pumpkin dilemma

joe's pumpkin

I have a can of pumpkin puree that I don’t know what to do with.
Pumpkin is one of my favorite ingredients, but I love it in almost everything which makes it hard to pick what to make.
I have a folder of saved recipes dedicated purely to pumpkin baked goods, and almost all of them are calling out my name!!

a. Pumpkin brioche.
b. Pumpkin scones.
c. Downeast Maine pumpkin bread.
d. Soft pumpkin cookies.
e. Pumpkin gingerbread bars.

What a conundrum.

Here’s something from the archives though…
I made a pumpkin cake with buttercream frosting for a friend on her birthday a couple months ago because we both love pumpkin like crazy! I made two single-layer cakes. One for myself and my roommates to keep and taste. Haha.
I’ve also made this for my dad on his birthday also.
It’s a bit of a favorite because it’s spicy, moist, and chock-full of pumpkin flavor.
I love that it takes the entire can of pumpkin so I don’t have to “save” it for later. I always end up tossing anything that I “save.”

It was well-received. :)

You can make it into a layered cake using 2 8-inch pans or even pour it into a 9×13 pan and cut it into bars.

happy birthday!

Pumpkin Cake with Buttercream Frosting

For the cake:
4 eggs
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
15-ounce can pumpkin puree (not the spiced kind.)
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 cup walnuts

For the buttercream frosting:
8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy.

Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth. Stir in walnuts.

Spread the batter into 2 8-inch greased baking pans. Bake for 30 minutes.

While the cake is baking, make the frosting. Combine the cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the powdered sugar and mix at low speed until combined. Stir in the vanilla and mix again.

Let the cakes cool completely before frosting.

If you really like nuts, you can do what I did and crush an extra half-cup of walnuts and use them for decorating the edges of the cake.

butterscotch chocolate chunk blondies

Baking is very therapeutic for me.

Recently, I’ve just been feeling the stress mounting, and baking helps a lot… No critical thinking, no philosophical thought, no number crunching (unless I’m trying to halve or double a recipe…).. just simply follow the directions!

I can’t wait for school to be over with… Summer vacation, where you at??????

This was my first time making blondies. In fact, I’ve never even tasted a blondie before, so I have no idea if these are “good” on the Blondie Richter scale, but they seem all right.

Chocolate. Check.

Butterscotch. Check.

Sweet. Check.

Whatever, I think they’re okay. Haha.

Although, next time, I think I should use better quality butter. I borrowed some from a neighbor, and I also mixed it by hand (left my electric mixer at home… T-T).. I don’t know. I think I may have overmixed it because it came out kind of crumbley. I even underbaked it because I didn’t want a cakelike bar, but that’s kind of what I got… Boo.

Note: For the chocolate, I used Hershey’s dark chocolate bars and just chopped them up.

Butterscotch Chocolate Chunk Blondies

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups butterscotch chips and chocolate chunks

Preheat oven to 375F. Line a 9×13 inch baking pan with foil or parchment paper.

Stir together flour, baking soda and salt.

Cream butter and sugar by hand or with an electric mixer. Add in eggs one at a time until incorporated. Stir in vanilla. Add flour mixture to butter mixture in 2 additions, then add your chocolate/butterscotch chips and stir until batter is smooth.

Spread evenly into your prepared pan. Bake 20-25 minutes, until the edges are golden brown. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then lift out onto a rack for further cooling. Cut bars as desired.

cookies & cream oatmeal cookies

You know when you have a fantastic idea on how to just twist an old recipe? It just comes to you spontaneously and you think, WOW, that’s a great idea?

This cookie wasn’t EXACTLY one of those ideas.

I imagined a cookie that would have chunks of Cookies & Cream candy bar inside. Which I thought would be fantastic since its one of my favorite chocolate bars. I think I was also thinking along the lines that chocolate chunks are used in cookies so why can’t chunks of Cookies & Cream bars be used, too?

I hadn’t really anticipated on the pieces of chocolate dissolving in the heat of the oven… -_- But everyone gobbled up these cookies up within minutes and said they were delicious, so I guess the taste was pretty good, just not what I was looking for.

Maybe next time I’ll just use a mixture of white and milk chocolate chips.

Crispy Cookies&Cream Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon table salt
14 tablespoons unsalted butter, slightly softened
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2 Hershey’s Cookies & Cream candy bars, coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and table salt in a medium bowl.

Beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Then, add egg and vanilla and beat until incorporated. Add flour mixture gradually and mix until just incorporated and smooth. Gradually add oats and candy and mix until well incorporated.

Divide dough into 24 equal portions, each about 2 tablespoons. Roll between palms into balls, then place on lined baking sheets about 2 1/2 inches apart. Using fingertips, gently press down each ball to about 3/4-inch thickness.

