Soft Spiced Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

It looks like all this "free" time over the holidays is lending itself to baking! I've been working collegiate basketball games, dedicating time to language-learning, reading and of course, playing piano.

The most recent recipe I stumbled across was for soft and chewy pumpkin cookies! I know it's the wrong season for pumpkin now, but after Thanksgiving I purchased a reduced-price can of pumpkin purée and this week, it finally occurred to me what to do with it.

Soft Spiced Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 2 1/2 c flour
• 1 t baking soda
• 1 t baking powder
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1/2 t nutmeg
• 1/2 t salt 
• 1 1/2 c granulated sugar
• 1/2 c butter, softened
• 1 c canned pumpkin
• 1 large egg
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 1/2 c chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in medium bowl. Beat sugar and butter in large mixer bowl until well blended. Beat in pumpkin, egg and vanilla extract until smooth. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Fold in chocolate chips

Drop by rounded tablespoon onto prepared baking sheets. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until edges are firm. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes.

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The recipe yielded around 20 massively large cookies. I was using a table spoon to shape my cookies, like suggested in the recipe, but eventually switched to the teaspoon because they were so huge! The cookies never became crunchy, since this is a soft cookie recipe, but more retained the texture of something akin to pumpkin bread. Perfection :)

So who cares if it's not pumpkin season anymore... dig in and enjoy some delicious pumpkin chocolate chip cookies!

Strawberry Frozen Yogurt Pie with Balsamic Syrup

It is officially summer in Phoenix – well, it has been for a while. But yesterday was the hottest day of 2011 thus far, hitting 108 degrees in the afternoon. Lucky for us, it cooled down to 95 in the middle of the night.

It’s so hot my dog won’t even leave the shade. This guy’s No. 1 hobby in life is sitting in the grass barking at all the birds in our trees.

Desperate times call for drastic measures my friends. Frozen yogurt just so happens to be my favorite hot weather dessert. But this time, I made it dessertier. That’s a real word.

 

Strawberry Frozen Yogurt Pie with Balsamic Syrup (adapted from Sunset Magazine)

Ingredients:

• 3 c vanilla frozen yogurt, softened until easily spoonable
• 3/4 c stewed strawberries (cooked on the stove until preserve-like, without sugar)
• 1/4 c balsamic vinegar
• 2 T sugar
• 1 1/2 c fresh strawberries, quartered
• pre-prepared graham cracker pie crust (we used Oreo crumb)

Directions:

Stir frozen yogurt until smooth, then stir in cooked strawberries. Spoon into tart pan, set on a plate, and freeze at least 5 hours.

Just before serving, simmer balsamic vinegar, sugar, and 1 t water in a small saucepan over medium heat (do not let boil) until it coats a spoon, about 10 minutes. Let cool.

Top pie with strawberries. Thin syrup with water if necessary and drizzle onto each wedge of pie.

More pie tips:

• Let the pie soften for five minutes at room temp to make slicing easier.
• If you're having trouble freeing your pie from its pan, set it over a bowl of hot water for a couple of minutes and then slide a thin knife between the pan edge and the crust. It should pop right out.
• Make ahead: Once the pie is fully frozen through step 3, it keeps for up to four days, double-wrapped in plastic wrap.

Sunset has amazing recipes. Literally, as soon as I saw this one I wanted to make it immediately! I hope you do too, now :) Strawberries and balsamic is so delicious!

Week 7: ...involves peanut butter

Can you believe it's already the seventh week of 2011?! In my quest to "try something new every week" this year, I've hit my 100th post today. Well, my 100th since switching to Wordpress from Blogger. I've actually been blogging since 2007, but I've posted 100 entries in just over seven months. Crazy, huh?

I digress. That is not my new thing, since I've blogged over 500 entries in that period of time. You'll remember that last week I whipped up two batches of home made peanut butter and this week I put it to good use making chocolate peanut butter truffles! Well, the peanut butter didn't make the truffles, I did. In all my years of being addicted to loving chocolate, I've never once made a truffle before this week.

So let's bring on this week's new thing:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles (made by yours truly for J.D.'s Valentine's Day gift)

I'll admit, the recipe I found seemed pretty intense at first (hey, I was reading it off my cell phone, it looked much longer than it actually was, haha -- that's what she said).

Ingredients:

• 1 c chopped bittersweet chocolate or chocolate chips
• 1/2 c cream
• 1/2 cup peanut butter, creamy or crunchy
• 2 c chocolate candy coating, for dipping
• optional decorations: crushed peanuts, peanut butter cups, or peanut butter chips

Directions:

Place the chopped chocolate or chocolate chips and the cream in a medium microwave-safe bowl and microwave until melted, stirring after every 45 seconds to prevent overheating. **Every time it says microwave, I went with a double boiler method. You could do either, obviously.

Once the chocolate has melted, add the peanut butter and stir until the mixture is entirely smooth. It may not look like it will come together, but keep stirring and you will eventually have a smooth, shiny chocolate mixture. This is your “ganache,” or truffle center.

Cover the top of the ganache with a layer of cling wrap, and place the bowl in the refrigerator until it is firm enough to scoop, at least 4 hours or overnight.

Cover a baking sheet with foil. Using a small cookie or candy scoop, or a teaspoon, scoop up small balls of the ganache and roll them between your palms to get a round shape. Return the balls to the refrigerator to chill while you melt the chocolate coating.

Place the chocolate candy coating in a small bowl and microwave until melted, stirring after every 45 seconds to prevent overheating. Allow the coating to cool for a few minutes, until it is still warm but not so hot as to melt the truffle centers.

How cute is this pink spatula with hearts?!?!

Once the coating has cooled a bit, remove the tray of truffle centers from the refrigerator. Using dipping tools or a fork, dip a center into the melted chocolate until it is completely submerged. Remove it from the coating and allow the excess to drip back into the bowl. Place the truffle on the foil-covered baking sheet and repeat with remaining truffles and chocolate. If desired, you can decorate the truffles with crushed peanuts or peanut butter cup candies while the chocolate is still wet. Alternately, you can melt a small amount of peanut butter chips and drizzle the melted chips over the tops of the truffles. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.

**Note, I realized that no matter what I tried, the chocolate covering was melting the truffle centers and ruining the consistency of the melted chocolate. This is where I started over and got smart, painting the truffles with a silicone pastry brush instead of submerging them, which led to the melted centers and a subsequent compromised candy coating.

Making truffles (for someone as inexperienced at pastry as I am) was kind of an ordeal! I became super frustrated really easily, but in the end I think it worked out! It was definitely worth it, and as with everything I've tried this year: I definitely want to try it again and see what kind of skills I can develop and if I can perfect the art of making chocolates. Who knows, maybe I'll make a whole "box of chocolates" with various truffle centers. Forrest Gump would be proud.

Sooooo, who wants to come help me eat some of these!? (And by me, I clearly mean J.D.). We have over 15 still in the fridge and I've already had an amount that certainly is more than two...

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to make a sandwich with my leftover coconut peanut butter and some pineapple mango jam. Très tropical...

Fun with Pumpkin: Pumpkin crème brûlée and pumpkin martinis

I know the season for pumpkin is melting away faster than the snow in California. But if you're like me, you bought way tooo much pumpkin over the fall months. I cracked open the cans, used what I needed and stored the rest in the freezer for a rainy day.

Well, rainy days are few and far between here in the desert. In fact, it's still close to 80° here in Arizona....

Enter warm and frosty pumpkin treats!

You'll remember I raved about the pumpkin crème brûlée we had for Thanksgiving (not to toot my own horn, but this was pretty dang good). It was creamy, thick and tasted like a mini serving of pumpkin pie with a thick buttery and sugary crust on top. I recently watched the movie Amélie and was reminded of my favorite line (promise this is going somewhere):

"Amélie is a shy young woman with a pronounced taste for all life's small pleasures : immersing one's hand in a sack of grain, craking the crust of a crème brûlée with the back of a teaspoon or skipping stones on the Canal St-Martin."

Cracking the top sugary layer of a crème brûlée into a million tiny shattered pieces is one of my favorite things in life. Seriously, it's my favorite dessert, ever. It is with this in mind, I present to you my Thanksgiving dessert, and a recent apératif.

Pumpkin Crème Brûlée (adapted from Emeril Lagasse, I may or may not have said "bam" while preparing):

Ingredients:

• 2 c heavy cream
• 1/4 c light brown sugar
• 1/4 c sugar, plus 4 t
• 8 large egg yolks
• 1/2 t vanilla extract
• 1/4 t ground cinnamon
• 1/8 t grated nutmeg
• 1 c canned cooked pumpkin

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Arrange 8 (1/2-cup) ramekins or custard cups in a large metal baking pan.

In a medium saucepan, combine the cream, brown sugar, and 1/4 cup granulated sugar. Bring to a bare simmer over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat.

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks until frothy and lemon-colored. Slowly add 3/4 cup of the hot cream mixture, whisking constantly. Add the egg mixture to the remaining hot cream, and whisk. Add the vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin, and whisk until smooth. Divide among the prepared custard cups.

Add enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the cups. Bake until the custards are just set in the center but not stiff, 45 minutes to 55 minutes. Remove from the oven and refrigerate until well chilled, at least 3 hours or overnight.

Sprinkle each custard with 1/2 teaspoon of the remaining sugar (I used a special crème brûlée praline-flavored sugar, it made the taste super buttery and gave it that extra step above regular sugar). Using a kitchen torch, caramelize the sugar. Place on small dessert plates and serve.

...Heaven in a ramekin!

Now prior to dinner tonight, I continued my pumpkin spice flavoring tradition to rid my freezer of canned pumpkin. Enter my pumpkin apéritif (pre-dinner drink in the French tradition):

Pumpkin Pie Spice Martinis

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c brown sugar
• 2 t pumpkin pie spice, divided
• 2 t granulated sugar
• 2 c skim milk
• 2 t pumpkin puree
• 2 c pomegranate cranberry juice
• 4 oz. clementine vodka
• ice

Directions:

In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the brown sugar, 1 t pumpkin pie spice, and 1/2 c water. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and bring it to a boil. Remove from heat and cool for 30 minutes. Syrup can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Mix together the granulated sugar and remaining 1 t pumpkin pie spice and put it onto a shallow plate. Pour 2 tablespoons of the simple syrup onto a plate. Dip the rims of 4 martini glasses into the syrup, and then in the spiced sugar. Set aside.

In a cocktail shaker, combine the milk, pumpkin puree, juice, vodka, half the simple syrup and ice and shake until well blended. Pour into the prepared glasses.

**I realized halfway through I was missing a liquid base. So that's where the pomegranate juice comes in, but it's masked behind the creamy texture of the pumpkin puree and the frothiness of the milk. Pumpkin pie spice simple syrup seriously might be my favorite flavor ever!! This all combined to make a martini that essentially tasted like pumpkin pie... but with alcohol :)

Does life get any better than that?! (Note: I couldn't consume too much, it was quite rich. This is simply meant to be for sipping as an apéritif -- before eating)