It's Pumpkin Season

I love Fall for a few reasons including cool, brisk weather, leaves changing colors, warm apple cider, and pumpkin recipes. Well, considering I now live in the Sunshine State where today's weather was something like 90 degrees and sunny it doesn't look like I'll be experiencing cool, brisk weather here anytime soon. And the leaves changing colors...well, that just doesn't happen here. Believe it or not, palm trees don't change colors. So tonight, to get myself in the spirit of the Fall season, I decided to do a bit of baking. I originally intended just to make one batch of Pumpkin Cookies with Caramel frosting but once I got started baking I kind of got on a roll. I ended up making 2 batches of Pumpkin Cookies (one batch w/ walnuts and one batch without) which equals a little over 5 dozen cookies and I made 2 batches of Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins recipe courtesy of Sara.

The fruits of my labor (minus the cookies and muffins that Ryan and I snacked on this evening):


I must say that part of the reason that I kept going is that I was listening to a couple of really compelling sermons by a few great Reformed preachers. I had been wanting to listen to these sermons and I don't do well just sitting and listening so this was the perfect way for me listen to them. I felt like I spent an evening hanging out with Jesus (however corny that my sound). In any case, definitely check out the message about Baptism by Greg Blosser of Grace Central Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Ohio and these 2 messages about Hope for the World and Hope and the Poor by Tim Keller of Reedemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. The Gospel came alive again for me tonight as I listened to these messages. It's a love story that I will never tire of hearing.

But, let's get back to baking. So, here is seriously the world's best Pumpkin cookie recipe. I got it from my mom and I'm not sure where she got it from. She's been making these cookies for as long as I can remember and they are the definition of Fall for me. Plus, it helps that they are literally so easy to make. Also, I recommend refrigerating them after they are baked and topped with Caramel icing. For some reason, these cookies are delicious cold (served with a glass of milk, too, of course). Also, you can choose to put nuts in them or not. It's up to you. I used walnuts, but I'm pretty sure I've used pecans before and it was just as delicious. I also made some without any nuts, but I think I had to bake them just a minute or 2 longer.

Pumpkin Cookies

Combine ingredients:
1 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 cup pumpkin
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup nut (optional)
1 egg
2 cups flour
1 tsp soda
½ tsp salt

Drop by tsp on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 mins at 375 degrees.

You can tell if they're done by doing the toothpick trick.

The necessary ingredients for cookies:


Pumpkin Cookie Dough:


Cookies ready to be baked:


The final product. Yum:

I don't have any pictures of the cookies with the frosting on them.

Caramel Icing

Cook 3 Tbsp butter, 4 tsp milk ½ cup brown sugar. Cool (Actually, I think it's better if you just immediately add in the vanilla and conf. sugar). Add ¾ tsp vanilla and 1 cup conf. sugar and mix with a hand mixer. Since you're going to do this right in the pan, make sure you use a pan without nonstick coating b/c the handmixer could likely pull up the coating on the pan. Not that I have any experience with that or anything...ahem...right. One of my friends prefers the cookies w/out the icing as she thinks the icing is too rich, but I love the icing (who wouldn't love the sugary goodness?!?). So you may want to make some cookies with icing and some without.


I knew I wanted to make some sort of pumpkin bread or muffins and I remembered that my friend Sara had posted a recipe recently for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins. I decided to give them a try and honestly, I may have a new favorite pumpkin recipe. They are SO. INCREDIBLY. DELICIOUS. And they're pretty darn easy to make, too. When you check out Sara's blog, she wrote that she always doubles the recipes and recommends doing that. She's right. You'll want to double the recipe. It's that good. Seriously.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

This is for a single batch....you'll definitely want to double everything below. Yum!

Mix these ingredients well:
3/4 cup pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling . . . regular pureed pumpkin)
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon

Mix these ingredients in a separate bowl and then add gradually to the wet mixture until everything is combined:
1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Once everything is combined well to form a batter, add the chocolate chips. The recipe calls for 3/4 cup - which would be 1 1/2 cups if your doubling the recipe - but when I double the recipe, I add at least 2 cups. Probably a little bit more. The moral of the story: Add chocolate chips until you have your desired amount. I ended up just using a bag of chocolate chips which is about 1 1/2 cups, I believe.

Pour into a 9 x 5 loaf pan (or 2 - 9 x 5 loaf pans) and bake at 350. I think for around 50 minutes to an hour for loaves. More like 25 - 30 minutes for muffins. You know . . . until a knife comes out clean. I ended up baking the muffins for 27 minutes and they were perfect.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin Ingredients:


The wet & dry ingredients. (it doesn't look very appetizing at this point):


Finished batter with chocolate chips:


Baked muffiny goodness:



So there you have it. My evening of Pumpkiny goodness. I love making recipes with pumpkin in them...I may have to try out some more soon. In the meantime, try out my above recipes and let me know what you think. Enjoy :)