Ingredients for Pumpkin Cookies

Pumpkin Puree

You can use canned pumpkin or fresh pumpkin for this recipe. I like to cook a pumpkin or two at the beginning of the fall season and freeze my pumpkin puree for all my pumpkin recipes throughout the festive months. If you are using a whole pumpkin check out my post on how to make pumpkin puree.

Flour

In most of my recipes I like to use 1/2 all purpose 1/2 whole wheat but for these cookies I choose to use 100% All Purpose Flour. All purpose has a much lighter texture insuring a the soft, light texture to our cookie. Whole wheat flours can make them more dense and may not meet your dessert expectations.

Brown Sugar

Brown sugar is our sweetener. It is important to use brown sugar for it molasses content. We will also be adding additional molasses so if you don’t have brown sugar you and simply substitute with regular granulated sugar or Monk Fruit Sweetener and double the amount of molasses the recipe calls for.

I like to use organic cane sugar from Azure Standard. If you’ve never heard from azure standard before you should check our my Azure Standard Review to learn more.

To Learn more about how to make brown sugar here is my recipes

Butter

Because of the pumpkin puree we will use about 1/2 of the normal amount of butter that you would normally see in a cookie recipe. This produces more of a soft cake like cookie rather than a chewy cookie.

Eggs

Eggs help our cookie from crumbling. They help holds everything together and is a part of the rising action and helps determine the crumbliness or chewiness of your cookie. This recipe calls for two eggs. But after reading “Cookie Science: How Do Eggs Affect My Cookies?” I might try double yoke and one white instead of 2 whole eggs. For now I’m keeping it simple also cause it works. 2 eggs.

Molasses

Molasses is a rich in nutrient, color, and flavor, thick syrup that we get from sugar cane. I use blackstrap molasses for its nutrient benefits in smoothie, pasta sauces, chili, breakfast muffins, and more. Although we have molasses in our brown sugar I added more to enrich the flavor and texture of this cookie while adding extra nutrients and taking out a little saturated fats by using less butter than normal.

Baking Soda and Baking Powder

This recipe calls for both baking soda and baking powder. Baking soda is activated as soon as it is mixed in with another acidic ingredient. In our case, brown sugar BUT because the brown sugar and butter is mixed together first the baking soda and acidic brown sugar will not activate until the butter melt from around the brown sugar.

The baking powder is also activated at the mixing point but also has some agents in it that need heat to insure activation. So although baking soda and baking powder are very similar we find that one is activated more by acidity and the other is activated more by heat.

Vanilla

I like to use vanilla powder rather than extract. You can find the vanilla powder on amazon. This powder is a 1:1 ratio for vanilla extract so you don’t have to do any extra math when substituting. I like the flavor a lot and its been a great addition to my pantry.

Spices

Our spices include cinnamon, ginger, all-spice. These spices add so much flavor and you can easily adjust the amounts and create a whole new flavor. If you favor one flavor over the other you can experiment by adding a extra 1/4 teaspoon to the spice you want to stand out. Reduce another spice you want to be more subtle then the others.

Salt

Enhance the flavor with good salt like Redmond Real Salt. If you are looking for a unrefined natural salt with multiple minerals and electrolytes harvested in the United States of America, then look no further. Redmond Real Salt is full of flavor and nutrients and harvested out of the ancient seabed deep beneath Central Utah.

How To Make Gingerbread Molasses Cookies

Mix Butter & Brown Sugar

In a large bowl or stand mixer, mix soft butter and brown sugar together. This is important to the chemical reaction that we want to get a perfect cookie.

Add Wet ingredients

Add pumpkin puree, eggs and molasses to the butter and sugar mixture and combine thoroughly.

Add Dry Ingredients

Next, add the four, spices and baking soda and powder.

Refrigerate

Once the cookie dough is all mixed together refrigerate for a least 30 minutes, 1 hour is best. We want to refrigerate so that the dough is easy to roll into a ball. If the cookies are not clean round balls they will look a little messy and bumpy and hard to frost with the white chocolate icing.

Form and Bake

Take spoon or cookie scoop and form a nice clean round cookie dough ball. At this point you can dip into cinnamon and sugar before baking or just leave plain. If you don’t plan on making the white chocolate icing then I do think you should roll it in some cinnamon and sugar.

Bake in the oven for 8 minutes at 350 degrees.

