Maple Pecan Shortbread Cookies

One thing I learned from my UK adventure last spring was that I love shortbread. I also get such a joy cooking and baking with home-grown ingredients, so when I saw this recipe for a shortbread cookie, and I had a bunch of pecans sitting at home, I knew I had to make them.


(me eating an elephant shaped shortbread cookie in Scotland)

What you'll need:

2 and 3/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup pecans (toasted and finely chopped)
1 cup unsalted butter (@room temp)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 large egg yolk and 1 large egg white (lightly beaten)
1/2 cup pecan halves
1/4 cup raw turbinado sugar

First, mix the flour, salt, and chopped pecans. Cream the butter and sugar in a separate bowl until light and fluffy.
Beat in maple syrup followed by the egg yolk. Mix in flour until a dough forms.
Form dough into 1 and 1/2 inch thick log, wrap in plastic and let chill 2 hours to overnight. (I left mine in the fridge for a couple days.)
Slice log into 1/4 inch thick slices. Place on baking sheet, brush with egg white and top with pecan halves and raw sugar.
Bake at 350 degrees until lightly golden brown on edges: about 10-12 minutes, turning baking sheet around half way through.

Persimmon Bread (Muffins)

Every winter I somehow end up with a huge box full of locally grown persimmons. What the heck is a Persimmon, anyway? I am not really sure...Some sort of a fruit, obviously. I am also not really sure what they taste like. Every time I bake something just to get these things out of my house, the end product does not really taste like a 'persimmon'. And when I taste the fruit in its raw form, it has an awful bitter taste. According to wikipedia, the bad taste is due to the tannin, which doesn't go away until the fruit is all the way ripened. Oops.
Regardless, these muffins came out pretty awesome. Especially when they are fresh out of the oven.


Here's what you need:

2 cups white sugar
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup oats
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups ripe persimmon pulp
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs


To get the persimmon pulp, I simply cut up the ripest 2 persimmons from my box and then tossed the pieces into my food processor.
In a large bowl, stir together the sugar, flours, oats, salt, spices, and baking soda until well mixed. Set aside. In another bowl, stir the persimmon pulp with the applesauce, vegetable oil, and eggs until well blended. Combine wet and dry ingredients. Divide batter into two greased 9x5 loaf pans, or into 24 muffin tins.
Bake at 350 degrees until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (About an hour for the loaf pans, and considerably less time if using muffin pan.)



Each muffin is approximately 206 calories with 2.7g of protein.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

I happen to be a person who is really into the idea or notion of family tradition, but come from a family that lacks a lot of tradition for various reasons, and so I am trying to build my own. Last year for Thanksgiving I made a pumpkin cheesecake. I love cheesecake in any form and thought the cheesecake came out great. I also recall my dad and grandfather enjoying it as well. I thought I would carry on my "tradition" and so this year I made it for Thanksgiving again.
Thankfully, pun intended, I did not have to work this holiday like I did last year. And so I rose at 7am yesterday morning and got started on my cheesecake. I had initially intended on making it the night before, but I had exhausted myself on the pumpkin cinnamon rolls (see previous entry) and therefore pushed it to the morning of.
The recipe I followed was for two 4-inch mini cheesecakes with a baking time of 40-60 minutes. Because I was making one larger 8-inch cheesecake, I had to triple the recipe and I always seem to forget just how long it takes to bake all the way through. (The very first time I attempted this recipe I pulled it out of the oven a tad early and found myself eating undercooked cheesecake.) I managed to go for a run and shower and get dressed with time to spare, all while this cheesecake was baking. At 11am I headed to my parents' house and put the cheesecake in the freezer for a few hours until everyone was ready for desserts.

Here's what you need:

For the crust

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (or gingersnap cookie crumbs if you have them)
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon maple syrup (the original recipe called for 3 tablespoons, but the first time I tried this crust I had difficulty getting the crust out of the pan because the maple syrup had caramelized, so I decided to play it safe this time)
3-4 tablespoons melted butter
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3/8 teaspoon nutmeg


For the filling

3 8oz packages of cream cheese (softened)
1 1/2 cups pumpkin--i used a smidgen more
3 eggs (slightly beaten)
3/4 cup brown sugar
6 tablespoons maple syrup--oh, and another note on the maple syrup...be sure to use real maple syrup and not pancake syrup full of high fructose corn syrup. it's just not the same.
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3/8 teaspoon nutmeg
3/8 teaspoon ginger

Mix the crust ingredients and press into a lightly greased 8 inch spring form pan.


Mix remaining ingredients until smooth and pour over the crust.


