Pumpkin Week 2012 - Pumpkin Cake…Literally :)

So at first I wasn’t sure how to end Pumpkin Week 2012, but then my sister, Meredith, was coming for a visit and since I wasn’t there for her birthday I decided to make her a cake.  I was inspired by yesterday’s post of favourites.  Amanda from I Am Baker’s pumpkin cake.  Well not the high tech innards, but just the pumpkin design itself.

So I made her this cake.

The cake itself is a chocolate pumpkin cake and it’s iced with a vanilla bean buttercream.

Recipe: Pumpkin Chocolate Cake

For Two 10x 2-inch cakes (55-70mins)

• 4 cups plus 2 tbls flour
• 3/4 cup plus 1 tbls cocoa
• 2 scant tsp baking soda
• 2 scant tsp baking powder
• 2/3 tsp salt
• 5 large eggs
• 2 1/2 cup greek yogurt
• 3 sticks unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 2 scant cups sugar
• 3/4 cup plus 2tbls packed light brown sugar

1. Preheat oven t 350 degrees.
2. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.
3. Cream butter, pumpkin puree and sugars together.
4. Add eggs, one at a time.
5. Alternate adding yogurt and flour mix until just combined.
6. Divide into three 9” pans.
7. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
8. Let cool and ice.

Recipe: Vanilla Bean Buttercream

• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 1 cup shortening
• 8 cups icing sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 tsp vanilla bean paste

1. Cream butter and shortening together.
2. Add icing sugar.
3. Add milk 1/4 at a time.  If too firm add more milk 1 tbsp at a time.
4. Add vanilla bean paste.
5. Colour as required.

I hope you enjoyed this years Pumpkin Week, I know I did!  Until next year.

Also don’t forget that I’m holding a Jack-O-Lantern contest.  Your carved pumpkins or a decorated version (cake or cookie).  Just upload them to my Facebook page or email me your submission at trilogyedibles@hotmail.com.  The judges are my daughters, so I take no accountability :)  The prize will be fun and yet to be purchased. There will be one for carved and one for edible. It’s just a totally fun contest.  So let’s see your fun pumpkins.

Thanks for looking!

Pumpkin Week 2012 - The Favourites!

Everyone who reads a blog always wonders what the bloggers favourites are, so I asked several of my and yours favourite bloggers what their favourite pumpkin recipe was or their favourite pumpkin themed treat was and this is what they said!

Haniela’s – Hani’s favourite from this year is her Black Cat Chevron Pumpkin Cookies

The Baked Equation – Melissa sent in two of her favourites.  Her’s is Pumpkin Spice Caramel Corn

And Melissa’s favourite from another blogger are the Pumpkin Fritters from Not Your Momma’s Cookie. 

Sweetology – Trisha’s favourite recipe are her Pumpkin Kolache’s with Cinnamon Cream

Sweet Things Toronto – Juanita submitted the most adorable Halloween themed cake (with a pumpkin) that I’ve ever seen.

Flour Box Bakery – Anne’s anything but a jack-o-lantern cookies are so amazing.  I love that she didn’t feel the need to make them the expected way!

The 21st Century Housewife – April submitted her favourite pumpkin cake from a post earlier this fall.

Jill FCS – Jill, as you know spear headed the Go Bo Bake sale and wanted to share with you LilaLoa’s awesome cookies as her favourites from this year!  In her words “Not only are these modern and funky and awesome, but they were designed and made by the biggest heart ever. They totally epitomize Bo’s message — “Love each other, help each other, have your neighbor's back. If you see someone in need — even a stranger — reach out and help. This world can be a better place if we care and help each other.”

Sparkling Sugar Sweets – Brandy went a different way, she decided to share with you her favourite pumpkin dog treat.

Bake at 350 – Bridget shares with you her favourite pumpkin chocolate chip bar that she says they make every year!

Crazy For Crust – Dorothy wanted to share her Pumpkin Cheesecakes with Biscoff crust and Meringue Ghosts!  These are super cute indeed!

The Partiologist – Kim submitted the cutest pumpkins imaginable with her Popcorn Ball Pumpkins. 