Ingredients for White Chocolate Icing

White chocolate chips

You can also use white chocolate baking squares or bars but white chocolate chips work really well too.

Milk

White chocolate does not melt the same way as regular coco chocolate chips. White chocolate likes to stay thick and need the milk to help smooth it out and make it spreadable.

Butter

Butter also help the white chocolate chips break down to something more workable without adding to much liquid.

Make While Chocolate Icing.

In a sauce pan on medium high heat melt the white chocolate chips, butter and milk together. do not let it boil, just get it hot and melted and smooth.

Take off the heat and dip the cookies into the white chocolate and let cool on a cooling rack. Or you can take a fork or spoon and drizzle the icing on the cookies for fun designs.

If you white chocolate cools down to fast it will not be workable. Simply reheat and continue to drizzle or dip your cookies.

Pumpkin Gingerbread Cookies

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Additional Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes

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Ingredients

Pumpkin Gingerbread Cookie Dough

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• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses (1 1/2 tablespoons light molasses)
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon all-spice

White Chocolate Icing

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• 1/2 cup white chocolate chip
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 3 tablespoons milk

Cinnamon Sugar

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• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoon cinnamon

Instructions

Pumpkin Gingerbread Cookies

1. In a large bowl or you stand mixture, beat together the the sugar and brown sugar
2. Add the pumpkin puree, eggs and molasses and mix all together.
3. Now add the dry ingredients, flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, all-spice and vanilla.
4. Once it is all mix refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, 1 hour is best if you have the time. This will make the cookies easier to form into a clean circle.
5. Take a spoon or cookie do scoop and form smooth cookie dough balls. If desired roll them in your cinnamon sugar at this time.
6. Bake the cookies at 350 for 8 minutes.
7. let cool and drizzle or dip into your white chocolate.

White Chocolate Icing

1. Pour the white chocolate chips, butter and milk into a sauce pan and heat on a medium-high heat.
2. Once melted and mix together take off of the heat and dip the cookies or drizzle on top of the cookies while it is still hot. If it cools down and hardens simple reheat and continue.

The post Gingerbread Pumpkin Cookies Recipe (White Chocolate icing) appeared first on Embracing The Home.

To be honest, I don’t know that I will do this again. Mainly because my kids didn’t like the soup. I like it. When I blended the soup the next day my kids liked it better. Cooking it in the shell worked, but had some difficulties. I will share the process and to help you have success in your creative dinner making.

How to Cook Pumpkin Soup in a Pumpkin Shell

Choose Your Pumpkin

Choose a medium to large size pumpkin. You want the pumpkin to be big enough to fit all your soup fillings but small enough to fit in your pot or pan that you are baking it in.

Clean The Pumpkin

Wash the outside of the pumpkin. For cleanliness sake, we wash the outside of the pumpkin because we are using it as our bowl for out food.

Cut and Gut The Inside of The Pumpkin

Cut the top of the pumpkin off. Don’t cut to low or you will loose room for the soup. I cut the top off and the stem. I don’t want the stem catching fire in the oven and this also allows for a steam hole.

Saute Your Soup Ingredients

The recipe I used is a vegan veggie soup with jalapeno and coconut milk. The flavor was good but the texture did fit very well. It was too brothy and not creamy enough… I should have blended the bean with the vegetable broth to create a thicker, creamy texture. What every recipe you do try with your pumpkin shell make sure you saute and cook everything before putting it in the pumpkin. This will shorten the time you have it in the oven and assure everything got cook through. Especially if you are using meat.

Add Ingredients to The Pumpkin Shell

Pour you soup ingredients into your pumpkin shell. Broth, veggies, meat, beans. Leave any milks or dairy out until the end when its done baking.

Baking the Pumpkin Soup

Bake the pumpkin on the lowest rack in your oven at 375 degrees for 2 hours or until the shell is soften and the pumpkin is fully cooked. It may take longer depending on the size of the pumpkin. I did find out that at 375 my pumpkin skin did get a little brown so if you really want to avoid this maybe try 350 degrees for a longer time.

Scrape the Pumpkin And Serve

One the pumpkin is done baking, take a fork and scrape the sides of the soup from the inside getting the ‘meat’ of the pumpkin incorporated into the soup. Pour in your coconut milk or other dairy products your recipe might use. Serve your pumpkin soup from the shell and enjoy this fun meal!