Bake until cookies are deep golden brown, about 13 to 16 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through. Transfer baking sheet to wire rack to cool.

orange yogurt loaf

I haven’t updated in forever!!!

I’ve been really busy with school, etc. life in general so I haven’t been able to cook or bake very much. But I have been eating copious amounts of cake because it was my twentieth birthday last week. I had a white chocolate truffle raspberry cheesecake from my sister, a strawberry shortcake from my friend Sarah (baked from scratch! So good!), a sweet potato (goguma) cake homemade by my mother, and my small group bought me  a white cake from Porto’s Bakery. And of course I ate it alllllll. I think I packed on five pounds just from overconsumption of butter, sugar, and eggs last week.

But I ended my midterms last week so I decided to bake with whatever I had in my fridge.

I was just digging through and I found two oranges, eggs, and some leftover plain yogurt…
There was a recipe that I found a while back featuring grapefruit and yogurt, but seeing as I had oranges instead, I decided to make orange yogurt cake instead!
It was my first time trying out this recipe, but I loved how it turned out! It wasn’t too sweet, and the yogurt made the cake quite soft and gave it a fine crumb, almost like a cross between a sponge and pound cake.
But even better because there’s no butter involved!

No pictures for now, but I’ll update soon. I’m at home for spring break and I forgot my camera USB cord! Ugh.

Orange Yogurt Loaf Recipe

Yield: One loaf.

For the loaf:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1 cup sugar
3 extra-large eggs
3 teaspoons grated orange zest (approximately two oranges)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil

For the syrup:
1 tablespoon sugar
1/3 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 9-by-5 inch loaf pan. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.

In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, one cup sugar, eggs, orange zest, and vanilla. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. With a rubber spatula, fold the vegetable oil into the batter, making sure it’s all incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 50 minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Meanwhile, cook the 1/3 cup orange juice and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear. Set aside.

When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. While the cake is still warm, pour the orange syrup mixture over the cake and allow it to soak in. Cool.

Enjoy with some jasmine or green tea during some chilly weather!
Sun’s supposed to be coming out soon though. I think it’s going to be in the 70s by Wednesday. Time for berry crisps, cool whip, and lemon bars in the summer time!

waking up to cinnamon rolls..

Valentine’s Day/President’s Day weekend was fairly unremarkable.

It’s hard to enjoy a three-day romantic weekend when you have a ton of midterms coming up and basically no one to spend it with.

But I went home this weekend and woke up on Saturday morning to the smell of cinnamon baking in the morning…  Which canceled out all negative feelings I had. I don’t think there’s a smell that I enjoy more coming from the oven.. The smell of cinnamon wafting through the house is even better than… the smell of chocolate. That’s right. I said it. Cinnamon  >>>>> Chocolate. Of course, this is totally subjective, and I know that chocolate freaks would massacre me for saying that, but I mean that comment only in aromatic senses. In terms of taste, it’s a tossup.

We ate these sticky buns unfrosted, because my dad has diabetes and they were sweet enough inside with a generous slathering of cinnamon sugar and walnuts. Of course, if your cinnamon buns MUST have cream-cheese frosting, feel free to add your favorite frosting recipe to this after cooling the rolls for maybe about 10 minutes.

So delicious, so crunchy yet soft… So cinnamon-y..

Mom’s Cinnamon Rolls

For the rolls:
1 packet active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 1/4 cup whole milk
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablspoons unsalted butter, room temperature
5 cups unbleached flour
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

For the filling:
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cinnamon
1/2 cup crushed walnuts (or pecans or peanuts)
[For the filling, combine sugar, cinnamon, and walnuts in a small bowl and then set aside.]

Place yeast in large bowl and add warm water. Let sit until foamy (about five minutes). Add warmed milk, sugar, butter, 3 1/2 cups flour and salt to bowl and mix on low until combined. Then, beat on high and add remaining flour and continue to mix until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.

Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm place until dough has doubled in size. Butter 2 9-inch square or round pans.

Once dough has risen, dump it out onto a well-floured surface. Divide the dough into two and roll each portion onto a 10 x 16 rectangle. Spread half the butter for the filling mixture over the dough, followed by a generous sprinkle of the cinnamon sugar and walnut mixture, leaving a small border.

Roll the dough up starting with the short end. Slice each log as thick as you like (about 1.5 – 2 inches thick). Arrange the rolls into pans, cover, and let rise for a hour or until about doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees while rolls are rising and bake 25-30 minutes until golden brown. THEN EAT IMMEDIATELY WHILE THE SMELL OF CINNAMON IS FLOATING AROUND YOUR KITCHEN!

A little close-up. Yummmmm….