Pumpkin muffins for CK

Two posts in one day? Aren't you lucky! 


(I'm getting ready to bust out a holiday yule log for Christmas, so I thought I better bust out those backlogged posts I mentioned before I get too far behind.)


My finals marathon ended on the Thursday before my friend's birthday, but I didn't have too much time to whip up something fancy before dinner, so I went with these pumpkin muffins I found on SmittenKitchen. CK told me that she likes pumpkin desserts, and in a perfect world I would have made proper pumpkin cupcakes, which are both sweeter and more festive, but I didn't have frosting ingredients on hand. :(  Next time, CK, I PROMISE!

I actually liked the flavor of these, although I would have really dug something slightly sweeter. It could be that I subbed in agave nectar for half of the sugar, or maybe I was just craving something sweet at the time. Whatever the reason, I must say that my last bit of kabocha puree gave these little ones a really pretty color and a subtle pumpkin flavor that was a nice send-off for fall/welcome in the winter holidays treat.


I've always been a fan of cinnamon-sugar combos, as well. When I was little, I used to eat the streusel topping off of my muffins and leave the muffin bottoms for my mom or dad. Yup, I was a spoiled one... But I just love crumbly tops so much!


Anyway, CK, I hope you enjoyed them. I will make you something more celebratory in the New Year. :)

Pumpkin Muffins (adapted from SmittenKitchen)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin (from a 15 ounce can)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pumpkin-pie spice
3/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 cup agave syrup
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon

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

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.

Stir together cinnamon and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in another bowl.

Divide batter among muffin cups (each should be about three-fourths full), then sprinkle tops with cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake until puffed and golden brown and wooden pick or skewer inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.

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

Homemade Thin Mints

When I was growing up, one of the women at my mom's office had a daughter in the Girl Scouts. Every year, my mom purchased a big grocery bag's worth of Girl Scout cookies, including at least three boxes of Thin Mints. This was a huge deal for me, because my parents were never big on letting me eat sweets as a kid. No sugary cereals, no cakes (except for birthdays), no pop tarts (WAH!!!)... But for some reason Girl Scout cookies were allowed. Maybe because it's a pseudo-charitable donation. I have no idea, but I can't really complain because to this day, I adore Thin Mints and Samoas (nee Caramel Delights).


For my last group meeting of Fall Quarter, I decided to try my hand at my childhood favorites. I must say, there's nothing quite like the combination of mint and chocolate, and these cookies smelled outstanding. I got so hung up on the smell that I tried one of the cookies before they'd been dipped in mint chocolate... I'll just say they looked better than they tasted, and they tasted much better after getting a thin coating of chocolate.

It took me a little while to find a recipe that did not require shortening. I am assuming that's what gives Thin Mints just the right amount of crumble and crunch, but as someone who is generally opposed to the idea of shortening, I had to scour the Interwebs just a little bit harder to find something suitable.


I eventually found a workable recipe from 101cookbooks.com, but I had to use AP flour instead of pastry, because I only keep AP and bread flour on hand. Also, I didn't have to patience to let the logs of cookie dough harden in the fridge for long enough, so the first batch came out about funny looking -- the dough kept sticking to my knife as I was cutting the disks, soI had to pat down the cookies with my fingers. I figure it's not that big a deal, since they ended up covered in chocolate anyway, but as kind of a neat freak, this bothered me a little... Finally, the recipe didn't recommend sifting the flour and cocoa powder but if I had to do this again, I definitely would sift the dry ingredients, because the pure cocoa powder tends to clump together, and you get little pockets of powder that are hard to mix into the thick dough.


All that being said, I'm not sure I will make these again, but it *has* gotten me thinking about how smart it would be to keep rolls of icebox cookie dough on hand for those "emergency" sugar-fix-needed situations...

Homemade and All-natural Thin Mint Recipe (adapted from 101cookbooks.com)

Chocolate Wafers:
8 ounces organic butter, room temperature
1 cup organic powdered sugar

1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
1 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Chocolate Peppermint Coating:
1 pound good quality semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
natural peppermint oil to taste

Preheat your oven to 350. Racks in the middle zone.

Make the cookie dough: Cream the butter until it is light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar and cream some more, scraping the sides of the bowl a couple times if necessary. Stir in the vanilla extract and then the salt and cocoa powder. Mix until the cocoa powder is integrated and the batter is smooth and creamy, sort of like a thick frosting. Add the flour and mix just until the batter is no longer dusty looking, it might still be a bit crumbly, and that's o.k. You don't want to over mix and end up with tough cookies. (If I made these cookies again, I would sift together the flour and cocoa powder to fight the clump effect.)

Turn the dough out onto a counter, gather it into a ball, and kneed it just once or twice to bring it together into once nice, smooth mass. Place the ball of dough into a large plastic bag and flatten it into a disk roughly 3/4-inch thick. Place the dough in the freezer for 20 minutes to chill.

Rollout and bake: Remove the dough from the freezer and roll it out really thin, remember how thin Thin Mints are? That's how thin you need your dough, about 1/8-inch. You can either roll it out between two sheets of plastic, or dust your counter and rolling pin with a bit of flour and do it that way. Stamp out cookies using a 1 1/2-inch cutter (this time I used one with a fluted edge, I've done hearts and other shapes in the past). Place cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool completely on a baking rack if you've got one.

