Month: October 2019

Pumpkin, in cans or the real thing, is widely available in supermarkets for a relatively short period of time. Americans (and some Brits) carve pumpkins for Halloween which renders them useless as food. But they can be cooked and eaten like any other squash. Canned pumpkin is hidden away in the back corner of American supermarkets except for the run in to Thanksgiving when its ubiquitous. Pumpkin pie is a given for most Thanksgiving tables.

The Davinator was very surprised that pumpkin pie is a dessert. Of course, many aspects of American food have bemused him over the years. I sympathise with his desire why pumpkin pie is a dessert and sweet potato and marshmallow casserole is not. Again, a topic for another day and another blog.

I wanted tinned pumpkin without paying for the stuff imported from the USA and sold in our local garden centre in the American speciality food section. Because I didn’t want to have to take out a mortgage to buy it. I think I may do a separate blog on garden centres because this is a retail establishment that I don’t think you find in America. Back to the pumpkin quest. I went on line and found a UK based brand. Then I had to buy a dozen cans to make the shipping reasonable. And there I was with 11 more cans of pumpkin than I really wanted.

What to do with excess pumpkin? Not a huge problem as pumpkin is lovely in bread, rolls, muffins and cupcakes. More of a storage issue as it’s not going to expire until 2021. These pumpkin chocolate chip cookies were the biggest hit of the various ‘things I did with pumpkin’.

Now on to the real problem. The recipe below makes 30 to 36 cookies. Unless you double the recipe you will only use half a normal can of pumpkin. Readers will know I hate to throw out food. So, I made a loaf of pumpkin bread that nicely used up the rest of the can. The pumpkin bread is coming in a separate blog and I will link to it from here.

This recipe can be easily adapted for vegans. The pumpkin does the job of eggs so none needed. You can replace the butter with margarine or unrefined coconut oil. Both are solid at room temperature and so give the ‘spring’ that butter will.

Time to get baking.

Recipe – makes 36 cookies

Ingredients

• 225 grams unsalted butter, melted and cooled (USA two stick) (substitute as discussed above for vegan friendly)
• 100 grams brown sugar (light or dark)
• 200 grams caster (white) sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 185 grams pumpkin puree NOT pumpkin pie filling (a bit less than half of a standard 15 ounce can)
• 380 grams plain white flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice or allspice mix
• 180 grams dark chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 60 grams of pecans, chopped small (optional)

Instructions

1. Whisk together the butter and the sugars until lump free. Add in the pumpkin and vanilla, beat until smooth.
2. Whisk the dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and spice together.
3. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Add in the chocolate chips and then the nuts if using. The dough will seem very wet.
4. Cover the dough and then chill for at least 45 minutes. I left mine for a couple of hours and went to spinning. (Ignore the virtue signalling here).
5. Preheat your oven to 175C or 350F. Get your baking sheets ready. I’m newly converted to ‘silimats’ or silicone baking mats instead of parchment. They work well and seem to last for ever.
6. Scoop out the dough with a small trigger scoop or a tablespoon. I weigh mine – with each scoop of dough weighing 35 – 40 grams. Please feel free to eyeball these at about a tablespoon and a half. Precision has limited benefits to cookies – it makes me feel better though.
7. Roll your scoops of dough into balls. Place on the baking sheets and flatten the tops with a spoon or your fingers.
8. Bake for about 10 minutes. The cookies will look set on the outside and wet in the middle. Take out of the oven. Leave to cool and set on the baking sheets for another 10 minutes. Then move to a rack for final cooling.
9. If you want to make these a little more chocolatey you can press a Hershey’s kiss or a big chocolate drop on the top of the cookies when they first come out of the oven.

I really like the consistency of these cookies – I’m a chewy cookie kind of person not a crunchy cookie biscuit person.

Please leave comments, please share photos if you’re baking from the recipes: @mamadolson on Twitter and Instagram, Mama Dolson’s Bakery on Facebook. Requests always welcome.

Who doesn’t love a cinnamon roll or a lightly toasted slice of cinnamon bread with just enough raisins? There were a number of false starts before we arrived at the lovely golden brown destination. I resorted to the heavy artillery and consulted Cook’s Illustrated after several less than satisfactory attempts and inconsistent outcomes.