MyCakeSchool.com – Melissa, as you know, makes some pretty amazing cakes and shares her tips on her website but she wanted to submit I Am Baker’s fun surprise cake – “I Am Baker has my vote for her surprise on the inside pumpkin cake from a while back-- it makes me smile!”

I want to thank all these amazing bloggy friends for participating in this years Pumpkin Week 2012!

I hope you’ll stop by each one and tell them hi from me :)

Thanks for looking!

Pumpkin Week 2012–Pumpkin Swirl Brownies

So if you are new to Trilogy Edibles you may not know that our family is crazy nuts for brownies.  I’ve made them several ways.  When thinking up different recipes to use for this years Pumpkin Week, I knew I had to make a brownie.

Sure, anyone can just throw pumpkin in place of some of the butter, but I wanted to make these extra special.

Now after all the raspberry swirl cheesecake bars, I guess the swirl was the way to go.  But my regular brownie recipe has the cocoa incorporated early and then I thought, it’s time for a switch up.  So I kept the cocoa out and when the batter was made, I then split it in half and put 2/3rds the cocoa into one half and 1/2 cup pumpkin into the other.

The pumpkin side was much thinner than the chocolate but when swirled, it came together quite beautifully.  These are moist and light and just fabulous tasting, certainly giving the original a run for it’s money.

Recipe:

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 1/3 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 2/3 cup cocoa
• 1 cup chocolate chips

1. Melt butter and add in sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, eggs and vanilla.
2. Divide into two bowls.
3. In first bowl, add pumpkin puree and mix together.
4. In second bowl, add cocoa and chocolate chips.  Mix together.
5. In prepared 8”x8” square pan, pour in chocolate batter.
6. Pour the pumpkin batter on top of chocolate and then stir to get a swirl.  Since the chocolate is thicker, you’ll need to stir from the bottom up.
7. Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes, until knife inserted comes out clean.
8. Let cool and cut into squares.
9. Enjoy!

These were pretty damn good warm (sometimes a girl just can’t wait).  I think I’ve gained all the weight I’ve lost with all these pumpkin recipes.

Thanks for looking!

Treat Day Wednesday–Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oh yes, I pumpkinized treat day but shhhhh don’t tell the kids:)  Well not yet anyway.

Sometimes you gotta do whatever you can to get them to try different things. To Abby and Rowan these are just chocolate chip cookies and the girls just gobble them up.  What they really are, are pumpkin in place of half the butter, so in fact they are low fat oatmeal chocolate chip cookies :)

Is it wrong to lie to your kids?  Absolutely!  I totally told them what was in them after they said they loved them.

Recipe:

• 1/4 cup softened unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• 1 cup plus 2 tbsp unbleached flour
• 1/2 cup quick oats
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cup chocolate chips

1. Cream butter, pumpkin and sugars until fluffy.
2. Add egg and vanilla.
3. Add the remaining dry ingredients.
4. Using a small ice cream, scoop onto baking sheet.  Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.
5. Let cool
6. Enjoy!

These cookies are delish (the dough is pretty awesome too, yes I ate some.  Don’t judge).  So next time you make cookies, replace half the butter with pumpkin.  Trust me!

Thanks for looking!

Pumpkin Week 2012 - Pumpkin Gingerbread Streusel Muffins

Day two of pumpkin week is upon us! I never thought that pumpkin was so versatile, so I am pleasantly surprised.  I mean I’ve been using pumpkin in place of oil for a long time, but rarely let the pumpkin shine for the main flavour.  As I was thinking up ideas for this years recipes, I tried to think of things that I thought would go together and I believe today’s combination is one that will stand the test of time.

Not only does pumpkin and chocolate go together, so does pumpkin and gingerbread!  I mean way better than I could have hoped for :)  I love gingerbread, both in cookie form and in loaf form.  Adding the pumpkin really makes a moist muffin and in my opinion, that’s essential.  There is nothing worse than a dry muffin.