Make the peppermint coating:
While the cookies are in the oven you can get the coating ready. I use a makeshift double boiler to melt chocolate (a metal pan over a saucepan of gently simmering water), but I know many people who swear by melting chocolate in the microwave. Slowly melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally until it is glossy and smooth. Stir in the peppermint extract. If you think the chocolate needs a bit more peppermint kick, add more extract a drop or two at a time - but don't go overboard.

Finishing the cookies: You are going to coat the cookies one at a time and then gently set them on a parchment-lined baking sheet to set. Drop one cookie into the chocolate and (using a fork) carefully make sure it gets fully coated. Lift the cookie out of the chocolate with the fork and bang the fork on the side of the pan to drain any extra chocolate off the cookie. You are after a thin, even coating of chocolate. Place on the aforementioned prepared baking sheet, and repeat for the rest of the cookies. Place the cookies in the refrigerator or freezer to set.

Make 3 or 4 dozen cookies.

Back from the crypt... with a bevy of birthday treats

I had to break my bake-and-blog ritual last week, as I had four final exams in four days, culminating with an accounting test that left me feeling physically ill. In fact, I'm just going to go ahead and pretend that didn't actually happen. What happens in room D310 stays in D310.

The good news is that 1) I'm back in the Bay Area, eating with reckless abandon and soaking up quality time with my family and friends, and 2) I have a backlog of baked goods to write about, including chocolate cupcakes, thin mint cookies, pumpkin muffins, and an earthquake cake (more on that later). 


Three of the four were baked for birthdays, which is both a fun coincidence and a nagging reminder that time keeps on ticking, no matter how far behind you are on your blog.  That said, I don't have the attention span to blog about all four of these projects now, so I'm going to do my best to write about each one in turn. Since I'm now technically on winter break, I am optimistic about the likelihood of completion by the time 2012 rolls around. I'll keep you posted. (Get it? *wink*)

First up: Chocolate Cupcakes with Crispy "Magic" Frosting.

The Monday before Thanksgiving was my classmate's birthday, and while I couldn't care less about my own birthday, I really love commemorating other people's birthdays. Go figure.


I'm not usually a fan of cupcakes, and I don't really "get" the whole cupcake craze -- I usually find them to be dry and half as flavorful as a real cake... but I thought I would give these a whirl, since everything I've made from the Flour cookbook has been spectacular, and it's the only cupcake recipe in the book. That must mean these were the only ones good enough to pass her quality test, right? (Is it annoying that 90% of my blog posts are about that one book? Don't worry, I asked for another one for Christmas, so you'll have something to look forward to in the new year.)


Turns out it is possible for cupcakes to be delicious. The only trouble is, as with most things, you get as much as you put in. As far as cupcakes go, these were a bit labor and time intensive, but I would absolutely make them again... provided I had enough time to complete the whole thing. I also had to let the batter cool in the fridge for an hour, which was a real test of wills for me.... But, of course, the result was a delicious thick, fudge-y batter that looked good enough to eat raw.

The other "you get what you put in" discovery I made with this recipe is that buttercream frosting does, in fact, contain COPIOUS amounts of butter. I actually couldn't bring myself to put all the butter in the recipe into the actual frosting, but no one seemed to care -- there was plenty of delicious fat in there to please a crowd. The recipe actually called it "magic" crispy frosting, but I didn't have time to let the frosting become crispy... Again, it didn't appear to be a problem.

So without further adieu, here is the recipe that made me believe in cupcakes again: Flour Bakery's Chocolate Cupcakes with Crispy Magic Frosting.

INGREDIENTS

Cupcakes:

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1/4 C Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 C granulated sugar
1 stick butter, cut up
1/3 C water
1/2 C milk
1 egg plus 1 extra yolk
1/2 t vanilla extract
1 C flour
1 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt

Frosting:
2/3 C granulated sugar
2 egg whites
3 sticks butter, at room temperature, cut up
1 2/3 C confectioners’ sugar
1/4 t kosher salt
2 T milk
1 T vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.

In a heatproof bowl, combine chocolate and cocoa powder.

In a saucepan over medium heat, heat the granulated sugar, butter and water, stirring occasionally, until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Pour the butter mixture over the chocolate and whisk until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth.

Whisk the milk, egg, extra yolk, and vanilla into the chocolate mixture until combined.

In a bowl, stir the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt until blended. Add the flour mixture to the chocolate mixture and whisk until smooth.

Let the batter sit at room temperature for 1 hour or cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days.

Set the oven at 350°

Divide the batter among the muffin cups. Bake for 30 minutes or until the tops spring back when pressed lightly. Set on a wire rack to cool completely.

In a heatproof bowl, whisk the sugar and egg whites. Fill a saucepan half full with simmering water. Set the bowl over (but not touching) the water. Whisk for 3 to 5 minutes or until the mixture is hot to the touch. It will thin as the sugar melts.

Remove the bowl from the heat. Tip the mixture into an electric mixer fitted with a whip. Beat at medium-high speed for 6 minutes or until the mixture becomes thick and white like a meringue and is cool to the touch.

Turn the mixer to medium and add the butter a few chunks at a time, beating for 3 to 4 minutes or until it is all incorporated. Add the confectioners’ sugar, salt, milk, and vanilla. Continue to beat until the mixture is smooth and satiny.

Remove the cupcakes from the muffin tins and arrange on a platter. Fit a pastry bag with a star or round tip. Fill the bag halfway with frosting and pipe the frosting onto to the cupcakes or use an offset spatula to spread frosting onto cupcakes.

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.