Bake at 325 degrees until set. Like I said earlier, it took mine over an hour to cook. Just keep checking on it. You can see how it begins to set around the edges first and slowly creeps to the center. You don't want to take it out before the center sets also. Then remove cheesecake from oven and cool to room temperature. Refrigerate or freeze until you're ready to eat it!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

I decided to make pumpkin cinnamon rolls from scratch for work Wednesday for those of us laboring the day before Thanksgiving. We had anticipated a crazy day, so I thought a pre-Thanksgiving edible celebration would help take our minds off work for at least 10 minutes. As it turns out, the day was not so bad and the cinnamon rolls were extra delicious.

Tuesday after work I came home and started on the cinnamon rolls as soon as I had settled in. This was my first time making home-made cinnamon rolls and I wasn't really sure how much time it might take.
As it turned out...it kind of took all night, but it wasn't hard, just a tad time consuming.

There are three parts to the cinnamon rolls: the dough, the filling, and the glaze.


Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls:
1 package dry active yeast
1/4 cup warm water
4 2/3 cups whole wheat flour, divided
1 cup canned pumpkin (I used a 1/2 cup more to add more pumpkin flavor)
1/2 cup 2% milk
5 T butter, melted
2 T sugar
1 1/4 t salt
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 t pumpkin pie spice


Dissolve the yeast in warm water in a large bowl. Add 3 and 2/3 cups flour, the pumpkin, milk, butter, sugar, and spices and mix until smooth. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface adding the remaining flour as needed. Shape into a ball and lightly coat dough-ball in olive oil. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with saran wrap and let rise for 45 minutes. Punch down dough and let rest for another 5-10 minutes.


While your dough is rising, mix together the filling.

Filling:
7 T sugar
5 T brown sugar
3 T flour
3 t cinnamon
4 T chilled butter, cut into small pieces

Mix ingredients.

Flour your counter or table and roll dough out to a 12x10 rectangle. (Rolling dough into a particular shape--be it a rectangle or circle--can be more difficult than meets the eye...) Sprinkle evenly with your filling and roll length-wise towards you tightly. Pinch the seams and ends. I generously sprinkled extra cinnamon and sugar over the pre-made filling mixture as I saw fit. Feel free to do the same. Once you've got your log, simply cut into 1-inch thick slices. I loaded the slices into a round cake pan and then the leftovers into a square cake pan. Be sure to coat the pans with cooking spray. Cover with saran wrap and let rise for another 25 minutes.
This is when I put the rolls in the fridge and went to bed.



The next morning I made my glaze.

Glaze:

3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 T milk
1/4 t vanilla


Bake cinnamon rolls for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Drizzle generously with glaze and enjoy!

Ginger Crinkles

Continuing with my seasonal cooking and baking, I whipped up a batch of Homesick Texan's ginger crinkles before watching the new episode of the Walking Dead on AMC this evening. Earlier today I picked up a jug of apple cider at the grocery store and thought a gingersnap-type cookie would go great with this icy cold fall drink. Despite it being late November, the high was 80 degrees today. So while it's not quite cool enough for hot cocoa at the moment, I can still enjoy a warm cookie.

Here's what you need:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/4 cup raw turbinado sugar for dipping

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Cream the oil, sugar, egg, and molasses in a medium sized bowl.


Mix the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger in a separate bowl and then mix the wet with the dry, creating your dough.


Roll out balls of cookie dough (about 1/2 tablespoon) and dip into the raw sugar before placing on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.


Bake cookies until slightly brown. Do not over cook! The recipe said about 15 minutes, but I made mine in four batches and they ended up taking less than 15 minutes to cook each time.

Being my first experience with gingersnaps I think the cookies came out great. They are nice and crunchy, but soft in the center with just enough sweet. I will definitely be making these again.


On a separate note...Steamy Kitchen is giving away an amazing vacuum cleaner. The better to clean up crumbs with!

Pumpkin Bread

Quick breads are easily one of my favorite things to bake. They can be breakfast and dessert all at once and are so quick to throw together, considering I almost always have all the main ingredients on hand at all times. Today is Halloween and I've been cooking up a storm, including a moist and tasty pumpkin bread inspired by closet kitchen.

Here's what I used:

1 and 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1 and 1/2 cups pumpkin purée
3/4 brown sugar
2 eggs (beaten)
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
1/4 cup chocolate chips


1. In a large bowl mix the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices.


2. In another bowl mix the pumpkin, brown sugar, eggs, oil, and yogurt.



3. Mix the wet and dry ingredients together, then stir in chocolate chips.



4. Poor in greased 9x5 loaf pan and bake at 375 degrees for about an hour, or until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean.


Now...I really should have added chopped toasted pecans to this bread. Two separate co-workers have given me a bag of pecans from their yards, but unfortunately I wasn't able to crack or toast any in time for the making of this bread.


Mmm! Pumpkin bread and coffee for breakfast this week. Next week I'd really like to try this new apple and cinnamon oatmeal bread recipe from the same blog.