Recipe:

Struesel:

• 1/4 unbleached flour
• 1/4 packed brown sugar
• 1/4 dry oats
• 2 tbsp cold butter

1. Combine flour, sugar and oats. 
2. Cut butter into the dry ingredients until it looks like lumpy oatmeal
3. Set aside.

Muffin:

• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 2 1/2 cups unbleached flour
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup dark molasses
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp pumpkin spice mix
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt

1. Cream butter and sugar together.
2. Add remaining ingredients and combine until well mixed.
3. Using a large ice cream scoop, scoop into prepared muffin pan.
4. Top with streusel.
5. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
6. Let cool and enjoy!

These would be an excellent addition to any brunch or with a big ol’ cup of tea (that’s how I roll)!

I hope you enjoyed today’s pumpkin recipe and thanks for looking!

Sharing With These Pages including Today’s Creative Blog

Pumpkin Week 2012–Pumpkin Spice Fudge Dip!

Welcome to 2012’s edition of Pumpkin Week.  Last year was a lot of fun, but I think the recipes I’ve put together for this week are even better.  I’ve also asked your favourite bloggers what their favourite recipes or pumpkin inspired cakes and cookies are and I’ll be compiling them on Friday.  Yup you’ll have to wait :)

First up, as the blog post title indicates is Pumpkin Spice Fudge Dip.  I LOVE FUDGE, my hips not so much.  Something about the sweetness and the crubliness (I know it’s not a word) makes fudge one of my all time favourite treats.  I thought, how would it work as a dip?  Well let me tell you, AWESOME!

Now there are many ways to make fudge but I think the easy fudge tastes just as good as the fudge that takes forever to make.  And really, who’s got that kind of time these days????  So that’s what I did.  I made the quick fudge and then by adding the pumpkin puree to it, kept the fudge super soft so it would work well as a dip.  Grab your favourite cookie or pie crust dippers and dip away!  Careful, it’s addictive and sadly not low calorie :)

Recipe:

• 1 pound white chocolate pieces
• 1 can condensed milk
• 4 tbsp pumpkin puree
• 2 tsp pumpkin spice blend

1. In a medium saucepan over med-high heat, mix all ingredients together until chocolate melts.
2. Pour into bowl.
3. Chill until set.
4. Enjoy!

See! Simple, easy and divine!

So I hope you’ll stay with me this week for some pretty awesome pumpkin desserts!

Thanks for looking!

Treat Day Wednesday–Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

Some days it’s a challenge to think up something for treat day and some days, not so much.  Today was that day.  I just wanted to bake.  I had the itch to bake and I had the itch to make these, Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes.  I always find cupcakes so heavy but these are oh so light.  Using pumpkin puree removes the fat, which we all love and then adding the pumpkin spice adds a little something something!

They are so moist too which means no need for frosting.  I mean you can, totally, but it’s not needed.

Recipe:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa (best quality available)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 2 teaspoons pumpkin spice blend
• 1 cup boiling water

Directions

1. Prepare muffin tins, I used both small and normal size.  pre-heat oven to 350*F.
2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. Add eggs, milk, pumpkin and spices.  Beat for one minute.
4. Stir in boiling water (the batter will be thin, don't worry, this is right).
5. Fill liners 2/3 full with batter. 
6. Bake for 20-25 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.
7. Cool completely then decorate!

I had all these fun Halloweeny sprinkles and just decided to dip the tops of the cupcakes into them.  They look so fun and festive!

I also used my heart shaped donut pan and used these for the girls treat day!  I took some marshmallow ghosts and added some eyes, they loved them!

It’s also a fairly big batch.  It made 12 regular cupcakes, 24 mini cupcakes, 6 heart shaped donuts and 1 mini heart cake.    All the extra’s went into Rob’s work because they are so not on the diet!  Yes, low fat but sadly sugar also heads right for my hips :)

So if you are looking for a low fat, yummy goodness cupcakes, these be the ones!

Thanks for looking!

Pumpkin Chocolate Roll-Out Sugar Cookies

Have you ever tried the infamous LilaLoa chocolate sugar cookie?  Ok, if you have then you know and if you haven’t, stop and go make them.  I’ll wait (foot tapping)…

Huh? huh?  awesome right!  Possibly the best cookie ever.  But it’s that time of the year where there is pumpkin in everything and so I thought, what the heck, let’s see if I can “pumpkinize” this cookie.

Now first I emailed Georganne to see if she would be ok with me doing this and of course she said yes, because she’s awesome!  I did tell her that if it went well she would get all the kudos and if it didn’t we would never speak of it again.  So since I’m telling you all about it, guess which way it went?

AWESOME!

It wasn’t a hard translation, I just took one 1/2 cup of butter out and inserted 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree.  Simple and wonderful.

The cookies are a little more “cakey” with a very rich flavour.  I honestly think that pumpkin really enhances chocolate, plus the slightly lower calories and fat content doesn’t hurt either.  It honestly isn’t much but it makes me feel better when I eat like 10 of them.

For the original recipe you can find it here.  You can spend some time looking around too, lots of fun stuff to see at Georganne’s Lilaloa.

Now with this awesome recipe, I made my good friend some birthday cookies.

Thanks for looking!

Pumpkin Spice Cut-Out Sugar Cookies

Now I’ve made a pumpkin spice sugar cookie before, but they were drop cookies and didn’t hold their shape.  These hold their shape and the taste is divine.  It wasn’t rocket science either.  I just took my basic sugar cookie recipe and added a teaspoon and half of pumpkie pie spice instead of vanilla and voila, the perfect balance of sugar and spice!

So as you can see I didn’t reach much on this but when a recipe is right in your face you just have to go for it!

Pumpkin Spice Sugar Cookies:

• 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin spice blend
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and spice. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for until cool!
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

I can’t begin to tell you how yummy these are and I didn’t even ice them.  Divine they would be!  I mean you know I can decorate a cookie and more will come in the next couple weeks but I thought just a plain and simple recipe would satiate you all for now :)  These would be perfect with a cup of tea, an after dinner snack or a little something special in your loved ones lunch bag!

I hope you enjoy them, it took every fiber of my being to not eat the 12 I made the first go around.

Thanks for looking!

Spookie Pumpkin Carriages in the 20+ Ways to Use a Pumpkin Cutter

The uber talented Callye from The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle asked me if I wanted to take part in her pumpkin cookie cutter challenge and I immediately said YES!!!!!  I was so excited and I’m not sure why; maybe it’s because I have two very vocal want to be princesses in my house but I automatically went to Cinderella’s carriage. However, it’s the wrong season, so I decided to spook it up a bit.  And just for fun I’m going to show you how I did it!

Make your favourite cookie dough and roll it out.  Use your pumpkin cutter and cut out a few.

Using a small circle cutter, or for me the open end of a large tip, make wheel holes and then wheels.

Using an edible market, sketch out your carriage.

Outline and flood

Decorate and have fun!

Then there’s the placement for the photo shoot with my new purchases from Home Goods!

So if you liked these you’ll love the other oh so awesome use of the pumpkin cutters and the amazing talent who made them.  Please check them out!

1. Panda Calaveras, Miss Cuit

2. Owl S’mores on a Stick, Kitchen Fun with my Three Sons

3. Pumpkin Cheesecake Pasties, Bakingdom

4. Halloween Pumpkin Wall, Arty McGoo

5. Cocoa Krispies Trick or Treat Bears, Hungry Happenings

6. Creative Cherry Cookies, Lila Loa

7. The Ultimate Halloween Candy Bar, Dollhouse Bake Shoppe

8. Halloween Pumpkin Carriage Cookie, Trilogy Edibles

9. Easy Cheveron Pumpkin Cookies, Lizy B Bakes

10. Pumpkin Fudge on a Stick, The Decorated Cookie

11. Funny Face Pumpkin Cookies, Munchkin Munchies

12. Woodland Owl Cookies, The Bearfoot Baker

13. Pumpkin Cheesecake Hand Pies, Created by Diane

14. Wide Eyed Owl Cookies, Simply Sweets by Honeybee

15. Zombie Girl and Brains Cookies, Not Your Momma’s Cookies

16. Cookie Cutter Pumpkin Fudge, The Partiologist

17. 3-D Pumpkin Cookie, Cookie Crazie

18. Faberge-Style Pumpkin Coach, Oh, Sugar Events

19. Peek-a-Boo Pumpkin Cupcake Topper, Sweetology 101

20. Slimy Green Ghost Cookies, Pink Little Cake

21. Silly Pumpkin Face Cookies, Klickitat Street

22. Pretty Painted Pumpkin Cookies, Glorious Treats

23. Lalaloopsie Cookies with a Twist, SweetSugarBelle

Thanks for looking!

