusts (a top and bottom) made only 24 little pies and that they tasted so yummy. And 24 seemed like a lot until I took them in and they disappeared! Needless to say, they were well received!

This is a definite keeper recipe!!





MINI PUMPKIN PIES
Source: Bakerella

2 refrigerated ready-to roll pie crusts

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
2 eggs + 1 egg white
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
Pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter

Optional
1/2 cup chocolate morsels
vegetable oil
re-sealable plastic bags

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Use cookie cutter to cut 12 pumpkin shapes from each pie crust. You will need to roll the dough thinner than it comes out of the box.

Press dough shapes into a 24 cup mini muffin tray. (Make 12 at a time, alternating cups to make sure pie crusts don’t overlap each other.)

Brush egg whites from one egg to the top edges of each pie. Mix cream cheese, sugar, canned pumpkin, remaining 2 eggs, vanilla and pumpkin pie spice together until thoroughly combined. Spoon mixture into each pumpkin-shaped pie crust. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

Remove pies to cool and repeat with second pie crust. Place the muffin tray in the freezer to cool it quickly for re-use.

Makes 24 pies. Keep refrigerated.


To decorate, melt chocolate in a heat-proof bowl in the microwave on medium. Heat in 30 second intervals, stirring in between until melted. Add a little vegetable oil to make the chocolate more fluid. Transfer to a re-sealable plastic bag and cut the corner off. Drizzle or draw faces on pies.

Pumpkin Goes On

My life can go on: I found pumpkin. Correction: my mom found pumpkin. The not-that-long story is, I went in search of canned pumpkin to replenish my supply for the fall after making the pumpkin brownies. The first grocery store had an empty shelf where it SHOULD have been. I thought it was weird but whatever; I’d just go to another store. A week or so later, I hit another and WHAT- another empty shelf!? I mention the strange phenom to my mom who then discovers there’s word (on the web) that there’s a pumpkin shortage this year. I freak out a little and proceed to spread the word to family and friends to fall on a can of pumpkin like it’s the end of times and it’s the last food on the planet. Hit two more stores on separate sides of town and BOTH are empty shelves. Hope fades.

Then Mom calls Sunday afternoon from Wal-Mart of all places with the news. There’s tons! Fall/Halloween has been saved! I immediately turned on my oven to preheat, ready to use the only can I had in my cupboard RIGHT AWAY.


I had a pumpkin Costco muffin a few weeks ago and it was bliss. But Costco muffins are kind of amazing, aren’t they. I’ve been wanting pumpkin muffins ever since. This recipe popped up on a few other blogs and with their ringing endorsement, I was eager to try too. The original recipe didn’t have a crumb topping like Costco’s muffin and to be honest, that’s one of my favorite parts. So I found a separate crumb topping recipe (for blueberry muffins), added a little cinnamon to it and voila! Pumpkin muffins with crumb topping.

Oh and one other thing: the blog I found the recipe on accidentally put a whole can of pumpkin in the batter when it calls for only 8 ounces (the can is 15 ounces, so, almost double). She raved that it was still good and moist so I thought, what the Hell, man; I’m craving the pumpkin and more can only make it better! They came out really delicious and moist! I did have to add some baking time (around 35-38 minutes) but still.

This made 6 large muffin cups then had a little left over that perfectly I filled a mini muffin pan. I love having little two-bite pieces of muffin around. This is definitely something I’d make again!


PUMPKIN MUFFINS WITH CRUMB TOPPING
Adapted from Gourmet/The American Club

Makes 6 large muffins / 1 dozen small muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 can solid-pack pumpkin (15 ounces)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 1/4 cups plus 1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon

CRUMB TOPPING

1 cup all-purpose flour
3 Tbsp light brown sugar
2 Tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted


Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350F. Put liners in muffin cups.

Whisk together flour and baking powder in a small bowl.

Whisk together pumpkin, oil, eggs, pumpkin pie spice, 1 1/4 cups sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl until smooth, then whisk in flour mixture until just combined.

For crumb topping, in a medium bowl, combine the flour with the brown sugar, granulated sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Stir in the melted butter, then pinch the mixture until it forms pea-size clumps.

Divide batter among muffin cups (each should be about 3/4 full), then sprinkle tops with crumb topping mixture. Bake until puffed and golden brown and a wooden pick or skewer inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes.

Cool in pan on a rack 5 minutes, then transfer muffins from pan to rack and cool to warm or room temperature.

Fall starts today

Fall is official in my house. It always starts with the football season beginning (last week) and then the Halloween candy appears in the grocery stores. But it's not OFFICIAL in my house until I haul out the tubs of Halloween decorations, light up my favorite fall spice candle and bake something with pumpkin. Today, it has arrived.