Is Cooking Pumpkin Soup in the Shell Worth it?

Pros

There was too great benefits of serving the pumpkin soup straight our the shell. Number one was the appearance. It gets 5 starts for aesthetics. Secondly the pumpkin flavor in the broth was amazing. It wasn’t overpowering but it was defiantly there. It was a wonderful flavor but I do thing I could get that flavor with pumpkin chunks in a normal pot all the same.

Cons

It took a long time. Instead of just thought things into a pot and calling it soup this took a lot more prep work. Cleaning the pumpkin, with all the insides and seeds, took a good amount of work that in the end didn’t seem pay off as much as I wished it did. My kids loved making the soup with me but then wouldn’t eat it and that never feels good.

The texture with this recipe just did not work our quite right. The next day I blended the left over before heating it up for lunch and my kids ate some of it but not a lot. (I think it was may have been a little spicy for them).

Conclusion

It was very pretty and fun to do. More work for sure and kinda worth it. If ever I do this again it will be a different recipe. Something that my kids will enjoy, then maybe it will all be worth it for me.

How To Cook A pumpkin In the Shell

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Active Time: 2 hours

Total Time: 2 hours 20 minutes

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Materials

• 1 Pumpkin
• Large pot or deep pan
• Recipe and Ingredients

Instructions

1. Wash the outside of your pumpkin
2. Cut the top of the pumpkin off and clean out the inside from all the guts and seeds.
3. Saute you soup ingredients, then add them into your pumpkin shell along with your broth.
4. Bake the pumpkin for 2 hours at 375 degrees on the bottom rack of the oven.
5. Once the pumpkin is cooked take a fork and scrape the insides of the pumpkin without puncturing it.
6. Serve straight from the pumpkin and enjoy!

Vegan Pumpkin Spicy Soup With Coconut Cream

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 2 hours

Total Time: 2 hours 20 minutes

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Ingredients

• 1 Pumpkin Whole, or 3 cups cubed pumpkin
• 1 1/2 cups cooked navy beans or 1, 15 oz can
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 1 onion
• 1 cup mushrooms
• 1 bell peppers
• 1 jalapeno (seeds optional)
• 1 banana pepper
• 1 cup chopped spinach or kale
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup coconut milk

Instructions

In A Whole Pumpkin Shell

1. Saute onions, bell peppers, jalapeno, banana peppers, garlic, spinach, mushrooms with the thyme, cinnamon and salt.
2. Pour into your cleaned out pumpkin shell. Also add the broth and navy beans save the coconut milk for later. (For a thicker, creamier broth, blend the broth and beans together before adding the soup)
3. Bake in the oven at 375 degrees for 2 hours.
4. Once the pumpkin is cooked take a fork and scrape the walls of the pumpkin without puncturing it.
5. Pour in the coconut milk. Serve and enjoy!

In A Pot On The Stove

1. In a pot saute onions, bell peppers, jalapeno, banana peppers, garlic, spinach, mushrooms with the thyme, cinnamon and salt and the cubed pumpkin a
2. Pour in the broth and navy beans save the coconut milk for later. (For a thicker, creamier broth, blend the broth and beans together before adding the soup)
3. Bring to a boil and then let simmer for 1 hour.
4. Once the pumpkin cubes are soft turn off the heat and pour in the coconut milk.
5. Serve and enjoy!

The post Can You Cook Pumpkin Soup In The Shell? appeared first on Embracing The Home.

How To Puree a Pumpkin

Step One: Pick Your Pumpkin

Pick out a nice baking pumpkin, one that is one that seems heavy for its size. At the store they may be marked as sugar pumpkins or pie pumpkins. I do not recommend using a carving pumpkin. Read above to learn more about the differences.

Step Two: Cut and Gut Your Pumpkin

Cut the top off you pumpkin then proceed to cutting the pumpkin in half using a large chefs knife. Watch out for fingers! Use a spoon to scrape out the seeds.

This pumpkin had a bruise and was a little moldy on the bottom. I simple cut the bottom off and threw it in the compost. The top was full of good pumpkin I made sure to double check and make sure there was not more mold and there wasn’t all was good.

Step Three: Cut and Boil Pumpkin

Cut you pumpkin into medium sized pieces and place in a pot. Fill your pot with water and boil for 1 hour.