Martha Monday–Pumpkin Cookies w/ Brown Butter Icing

It’s week two of Martha Monday and I hope you enjoyed last weeks Gingersnap Palmiers.  This week’s cookie was chosen by my awesome friend, Catherine.  Who is also Rob’s sister!  She surprised the girls with a visit from Aunt CC and it’s been go, go, go all weekend. I asked our illustrious guest to choose this week’s cookie and, of course, be a taste tester as well.

After going through the book a few times, she choose the Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Butter Icing on page 197 in the Cakey and Tender section.  As I had just made some chocolate cupcakes for our street party, I had some pumpkin in the fridge, so it was easy to agree and take on this cookie.  I actually had everything required in the recipe in the pantry, yay me!

I was a bit taken off at first because the full recipe yields 6 dozen cookies.  Even if they were the best cookies ever we’d never eat them all and only so many friends would be willing to take them after I pawned off the cupcakes.  So I split the recipe.  This is sometimes tricky, but alas it worked out quite fine.  I got almost 3 dozen.

I’d also never had brown butter icing before and when I first read it I thought it was brown sugar, but nope it’s browned butter.  It was delish.  The brown specks are the browned butter bits.

Easy/Hard:  This is a super easy recipe.  You also don’t have to chill or cut out.  You do, however, require a pastry bag to pipe them.  In a pinch you could pipe them by putting the batter into a large Ziploc bag and cutting the corner.  The hardest part was making sure when you piped the cookies, they were all roughly the same size.  I was close, but by no means perfect.

Ingredient availability: There is nothing in this recipe that you can’t get at the local grocery store.

What I like about this cookie:  I loved the texture.  I’m partial to the more substantial cookie and with this cakey consistency the cookie held up really well. Unless you want to make them bigger, the suggested 1 1/2 inch circles are a perfect size.

Baking experience: Because I had to half the recipe, I wrote down the newer recipe on a piece of paper and wasn’t paying attention and put 3/4 cup evaporated milk and left out the pumpkin.  When in actual fact I needed half of 3/4 cups of milk and 3/4 cup of pumpkin.  Oops, so to make it not too runny, I cut the pumpkin to 1/2 cup.  So that’s really more of a “read the recipe correctly” issue as oppose to a baking issue.  I also halved the icing recipe.  If you want a decent amount of icing on the full cookie, make a full batch as it will keep in the fridge for a while.  The 1 tsp recommendation in the recipe barely covers the cookie in a thin coating so I was more generous with the amounts and then I ran out and didn’t have enough for all my cookies. It’s ok, they are fabulous naked!  When making the icing, be careful not to burn the butter, once it starts to brown, it does so really fast.  Remove from heat and continue to stir until you get a lovely golden brown colour with lots of dark brown specks.

Taste: I’ve never had brown butter icing before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  OMG I may put it on anything.  It has a caramel/nutty flavour that makes you want to go back for more.  The cookie itself was light and flavourful and although I left out 1/4 cup pumpkin, the pumpkin flavour came through.  I would definitely  make these again.  The only issue I have is you can’t stack the cookies to store them because the icing is soft. So unless you are having a big party or giving them away, make the half batch.

If you think you’d like the recipe, you can find it here on Martha’s website as well as the book!

So that’s this week’s Martha Monday, I hope you enjoyed!

Thanks for looking!

Linking with:
Joy of Desserts
Mingle Monday
Melt in Your Mouth Monday
Mangia Mondays
Made by You Monday
Tea Party Tuesday
Get Your Craft On
Handmade Tuesdays
Hearth & Soul Hop