Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

I had originally intended these to be pumpkin and walnut cookies, but the kids out-voted me.  I made this recipe for our Halloween ‘Boo’s’ (an American tradition I’m trying to bring to Denmark) out of salvaged pumpkin from the jack-o-lantern we made.  Its a soft-cookie recipe, very yummy, very Autumn-y.  Oh, and just to repeat myself yet again, my metric-US system conversions are not exact and the US version will be slightly sweeter as a result.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

• 150g /a stick and a half, butter
• 2 eggs
• 100g/ half a cup, white sugar
• 100g /half a cup, brown sugar
• 1tsp vanilla extract (or 2.5 tsp vanilla sugar)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• a pinch of salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon (and/or nutmeg, and/or clove, and/or pumpkin pie spice.  Whatever you like and/or is available to you.)
• 320g/2.5 cups, flour
• 25g /probably about a cup, finely chopped fresh pumpkin (for those of you not making jack-o-lanterns or otherwise cutting up pumpkins this year, canned pumpkin should be fine, though I would use less than a cup if using canned and US measurments.)
• chocolate chips

Cook:

1. Pre-heat oven to 170′C/350′F ish
2. Mix ingredients in a large bowl roughly in the order listed
3. Drop cookies onto a parchment lined or greased pan and bake 10-12 minutes
4. Cool on a cooling rack

Yields about 30 average-sized cookies.

-Ariel

Apple-Cinnamon Pound Cake

Last night my host-dad’s mother came over after doing some hardcore apple picking in the afternoon.  We now have two large bowls of apples in the kitchen.  I already had plans for dinner (Jewish-Thai Fusion, I’ll blog about it once I see how it comes out) so I decided to make an apple-based dessert.  The kids I watch will eat anything in cake or cookie form, so that was my jumping off point.

Apple-Cinnamon Pound Cake

For this recipe I used a bundt cake pan.  Also please note that I am fully aware of the fact that my conversions between the US system and the metric system are not exact.  This hasn’t caused me any problems yet.

Ingredients  (Filling)

1. Three average-to-large peeled then grated apples (drain or squeeze out excess juice)
2. Brown sugar (enough to cover the apples)
3. A couple shakes of cinnamon (add nutmeg and/or clove as well, for more spice if you like)
4. Lemon juice (half a lemon/a couple squirts from the lemon juice thing)
5. Flour (enough to thicken the mixture)
6. A small handful of oatmeal

Ingredients (Cake)

1. 2 sticks of margarine/250g container of margerine
2. 8oz package of cream cheese/200g container of cream cheese
3. 1.5 cups sugar/300g sugar
4. 4 eggs
5. 2 tsp vanilla extract
6. 1-2 tsp cinnamon
7. 1.5 tsp baking powder
8. 2.25 cups flour/290g flour
9. Raisins and/or pecans/walnuts

Bake

1. Pre-heat oven to 325′F/160′C
2. Butter and flour the bundt pan
3. Peel and grate the apples.
4. In a medium bowl, mix the apples, lemon juice, enough brown sugar to lightly coat the apples, spices, and a couple tsp of flour to thicken the mixture and hold it together.  Ignore the oatmeal for now.
5. In a large bowl, mix the cake ingredients in one-at-a-time, in the order they are listed.  Mix after putting each individual food-item in bowl.  I use a fork or a whisk to do this, though if you prefer it thicker use a food processor.
6. Add half the cake batter to the pan, layer with about 2/3 of the filling, smooth, add the rest of the cake batter, top with remaining filling.  Sprinkle the oatmeal on top to give it a bit of a crunch.  Lightly pat the topping into the batter so that it sets.
7. Bake for 60-70 minutes.

Personally, I enjoy lightly grilling or toasting (in a toaster oven) a slice of this cake and eating it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.  Yum =]

-Ariel