These are the pumpkin swirl brownies from Martha Stewart and they sounded so damn easy, how could I pass them up? I was also assured the pumpkin & chocolate flavors meshed well by my last chocopumpkin attempt with muffins. There would be a big difference between the two, but I'll get to that in a second.

I had to adjust the baking time because I didn't have a 9" square pan, but an 8"; it took an added 20 minutes and it was only just coming out with the toothpick clean. I also didn't add any nuts as the original recipe suggests sprinkling on top and now I wish I had. I think walnuts would've been perfect. My instinct to omit them was completely wrong.

Now, the difference from these brownies and the muffins: the thing about the muffins was, it was all pumpkin then lovely little bits of chocolate chips. In these brownies, there is equal amounts of pumpkin and chocolate and, to be honest, the chocolate kind of takes over. It's like they stepped into the ring and the pumpkin got KO'ed. However, the batter doesn't mix completely (as you can see from the layers), so you can taste them separately. The cayenne, especially, is noticeable in the pumpkin layers (and it's the tiniest bite but it's good!)

These were good but I kind of want a big pumpkin flavor when I make something with it. My pumpkin craving wasn't satisfied at all from this so I'm definitely looking for what's next!


PUMPKIN SWIRL BROWNIES
Source: Martha Stewart

Makes 16

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for pan
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups solid-pack pumpkin
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Optional: 1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts or other nuts



Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch square baking pan or dish. Line bottom of pan with parchment paper; butter lining.

Melt chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, cayenne, and salt in a large bowl; set aside. Put sugar, eggs, and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; beat until fluffy and well combined, 3 to 5 minutes. Beat in flour mixture.

Divide batter between two medium bowls (about 2 cups per bowl). Stir chocolate mixture into one bowl. In other bowl, stir in pumpkin, oil, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Transfer half of chocolate batter to prepared pan smoothing top with a rubber spatula. Top with half of pumpkin batter. Repeat to make one more chocolate layer and one more pumpkin layer. Work quickly so batters don't set.

With a small spatula or a table knife, gently swirl the two batters to create a marbled effect.

Bake until set, 40 to 55 minutes. Let cool in pan on a wire rack. Cut into 16 squares.

Pumpkin On!

The pumpkin madness continues! I noticed a weird trend, though, when I jumped back in my blog to last fall: THEN I made a bread pudding, a pumpkin dessert, some chocolate chip cookies, some strawberry and tea cookies, a crème brûlée... Are we sensing a pattern here? Yeah, these are all things I've made THIS fall too. Granted, they're variations on flavors this year but still. Seems like in the fall I get cravings for a lot of the same stuff: comfort foods and pumpkin! I have to make it my mission to try some new stuff when I get back from my vacation.

But back to THIS recipe. The funny thing about pumpkin desserts which inevitably have the same familiar spices is, they kind of all remind you of pumpkin pie. This crème brûlée was just like that, pie-like, only in a softer texture.

The exciting thing with this crème brûlée, however, is that I borrowed my mom's serious, hardware-section blow torch and it worked PERFECTLY. No more putting the custards under a broiler and hoping they come out evenly done (but always burning just a little bit too much). I had complete control to make it an even, perfectly browned, sugar top! I will never use anything else again!

And my mom said it didn't need whipped cream but I just can't help it; pumpkin just seems wrong without it...




PUMPKIN CRÈME BRÛLÉE
Source: Williams-Sonoma

1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 tsp. freshly grated cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
1/2 tsp. freshly grated ginger
3/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
5 egg yolks
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
6 Tbs. pumpkin puree
1/3 cup plus 4 tsp. granulated sugar
1 Tbs. firmly packed light brown sugar


Preheat an oven to 300°F. Have a pot of boiling water ready.

Pour the cream into a small saucepan and whisk in the cinnamon, allspice, ginger and nutmeg. Set over medium-low heat and warm the cream mixture until bubbles form around the edges of the pan and steam begins to rise from the surface, about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and let stand for 15 minutes.

In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, vanilla, salt, pumpkin puree, the 1D3 cup granulated sugar and the brown sugar until smooth and blended. Slowly pour in the cream mixture, stirring until blended. Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve set over a bowl. Divide the mixture among four 8-fl.-oz. ramekins and place in a large baking pan. Add boiling water to fill the pan halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Cover the pan loosely with aluminum foil and bake until the custards are just set around the edges, about 30 minutes.

Transfer the ramekins to a wire rack and let cool to room temperature. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or up to 3 days.

Just before serving, sprinkle 1 tsp. granulated sugar evenly over the surface of each custard. Using a kitchen torch according to the manufacturer's instructions, move the flame continuously in small circles over the surface until the sugar melts and lightly browns. Refrigerate until sugar top hardens slightly then serve. Serves 4.

