Pumpkin-Pecan Spice Cookies

For Pumpkin Season, my goal is to try a new pumpkin recipe each week. This week's recipe is from Betty Crocker and I've made a few changes in the preparations. These cookies are soft  yet held their shape well in baking. BC suggests a candy coating  drizzle for added flavor and decor. I didn't think they needed that as they are tasty and moist without it.

Pumpkin-Pecan Spice Cookies

1 ½ cups packed light brown sugar

½ cup butter or margarine, softened

2 eggs

½ cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)

3 teaspoons (1 Tablespoon) vanilla

2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

⅛ teaspoon ground allspice

⅛ teaspoon ground cloves

pinch ground cardamon

½ cup finely chopped pecans (I reduced this from the original recipe)

1 cup white vanilla baking chips ( increased this and used pumpkin flavored baking chips)

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease baking sheets or cover with parchment paper. 

2. In a large bowl beat brown sugar and softened butter on medium speed. Add eggs, pumpkin, and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder and spices. Stir in pecans and baking chips. Drop dough by tablespoons onto cookie sheet. 

3. Bake 12 minutes (between 10-14 minutes) or until edges are lightly browned. Remove to cooling rack. Cool completely, about 30 minutes. 

4. For candy coating drizzle, soften vanilla-flavored candy coating (almond bark) in a resealable plastic bag in the microwave. Gently squeeze bag until coating is smooth; cut off tiny corner of bag and squeeze bag to drizzle coating over cookies. Let stand until set. 

Look what I found at the big-city store - Pumpkin
Spice flavored baking chips!

Pumpkin Season

Is it really October? I think this month should be called "Pumpkintober". We celebrate the fall season with all sorts of pumpkin recipes. I love the pumpkin flavored recipes and have a grown son and son-in-law who claim pumpkin as their favorite flavor of treat (or maybe they're just 'tricking' me to bake more).
Pumpkins were also a favorite through history and story book times - "Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater", "Cinderella", and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" all wove pumpkins into their stories. The love and lore of pumpkins is repeated in history many times. The  Native Americans grew Three Sisters Crops of pumpkins, corn, and beans; the Irish created Jack-O-Lannterns to celebrate what later became Halloween; and the European settlers scooped out the insides to mix with cream, eggs and sugar for the first pumpkin pies.
Pumpkins are usually about 15 - 30 pounds, but can grow to hundreds of pounds. Pumpkin Weigh-Offs are held throughout the United States to record the largest pumpkins of the season. This year's Kansas State Fair winner at 457 pounds wasn't a record setter, that was set in 2007 at 976.2 pounds.

Here's the recipe I made last week when Son was visiting. I was also able to save some for Son-In-Law that we visited later in the week. It is moist, and stayed moist for several days (after I hid it in the refrigerator so it wouldn't be eaten too quickly).

For the glaze, I softened commercial canned frosting in the microwave enough to drizzle over the top.

Moist Pumpkin Bundt Cake                                      

When alternating wet and dry ingredients, always start
and end with dry ingredients. This method ensures that
ingredients are well blended without overbeating. 

 Ingredients

2 ½ cups sugar

1 cup canola oil

3 eggs

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

1 can (15 oz) solid pack pumpkin

(I also added 1 tsp. vanilla extract to enhance the flavors. You could use 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice instead of the individual spices)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, combine sugar and oil until blended. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and cloves; add to egg mixture alternately with pumpkin beating well after each addition.

Transfer to a greased 10-inch fluted tube pan. Bake 60-65 minutes or until toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack. Remove pan and cool completely. Dust with confectioners’ sugar or glaze.

Yield: 12-16 servings.