Step Four: Blend the Pumpkin

Once cooled, peel the pumpkin and place in your vitamix, blender or food processor. Blend on high until very smooth.

Step Five: Store Your Fresh Pumpkin Puree

When its all blended smooth and the perfect pumpkin puree, pour it into mason jars, zip-lock bags or any airtight container you plan to store it in. You can leave it in the fridge for 7-10 days or in the freezer for up to a year. I like to freeze mine and use it through out the fall season in all my pies, breads and soups.

Is it better to Boil, Bake or Steam your Pumpkin?

When you boil your pumpkin, the pumpkin absorbs a little bit of water. When you bake it some of the water evaporates. You’ll notice the difference when you go to blend it. If you bake it you will most likely have to add water in the blender to get the pumpkin smooth. When you boil your pumpkin you will not need to add any water.

When I bake my pumpkin I also add a little bit of water to may baking sheet with my pumpkin and so that my pumpkin doesn’t dry out. It works great and I never have to add water when blending.

When steaming my pumpkin I still didn’t need to add water but the pumpkin puree was defiantly thicker then when I boiled it.

I don’t think if makes a big difference on whether you boil, bake or steam. The process is very similar and so are the results.

FAQs

What is the difference between a carving pumpkin and a baking pumpkin?

A baking pumpkin (or pie pumpkin) will be a little smaller and heavy for its size. The heavier the pumpkin typically the better for baking. Baking pumpkins have thicker walls and are sweeter then the carving pumpkins.

A carving pumpkin is typically large and light. The inside walls are thinner and stringy. Carving pumpkins are not as sweet and once cooked can have a little bit of a bitter taste to them. The taste is not always noticeable in your recipes but the baking pumpkins make your desserts and soups and breads so much better.

Can I make pumpkin puree from a carving pumpkin?

If you have already carved the pumpkin and you had it as decoration for Halloween then NO. Once its been cut open the pumpkin it will start to slowly rot. So do not use your carved pumpkins to for eating. You can however bake our boil the scraps and pieces you cut out of your pumpkin and make them into pumpkin puree rather then throwing them in the trash.

If you are just asking if the carving type of pumpkin is good for eating and making puree, the answer is… they are not the best. Carving pumpkins are edible and taste fine. They are not as sweet as baking pumpkins and they are stringy. They also often have thinner walls not giving you as much meat to work with.

Can I make pumpkin puree from pumpkin guts?

Pumpkin guts are the stringy insides that we pull out of our carving pumpkins. They are not ideal for making pumpkin puree but you absolutely can. I would add them to a pot of boiling water for 30 minutes then drain the water and put them in the blender. You will then have a little pumpkin puree to eat.

What is the best pumpkin to use for puree?

The best pumpkins are the baking pumpkins. There are lots of different verities of baking pumpkins and they are all a little different but will still work great for cooking and baking with. There are some verities that are considered carving pumpkins because of there thin walls and light weight.

Pumpkin Puree (Boiling)

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes

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Ingredients

• 1 Pumpkin

Instructions

1. Cut your pumpkin in half and clean out the seeds.
2. Cut pumpkin into medium-large pieces.
3. Place your pumpkin pieces in a large pot and fill it with water.
4. Boil the pumpkins for 1 hour, then turn off the heat.
5. Peal the pumpkin pieces and place the pumpkin in a blender or food processor and blend till smooth.
6. Store in a mason jar, air tight container or zip-lock bag for 7-10 days in the refrigerator or the freezer for up to a year.

The post How to Make Pumpkin Puree by Boiling appeared first on Embracing The Home.

Ingredients for Banana Donuts

Banana

Banana’s are sweet, full of potassium, magnesium and antioxidants. They sweeten and keep any baked goods moist. These donuts stay light, moist and sweet with banana’s. The sweetest banana’s are overripe banana’s, do not use the green ones for this recipe.

Greek Yogurt

Greek yogurt is full of protein and vitamin B12, calcium, phosphorus and selenium. This recipe doesn’t have any oil or butter because the healthy Greek yogurt provides the needed moisture while adding a lot more nutritional value then butter or oils.

Milk

I use rice milk or regular milk sometimes I even use just plain water. What ever type of milk you typically use will work for this recipe. If you use water use a little less, instead of 3/4 cup use 1/2 at first then add a tablespoon more if needed.

Egg

Eggs are a bonding ingredient, they are very important to the texture of baked goods. We want our donuts to be soft with a little springy but not crumbly. Eggs also help with the raise, keeping the donuts from becoming dense.

Sugar

I use organic cane sugar from Azure Standard, and this recipe calls for 1 whole cup. It seems like a lot to me to use a whole cup of sugar as I’m trying to make ‘healthy’ donut and that is why I don’t call these donuts healthy. You could substitute with honey (1:3/4 ratio), maple syrup (1:3/4 ratio) or monk fruit sweetener (1:1 ratio).

Spices, Nutmeg, All-Spice & Cinnamon

These donuts are fall flavored with all the lovely fall spices such as nutmeg, all-spice and cinnamon. These spices are full of warmth and joy. I like to use fresh nutmeg but that is optional. If you don’t have all-spice you can substitute with 1/4 teaspoon of cloves. Cloves is very strong and can easily overwhelm a recipe so be careful.

All Purpose Flour

In most of my recipes I like to use 1/2 all purpose 1/2 whole wheat but for these donuts, again as a dessert and not a breakfast I choose to use 100% All Purpose Flour. All purpose has a much lighter texture insuring a good rise and lighter donut.

Baking Soda and Powder

This recipe calls for both baking soda and baking powder. Baking soda is activated as soon as it is mixed in with the liquids (namely the greek yogurt) So we want to add it in last. Baking powder is also activated at the mixing point but also has some agents in it that need heat to insure activation. By adding both of these raising agents we get a longer raise throughout the baking process giving us a fluffy donut.

Salt

A little salt goes a long way in enhancing the flavor of every wonderful meal, including sweet desserts.

More Banana Baked Goods…

How To Make Banana Donuts

Mix Wet Ingredients

In a large bowl mash the bananas and add yogurt, egg and milk and mix together.

Mix Dry Ingredient

Add in the dry ingredients starting with the sugar and ending the the baking soda. You can also mix all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl then add together but personally I like to use less dishes.

Spoon or Pipe into Donut Molds

You can spoon the batter into your donut molds or pipe them in. Using a piping bag goes a lot smoother, faster and cleaner but is not necessary.

Bake and Add Toppings

Bake on a baking sheet so that you can handle the silicone molds easily. Set oven to 350 and bake for 12-15 minutes.

While they are baking combine some sugar and cinnamon for the topping. Once baked, let cool just enough to handle then remove from the molds. While still warm rub some butter on the tops of the donuts and butter side down, dip them into the sugar and cinnamon mixture.

You can also melt some chocolate chips and dip the donuts in chocolate. My kids especially love it when I add a little bit of sprinkles on the chocolate.

Let Cool and Enjoy!

Let the banana donuts cool down all the way before letting the kids bite into them. Enjoy and happy baking!

Baked Banana Donuts

Yield: 24 Donuts

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 14 minutes

Total Time: 24 minutes

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Ingredients

• 3 Ripe Bananas
• 1 Cup Yogurt
• 3/4 Cup Milk
• 1 Egg
• 1 Cup Sugar
• 2 Cups Flour
• 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg
• 1/2 Teaspoon All Spice
• 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1/4 Teaspoon Salt

Cinnamon Sugar Topping

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• 1/2 Cup Sugar
• 1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
• 1-2 Tablespoon Butter

Chocolate Topping (Optional)

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• 1/2 Cup Chocolate Chips, Melted
• Sprinkles (optional)

Instructions

1. Mix wet ingredient together, banana, yogurt, egg and milk
2. Add dry ingredients starting with the sugar and ending with baking soda.
3. Spoon or pipe into donut molds.
4. Bake for 12-15 minutes at 350 degrees
5. Mix together the cinnamon sugar topping and/or melt you chocolate chips.
6. Cool just enough to handle and remove gently from molds. Rub a some butter on the tops and dip, butter side down, into the sugar and cinnamon mixture.
   
   For chocolate topping there's no need to butter them, just dip into melted chocolate then let cool completely. Add sprinkles if desired.

Shop This Recipe!

Aichoof Silicone Donut Mold for 6 Doughnuts, Set of 2. Food Grade LFGB Silicone Bagels Baking Pan, Non-Stick, Dishwasher Safe, Heat Resistant and Microwave Safe(Blue)

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