pumpkin coffee cake

Fall is here, though you might not know it by the ridiculously warm weather we are having in SoCal. But fall means pumpkin time! I finally got to make something with pumpkin this past weekend. I decided to make a tasty looking coffee cake that I saw at Recipe Girl. It was pretty tasty (and my co-workers decimated it). It wasn't my favorite though. I think I wanted something more like a pumpkin cake and this is like a coffee cake with a layer of pumpkin pie filling in the middle. Delicious but not what I had been craving. I think pumpkin donuts or pumpkin cupcakes are going to be next on my list. 

What are some of you favorite fall recipes?

Pumpkin Coffee Cake

adapted from recipegirl.com

Yield: 12 servings
Prep Time: 20 min
Cook Time: 50 min

CAKE:
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
One (16 ounce) can unsweetened pumpkin puree
1 large slightly beaten egg
1/3 cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

STREUSEL TOPPING:
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup butter, softened slightly
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, optional
Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Spray a 9x13-inch pan with nonstick spray.

2. Prepare cake: Use an electric mixer to cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla in a large bowl; add eggs and beat well. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Mix dry ingredients into the butter mixture half at a time, alternating with half of the sour cream. In another bowl, combine pumpkin, egg, 1/3 cup sugar, and pie spice. Keep separate.

3. Prepare topping: Mix the topping ingredients together with fork or hands until crumbly. Set aside.

4. Spoon half of the batter mixture into the prepared pan. Sprinkle half of the streusel topping over the batter. Spread the pumpkin mixture over the streusel. Carefully spread the remaining batter over the pumpkin mixture. Sprinkle remaining streusel on top.

5. Bake 45 to 50 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

monster cookies - rawr!

i can't believe it's may already. where is the year going? as you can see, my resolution to blog more really hasn't been working. sorry to the 3 people who actually read this blog. tonight, in a fit of baking mojo, i decided to make the monster cookies that i saw this week on recipe girl. these are well known cookies though i've never actually had them before. it's basically butter, sugar, oats and chocolate. you can totally make this gluten free if you use gluten free peanut butter, vanilla, oats, chocolate chips and M&M's. i would like to try making these gluten free some day.

no real issues with the recipe except that i ran out of oats and had to go get more in the middle of making them. and i used my large cookie scoop to make these. they're not mean to be petite. like recipe girl suggested, i dotted extra chips and M&Ms onto the uncooked mounds before baking so that they'd look prettier. and they do.

yeah there is flour in this pic. that's my bad. i totally pulled out the flour thinking that there was some in this recipe but nope, held together with peanut butter and love.

then throw in some pretty m&ms....

dotted my uncooked cookie mounds with MORE CHOCOLATE!

cook for 10 minutes....

and voila! giant cookies!

now here is the recipe from recipe girl

monster cookies
Yield: 36 regular sized or 22 giant cookies
Prep Time: 15 min
Cook Time: 10 min

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups creamy or chunky peanut butter
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated white sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 1/2 cups quick cooking oats
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup M&M's plain chocolate candies

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray cookie sheets with nonstick spray, or line with parchment paper or a silpat mats.

2. In a large bowl, combine the peanut butter with the sugars and butter. Use an electric mixer to mix until well combined. Mix in the eggs and vanilla. Mix in the oats and baking soda. Then stir in the chips and M&M's.

3. Drop the cookies by heaping spoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets. If you'd like your cookies to look pretty (like the photo), dot a few extra M&M's and chocolate chips on each mound of dough before baking.

4. Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Do not overbake. Cool for 5 minutes on cookie sheets until cookies are set. Transfer to wire racks; cool completely before storing in an airtight container.
Tips:

*If you are preparing this cookie as gluten-free, just be sure to make sure you are using brands of the following items that are known to be GF: peanut butter, vanilla, oats, chocolate chips and M&M's.
*If you'd prefer to make giant cookies, use an ice cream scoop instead to scoop the dough onto the cookie sheet. They'll need to bake for 18 to 20 minutes, and you'll end up with about 22 cookies.

i will be sharing these with my book club tomorrow morning. i already ate one cookie and wow, am i full. very easy to make and highly recommended. 

anyone have any good plans for tomorrow? i am going to read. and sleep. and read some more. and then maybe eat some cake. have a great weekend, everyone!

on friday

i am so glad that we've finally reached the end of the week. the days were really dragging. i have been trying to cook more in general decided to jump into making some chicken. i am usually too lazy to cook meat but this looked pretty easy.



here are the results. i took the recipe from the new real simple cookbook dinner tonight! i quite like this cookbook. everything is really simple and unfussy, just how i like it. i don't have the recipe on hand to give you but it was really easy. throw some cut potatoes and carrots (or whatever veggies you have on hand) into a baking pan with some olive oil and salt and pepper. stick a lemon and thyme in the bird (i didn't have lemons so i threw in some garlic). rub the chicken with butter, salt and pepper. throw everything in the oven for 65-75 min. and then you get a lovely chicken dinner that looks like you spent a lot of time on it but didn't. i will definitely be doing this again with different veggies and seasonings.

i also made a batch of cookies last night. i saw them on the hostess with the mostess blog and couldn't resist. those colors were just too awesome not to try. link to recipe here though i've copied it below for you. check out the blog - it's full of fun stuff.



THE BEST FROSTED SUGAR COOKIES* (from hostess with mostess)
{*in my own humble opinion}
Ingredients
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
3 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Directions
Preheat oven to 400º.
Mix dry ingredients in a bowl & set aside.
In a separate bowl, combine butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Beat until mixed well. Add the dry ingredients in slowly & mix well. Chill for at least an hour to stiffen the dough. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin & cut shapes with cookie cutters OR form dough balls and flatten into thick circles with your hands.
Bake 8-10 mins or until just the edges of cookies start to turn a very, very light golden brown. Don’t over-bake. For an extra-doughy consistency, remove the cookies before the edges start to brown.
*****
FROSTING:
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 Tbsp vanilla
3 Tbsp milk
1 egg yolk (optional)
5-6 cups powdered sugar (thicken to desired consistency)
food coloring
Whisk butter, vanilla, milk and egg yolk together. Slowly mix in powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, until the frosting reaches your desired consistency. If it gets too thick, add more milk in very small amounts, about 1 tsp at a time.

happy valentine's day

happy valentine's day, everyone! here are some gratuitous pics of cupcakes i made for the office.

rain, rain, rain

a pretty unimaginative title for my post but it's all i can think of as i sit here on the couch and listen to the rain falling outside. la has been hit with a lot of rain this season and a lot of people are quite confused by it. i, for one, enjoy the rain and am happy when it does so for more than just a day. as my friends at work can attest, this was quite possibly the longest week EVER. but the weekend is finally here and i plan on sleeping, knitting and reading as much as possible. knitting has been a little slow going lately. i have a bad case of startitis but i am trying to finish up old projects as much as possible. i have been doing some charity knitting lately and managed to finish a bulky knit hat this week.

my friend is modeling the hat here for me. i loved that her red scarf matched the hat so well. this was an improvised pattern. just co 72 stitches with a size 9 needle with some bulky single-ply yarn. it's a k2p2 pattern all the way to the top. i actually have a ton of this yarn leftover from a thrift store vest i frogged a few years ago. it's a little rough but i figured it would be good for outerwear. this one is for my friend's skid row charity organization and i hope to make a few more hats to donate before the end of the month.

the other exciting news this week is that lost is back! yes, i am still confused about what's going on, but that's the fun of lost. i love it and am looking forward to seeing how the end all comes about. to commemorate the event, we had a lost party complete with spam musubi (a hawaiian fae) and lost cupcakes.

spam musubi

lost cupcakes

the cupcakes came out a lot messier than planned but i still think they're cool. the planes are twinkies with graham cracker wings.

this weekend is also super bowl weekend which means it's time for the unwind super bowl sale! my friends and i will be getting in line early to camp out in front of the store. come join us if you dare brave the cold morning air. hope you all have a great weekend!