Pumpkin Season Begins

There's something kind of perfect about pumpkin. Not only is it good for you (it is, for serious), when paired with the classic spices of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, it immediately evokes this feeling of warmth, familiarity and family. It might solely be an American thing because the traditional pumpkin pie is mandatory at Thanksgiving dinner every November, every year, without fail. Pumpkin then becomes this symbol of tradition and comfort. That flush of happiness that pumpkin flavors provoke is genuine and impossible to manufacture. It's home.

Therefore, I'm always eager to get going on the pumpkin train when fall rolls around. August is always a little too soon (the summer clings on!), September is good but October is GREAT. November, of course, is virtually Pumpkin Month, what with Thanksgiving and all. Last year I had great plans and then fell short on nearly all of them. I ended up only making pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and a pumpkin bread that wasn't fantastic (so it never got posted). This year, I am not falling down on the job. I have at least three more pumpkin-centric recipes that I WILL be making over the next two months. But first, there is bread pudding:

I think I can safely put bread pudding up there as one of my favorite things ever. I've made three different kinds now and each one has been delish. I found this recipe on Epicurious.com and adapted it for individual servings (the original is for an 11x7 pan) and, again, I used the plain hoagie bread instead of the "egg bread" that's called for. The beauty of bread pudding seems to be how versatile it is. I'm sure an egg bread such as Challah would have been just as good. I also played it safe because I was changing up the recipe and baked the ramekins in a water bath, lowered the temperature and cut the bake time virtually in half. Smaller portions bake faster and all. The water bath may be unnecessary so exclude at your own risk!


Then there's the caramel sauce that goes along. I'll admit this seemed a little unnecessary once you taste the finished product. Pumpkin is a strong enough flavor with it's spices to stand on its own; you don't need caramel taking anything away from that perfect combination. Unless you're a stickler for decoration, I'd skip it. It looks like it enhances the dish, but it doesn't really. A dollop of whipped cream is all you need to go with pumpkin goodness. I'm seriously beginning to love the consistency of bread pudding and this one came out lovely!


PUMPKIN BREAD PUDDING
Adapted from Bon Appétit

Makes about 8-9 individual ramekins

2 cups half and half

1 15-ounce can pure pumpkin

1 cup (packed) plus 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

10 cups 1/2-inch cubes bread (about 10-ounces)

Optional Caramel Sauce

1 1/4 cups (packed) dark brown sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 cup whipping cream

For bread pudding: Preheat oven to 330°F.

Whisk half and half, pumpkin, dark brown sugar, eggs, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon and vanilla extract in large bowl to blend. Fold in bread cubes. Let stand 15 minutes.

Transfer mixture to 8 ramekins. Set in a large pan and fill halfway up ramekins with boiling water. Bake pumpkin bread pudding until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare caramel sauce: Whisk brown sugar and butter in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat until butter melts. Whisk in cream and stir until sugar dissolves and sauce is smooth, about 3 minutes.

Serve warm with a dollop of whipped cream and drizzle with caramel sauce.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

A few weeks ago, fall started to happen. And pumpkin products, drinks at Starbucks (holy beJesus, best everrr) started popping up. I jumped on that pumpkin wagon like crazy and bought cans of the stuff, ready to make magic. Then I lost steam. Staring at my cupboards this past week, I realized fall past me by and we're now well into winter (Starbucks is now serving they're frooffy eggnog lattes and peppermint mochas! [shakes fist]). The problem remains: I still have my cans of pumpkin. So I'm PUMPKIN SUITING UP. It's time to use this mushy fruit until I can'ts use it no mo.


First on the pumpkin parade is muffins. I got this recipe from All Recipes.com and it was disturbingly simple. Disturbing because I don't trust things that are TOO easy. But they came out perfectly fine. I'm more of a cupcake gal myself so muffins are always a hit or miss with me. These were not as sweet as I expected but the chocolate chips make up for the lack of sugar in the batter itself. The original recipe calls for all the traditional pumpkin spices separately but I didn't have ground cloves - I only had pumpkin pie spice which is a combination of all the biggies: cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger. I substituted that and added about double the amount of chocolate originally called for. What? I like chocolate.

They came out quite yummy but were especially good warm (melty chocolate!).


PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFINS

Adapted from AllRecipes.com, Submitted by: Donna

3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
3/4 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon pumpkin spice
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease and flour muffin pan or use paper liners.

Mix sugar, oil, eggs. Add pumpkin and water. In separate bowl mix together the baking flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt. Add wet mixture and stir in chocolate chips.

Fill muffin cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes.