Playing with food... or Happy Pumpkin Cookies

When I got home from school today I realized I hadn't consumed a single cookie the entire day. The horror!

Not to fret. I brought all the leftover pumpkin puree from my Thanksgiving experiment back to LA with me, which seemed reason enough to bake up a batch of pumpkin cookies. Then I found this recipe on allrecipes.com, which had a truly astonishing number of positive reviews; it felt like destiny.

As an aside, while I do really enjoy pumpkin desserts, I can see myself getting tired of them in the not-so-distant future. It kind of reminds me of the time my high school economics teacher made a kid eat a whole box of Entenmann's powdered sugar donuts to illustrate the concept of diminishing marginal utility. A curious choice, undoubtedly, but perhaps effective, since I still remember the incident rather clearly. He looked about ready to boot by the fourth donut. Luckily, I only have about 1.5 cups of puree left, which is probably about enough for one more recipe.

But I digress.

The cookies turned out quite tasty. The texture is almost airy, and these babies crumble like cake, but that works really well with the subtle pumpkin + spices combo. In retrospect, I should have gone easier on the icing, since I don't actually like super saccharine-y sweet stuff, but the pumpkin flavor kills, and my apartment now smells like Thanksgiving all over again. Hard to argue with that.

Also, I started making these cookies, but after the first tray came out, I decided to mix things up a bit. Enter, the new and improved, HAPPY pumpkin cookie!

Another thing I forgot to mention in some of my previous posts is that I've mastered the art of creaming butter and sugar, sans electric mixer. I started doing this in Japan, and I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with how effective this method is. First, I use the wooden spoon like a pestle and mash up the butter into little bits, then I smear the remaining pieces against the side of the bowl using the back of the spoon until it's completely smooth.

Is it painfully obvious at this point that I'm distracting myself from studying for my finals that start next week? It should be.

Okay, okay... Back to work.

Here are the deets for this recipe, slightly adapted from allrecipes.com!

Pumpkin cookies with Icing

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup of chocolate chips (optional)

2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and salt; set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup of butter and white sugar. Add pumpkin, egg, and 1 teaspoon vanilla to butter mixture, and beat until creamy. Mix in dry ingredients. Drop on cookie sheet by tablespoonfuls; flatten slightly. This is when I pressed in the chocolate chips in smiley faces, but obviously, this is completely optional.

Bake for 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool cookies, then drizzle glaze with fork.

To Make Glaze: Combine confectioners' sugar, milk, 1 tablespoon melted butter, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add milk as needed, to achieve drizzling consistency. To be perfectly honest, I just dipped my cookies... But, again, I think I over-iced mine. Oh, well!

Super かぼちゃ Pumpkin Pie

I drove up to the Bay Area on Wednesday afternoon, arrived around 6:00pm, and basically proceeded to eat everything in sight from then on. I crashed around 1:00 am and somehow managed to stumble down the stairs of my parents' house at 11:30am on Thanksgiving morning. I ate pretty much non-stop from then until about half-past midnight. All said and done, I ate for almost 13 hours straight on T-day.

Needless to say, I got full. Really, really full. In fact, I'm still full. But then, it wouldn't be an American holiday if it didn't involve grazing over overflowing plates of snacks for six hours and then sitting down to an uncommonly large dinner and stuffing yourself silly. I should really learn to pace myself -- the marginal enjoyment of that third piece of pie may very well have been negative in terms of my long-term life expectancy.


I was also lucky enough to spend Thanksgiving with two of my very best friends from college, who couldn't make it home to their families this year. Erin and Alejandro have seen me through some of the best and worst times of my adult life, and I'm really thankful that they've settled in California because it means I get to see them every time I come home to see my family. Actually, they are more or less part of my family, which is why they put up with all my ridiculous antics. Case in point: 

So moving along... 


I don't know much about roasting a turkey (except that it tastes best brined), and the rice stuffing I made last year in Japan turned out bright purple (long story...), so it's probably better that I stayed mostly out of my dad's way in the kitchen this year. The one exception, of course, was the dessert. I've discussed my love of pies at length on this blog before, and now that I have a crust recipe worth dying for, I've moved on to perfecting the filling.


Last year, one of my co-workers made the most amazing pumpkin pie from a Japanese Kabocha squash, so this year I decided to make my own version, from scratch. Kabocha is a really popular squash in Japan -- they grill it, steam it, fry it, toss it in soups, stir fries, salads... pretty much everything. It's a tasty little gourd, so I can understand the appeal. 


To make kabocha puree, I first steamed the pumpkin whole for about 10-12 minutes.

Then I cut it in half, scraped out the seeds (and later toasted those... Divine!), and cut the whole pumpkin into wedges and tossed those back into the steam for another 15 minutes or so, until the squash was soft enough for a fork to go through the flesh easily.

You can eat kabocha rinds after they've been cooked like this, but since I was making this into pie, I cut off the rinds and pureed the whole thing in a food processor.

The color of this pumpkin is really fantastic -- it's perfect for fall and the holidays.

From there, I measured out 16 ounces of pumpkin for the pie for the Flour Bakery Super Pumpkiny Pumpkin Pie. I left my Flour cookbook in LA, but luckily, I found a version online at Flour Child. Bless the Interwebs! I also have a ridiculous amount of pumpkin leftover, so I'll try to bring that back to LA to whip up something delicious.

The other thing I tried this time around was to pour the extra pumpkin pie filling into small ramekins and bake them alongside the pie. I'm really pleased with how those turned out, and I'm now wondering if maybe I can do some sort of pumpkin pot pie in the future, because that would allow me to enjoy pumpkin pie without having to blind-bake the crust ahead of time. 

Super Pumpkiny Pumpkin Pie
Makes (ahem) one 9-inch pie.

Pate Brisee II (recipe follows)
One 16 ounce can pumpkin purée (I made my own.)
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar (I used dark brown, as it's all I had.)
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
2/3 cup evaporated milk
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

My additions:
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1 tablespoon brandy

1. Remove the dough from the refrigerator. On a well-floured work surface, roll out the dough into a circle about 12 inches in diameter and 1/8 inch thick. Roll the dough circle around the pin and then unfurl it on top of a 9-inch aluminum pie pan or glass pie dish. Press the dough gently into the bottom and sides of the pan. Evenly pleat the overhanging dough with your fingers to create a decorative edge, or use scissors to trim the overhang, leaving a 1/4-inch lip (to allow for shrinkage in the oven). Refrigerate the pie shell for at least 30 minutes. (The pie shell can be tightly wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 1 day or frozen for up to 2 weeks. Bake directly from the refrigerator or freezer.)

2. Position a rack in the center of the oven, and heat the oven to 350 degrees F.

3. Line pie shell with parchment paper, fill with pie weights, and blind bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the entire shell is light brown all the way through.

4. Meanwhile, scrape the pumpkin purée into a medium saucepan and stir in the brown sugar. Place over medium-low heat and cook, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the pumpkin has reduced to a somewhat thick paste and darkened. Remove from the heat and whisk in the ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Then whisk in the sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk.

5. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and egg yolk until blended. Slowly whisk in the cream and vanilla (and the maple syrup and brandy, if using), then gradually whisk in the pumpkin mixture and continue whisking until thoroughly mixed.

6. When the pie shell is ready, remove from the oven and leave the oven set at 350 degrees F. Remove the weights and parchment, and pour the pumpkin custard into the shell.

7. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until the custard is just set. The edges of the custard will puff up a little and the center should still have a little wiggle in it. Let cool on a wire rack for at least 2 hours. Serve at room temperature or chilled. (I found this pie tasted best after being refrigerated for 24 hours.)

8. The pie can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Pâte Brisée II
Makes about 10 ounces dough, enough for (ahem) one 9-inch single-crust pie, 10-inch crostata or 9-inch quiche.

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon (1 stick plus 1 tablespoon) cold unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons cold milk

1. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a handheld mixer), mix together the flour, sugar and salt. Scatter the butter over the top and mix on low speed for about 45 seconds, or until the flour is no longer bright white and holds together when you clump it and pecan-size lumps of butter are visible throughout.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolk and milk until blended. Add to the flour-butter mixture all at once. Mix on low speed for about 30 seconds, or until the dough barely comes together. It will look really shaggy and more like a mess than a dough.

3. Dump the dough out onto an unfloured work surface and gather it together into a tight mound. Using your palm and starting on one side of the mound, smear the dough bit by bit, starting at the top of the mound and then sliding your palm down the side and along the work surface (at Flour we call this "going down the mountain") until most of the butter chunks are smeared into the dough and the dough comes together. Do this once or twice on each part of the dough, moving through the mound until the whole mess has been smeared into a cohesive dough with streaks of butter.

4. Gather up the dough, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and press down to flatten into a disk about 1 inch thick. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before using. The dough will keep in the refrigerator for up to 4 days or in the freezer for up to 1 month.

Pre-Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie Pop Tarts

I love all holidays, but Thanksgiving is, hands down, my favorite of the bunch. At Thanksgiving, all you're really expected to do is eat. My kind of celebration! No shopping, no decorations, no awkward "Oh, I have something for you, but I forgot it at home!" moments. I really hate those... Or does that only happen to me?

The last few weeks have been pretty rough at school, and I needed a little reminder that the holidays are just around the corner, so I decided to make a seasonal treat this week: pumpkin pie pop tarts. 

Pumpkin pie is kind of a tradition for me -- I make it every Thanksgiving, and I think this year I'm actually going to try to make the pumpkin from scratch (expect a post on that in the future!), but I didn't have time to do that tonight. Personally, I think the result was still delicious, but you know how I feel about pastry dough, so I'm not sure my opinion is objective.

Anyway, since the holidays are about family, here is a family of pumpkin pop tarts (I made minis with the leftover dough) and a picture of me with my Grandpa.

A couple of observations from the lab this evening:

• I've made the pâte brisée by hand a couple of times now, i.e. not using an electric mixer, and I'm convinced it comes out better this way -- it's more flaky and more tender than any other method I've tried, so I'm sticking with it from now on. Plus, it means I don't have to clean my non-existent mixer bowl.
• I read a bunch of recipes for this one, and most of them seemed to be pretty close to this one from Joy the Baker. The one twist with this recipe was it said to cook the pumpkin and spices on the stove before mixing in the egg to out the flavor of the spices. Amazing. Totally works. I'm going to do this all the time now!
• The bite-sized pop tarts were really born out of a desire to use up scrap dough, but I'm starting to think that those may be ideal. Just enough to satisfy a craving, but not so big that you get flaky bits all over the place. I'm not a neat eater, so I worry about these kinds of things.

So here's the recipe I followed, adapted from Joy the Baker and using my favorite, favorite, favorite pâte brisée from the Flour cookbook. I would do just about anything to eat this pastry dough every single day of my life. 

Pumpkin Pie Pop TartsMakes 8 tarts and then some...

For the pâte brisée: see Flour Bakery recipe here. (SWOON!)

For the Filling:

3/4 cup pureed pumpkin
1 large egg

1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice 

*OR 1/8 ground cloves + 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger + 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

While the dough is chilling, prepare the filling:

In a small sauce pan, heat pumpkin puree and spices over medium heat. Just heat through until the spices become fragrant. Remove from heat and place spiced pumpkin in a medium sized bowl. Whisk in egg, salt and sugar and place in the fridge to rest while you roll out the dough.

On a well floured work surface, press dough into a 3×5-inch rectangle, roll the dough out to about 1/8-inch thickness. The dough should be slightly larger than 9×12-inches. Trim dough with a knife, creating a rectangle that is 9-inches tall and 12-inches long. Cut each side into thirds, creating 9 squares. Place dough squares in the fridge while you roll out the second piece of dough in the same way.