Readers of the blog will know – Cook’s Illustrated, IMHO, is one of the few cooking websites worth paying for. Why? They apply science and sweat to cooking problems. The cinnamon swirl bread recipe that I used as the foundation for the recipe below is a case in point. I have adapted some of the methods and tweaked the ingredients but the genius is theirs.

Several warnings before you read on. Equipment – you must have a KitchenAid or equivalent mixer to knead the dough. I don’t think it can be hand kneaded or done by stretch and fold. Ingredients – you are unlikely to have dry powdered skim milk in your store cupboard. It’s important for texture and lightness for the dough. Nerves of steel – after 10 minutes of machine kneading you will be convinced that the dough is not going to come together. Trust me, it does. Instructions – the folding and braiding instructions seem complicated but aren’t. Be methodical.

If you haven’t running screaming back to an easier recipe, bake on!

Ingredients

Dough

• 55 grams unsalted butter
• 290 grams strong white bread flour
• 40 grams skim dry milk powder (sift to get rid of lumps if necessary)
• 35 grams caster sugar
• 1 1/2teaspoons active dry yeast
• 170 mls warm water (55 C)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 100 grams raisins
• 1 medium egg

Filling

• 55 grams icing sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt

Egg wash

• 1 medium egg lightly beaten with a pinch of salt

Instructions

1. Cut the butter into 16 pieces, toss with a tablespoon of flour to coat. Set aside.
2. Whisk together the flour, milk powder, yeast (do not add the salt yet) in the bowl of your KitchenAid (other stand mixers are available but mine is 25 years old and going strong). Attach the dough hook.
3. Add the water and the egg and mix on low speed until a cohesive dough forms. It will not pull away from the sides of bowl and will seem sticky. Scrape down the sides. Cover with plastic wrap or a shower cap. Leave to rest for 20 minutes.
4. Remove the shower cap, add the salt and knead on low speed until the dough is smooth and elastic. This can be as quick as 8 minutes or up to 15 minutes. The mixture will seem sticky and will not form a ball of dough. Yet.
5. With the mixer still running, add the butter a few pieces at a time and continue kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic. This is the point where you might start to think ‘this will never work’. It does. As the butter is incorporated the dough starts to form, clears the sides of the bowl and you relax. This might take another 3 to 5 minutes.
6. Add the raisins and give it another 60 seconds of mixing. Using a dough scraper, transfer the dough to a large greased bowl. Do a series of eight clock folds; lifting the edge of the dough, pulling it towards the centre and turning the bowl.
7. Cover the dough tightly with plastic wrap. Leave to double in size. After an hour, do another series of clock folds. The first rise may take several hours. I did the first hour on the work bench and then the rest overnight in the refrigerator. As always, the timing of the rise this depends on the temperature of your kitchen.
8. Make the filling by whisking the dry ingredients together and adding the vanilla. It will look very dry.
9. Prep your loaf pan. Either grease well with a hard fat (butter or Trex or Crisco) or line with paper.
10. Lightly flour your work surface. Turn to dough out on to the work surface. Shape into a rough rectangle (15 cms by 27 cms) and fold top third to the middle and bottom third over both. Turn lengthwise, roll away from you into a rough ball. Dust the ball with flour. Flatten with a rolling pin to a rectangle 18 cm by 45 cm. It should about 1 cm thick and fairly even.
11. Spray or sprinkle the dough lightly with water. This makes the filling stick. Be abstemious with the water. Sprinkle the filling over the top, leave clean margins on all sides of the rectangle. Spray it again with water and roll up into a cylinder staring with short side. It should be a firm cylinder that it is about 20 cms in length. Tuck in the ends. Dust lightly with flour, cover with a towel and allow to rest for 10 minutes.
12. Clean your work surface. Gently stretch the cylinder out to roughly twice its original length. Cut it in half with a bench knife or scraper. Turn the pieces so the cut sides are facing up. Pinch the top ends of the two pieces together (you’re going to do a Russian braid or twist). Take the piece on the left, cross it over the piece on the right. Repeat left over right trying to keep the cut sides facing up until the pieces are twisted tightly together. Pinch the bottom of the two pieces together. Poke any raisins back into the dough. Gently transfer to your prepared pan.
13. Allow to rise until almost doubled in size meanwhile preheating your oven to 170 C. Brush the loaf with your egg wash. Bake for 20 minutes until the top is well browned. Reduce the oven temperature to 160 C and cover the loaf with foil. Continue to bake for another 20 to 25 minutes. Your thermometer should register 90-95 C when the bread is baked.

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