Spoon about one tablespoon of pie filling into the center of each brushed dough square. Top with a piece of dough and use a floured fork to crimp the sides closed. Use the tines of the fork to create vent holes in each tart.

Position a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Let tarts rest in the fridge for 30 minutes while the oven preheats.

Remove tarts from the fridge and place in the oven to bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown on top. Remove and let cool before moving to wire rack. Best consumed immediately (or within two days)

Joy the Baker also had a recipe for maple glaze to drizzle on top, but I guess I'm a purist. For those who like a bit of sweet on the crust, here's the recipe. Oh, also, I don't have maple syrup. Go figure.

Maple Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons milk

Whisk ingredients together and drizzle on top!

Chewy, chewy chocolate-on-chocolate

It turns out the word "midterm" is somewhat of a misnomer in business school, because here I am in week seven of a 10-week quarter, wrapping up my last midterm... Finals in three weeks, anyone? 

I don't have a team meeting this week, but I really wanted to make these little double-chocolate monsters. I tried a recipe for flour-less chocolate-on-chocolate cookies a few weeks ago, but I was disappointed by the texture. They were egg white + powdered sugar based, so they resembled meringues with a slightly more chewy center. 

I had my heart set on a more... substantial... cookie, shall we say, so I started hunting around for something that combined the best of creamy fudge, chewy cookie, and gooey chocolate chunks. I'm pretty happy with the result; these turned out to be much closer to what I originally envisioned.

I adapted this recipe I found on Mel's Kitchen Cafe, and I thought I'd share a couple of observations. 

1. One of the funny things about trying new cookie recipes is it's sometimes hard to anticipate the "spread factor" -- you know, how much the cookie will flatten out in the oven. I grossly misjudged the "spread factor" of the cookies... which is essentially 0. The recipe instructs you to roll the dough into 1.5 inch balls and place them 1.5 inches apart, which to me suggested medium spread-age. Not the case. My first tray came out looking like a tray of brown golf balls.

I flattened the second batch a little more, but I think I could have gone even thinner. 

2. They weren't as chewy as I would have hoped, but they definitely fell on the high end of the fudgey index. Pretty dense, super smooth. I think this may have been because I subbed agave nectar for white sugar -- I do that sometimes for inexplicable reasons.

3. You can never go wrong with chocolate on chocolate.

For inquiring minds, here's my adaptation to the Mel's Kitchen Recipe: 

Thick and Chewy Double-Chocolate Cookies 

Yield: roughly 2 dozen 

INGREDIENTS: 

1 cup all-purpose flour 

1/4 cup baking cocoa 

1 teaspoon baking powder 

1/4 teaspoon salt 

8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped (I chopped up "two and a bit" bars of TJ's super dark organic chocolate. I'm becoming obsessed with those, but if you like a milder chocolate flavor, maybe try for a lower cacao bar.) 

2 large eggs 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

5 tablespoons butter, softened to room temperature 

3/4 cups packed light brown sugar 

1/4 cup agave syrup 

3/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS: 

Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside. Melt the chocolate in a small sauce pan on low heat. Stir gently, being mindful not to overmix. In a small bowl, beat the eggs and vanilla lightly with a fork; set aside. 

I don't have a mixer, so I creamed the butter, brown sugar and agave by hand, using a fork. Gradually beat in the egg mixture until incorporated, about 45 seconds. Add the chocolate in a steady stream and beat until combined, about 40 seconds. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Finally add the chocolate chips. Do not overbeat. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature until the consistency is fudge-like, about 30 minutes. 

Meanwhile, adjust the oven racks to the upper- and lower-middle positions and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 sheets with parchment paper or silpat liners (this is pretty important – if the cookies are baked on a greased baking sheet only, they will probably stick). 

Roll the dough into 1 ½ inch balls, flatten them to desired thickness, and place them on the cookie sheets, about 1 ½ inches apart. 

Bake until the edges of the cookies have just begun to set but the centers are still very soft, about 10-11 minutes, rotating the baking sheets from top to bottom halfway through the baking time. Cool the cookies on the sheets about 5 minutes or until set and transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.