Cake Slice Bakers - October 2010: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

I am really excited. This past month I joined the Cake Slice Bakers!! Whoo which means cake every month! (can’t complain about that now can you?) Well the cake book we will be baking from is called Cake Keeper Cakes by Lauren Chattman and this is the first cake I have baked from it and it all cakes turn out as good as this one did, it’s going to be a good year :)

Now this is the first recipe I’ve ever made with pumpkin and I’m really proud of my self that it turned out soo good. The cake is really moist and it still tastes very good the second or third day. For the bath that I kept for home I made into cupcakes because I wanted to use my Halloween cupcake liners and the second batch, which I gave to my ex-piano teacher was in the traditional loaf shape. And after baking for 3ish hours the house smelled soooo good. I did make a few changes though. I wasn’t able to used ground cloves because by the time I got home from grocery shopping I realized we didn’t have ground cloved and I was too lazy to make the trip to the grocery store so I omitted that and also it called for walnuts and I would have loved to put them in, but I knew my sister would never even try it if it had even the tiniest hint to nuts in it, so I reluctantly took that out of the recipe as well.

I was a little hesitent to make these into cupcakes because i had no clue what the timing would be, but they turned out just fine :)

 Baked to perfection. They were springy and moist, just like the book said it should be.

mmmmm. This recipe is deffinately a keeper.  

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pound Cake
adapted from Cake Keeper Cakes by Lauren Chattman
makes 8-10 servings per loaf (with cupcakes I got 17 cupcakes)

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves (omitted)
Pinch nutmeg
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup milk (used 2%)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (used 2/3 cups mini)
1 cup chopped walnuts (omitted)

Directions

1. Heat the oven to 350F. Coat the inside of a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray and dust with flour. To make cupcakes just line a cupcake tin with cupcake liner.
2. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, cloves and nutmeg in a medium mixing bowl.
3. Combine the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl and cream with an electric mixer on medium high speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl once or twice as necessary.
4. With the mixer on medium low speed, add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Stir in the pumpkin puree and vanilla. Stir in the milk.
5. Turn the mixer to low speed and add the flour mixture, ½ cup at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula. Bake the cake until it is firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean, 55 minutes to 1 hour (cupcakes take about 24 minutes per batch). Let the cake cool in the pan for 5 minutes, invert it onto a wire rack and then turn it right side up on a rack to cool completely.
6. Store uneaten cake in a cake keeper at room temperature for up to 3 days or in the refrigerator, wrapped in plastic for up to 1 week.

Nutrition Facts
serving size: 1 cupcake
Calories 214.5 Total Fat 8.7 g Saturated Fat 1.9 g Polyunsaturated Fat 0.1 g Monounsaturated Fat 0.3 g Cholesterol 52.0 mg Sodium 189.1 mg Potassium 12.3 mg Total Carbohydrate 31.4 g Dietary Fiber 1.1 g Sugars 20.2 g Protein 2.7 g

Breakfast for Dinner - Pumpkin Pancakes

I am definitely getting into the Fall spirit. I am getting more into pumpkin too. There is a pumpkin patch on 287 in Colorado called Rock Creek Pumpkins and you get to pick your own pumpkins from the vine and it is so much fun. Well while I was standing in line with my mom to pay for the pumpkins I spotted their pumpkin pancake mix and it looked really, really good. So I asked my mom if I could get it and she said yes. (By the way this place, Rock Creek Farm, has the BEST pumpkin bread ever. I seriously wait all year for this bread!) Well I looked on the instructions after I got it and it said that I needed pumpkin butter and after looking like a moron in my local grocery store looking for the pumpkin butter I finally found it by the jelly, haha.


Well a week went by and I still hadn’t made the pumpkin pancakes and this week is kind of make your own dinner night because my mom has been coming home late and I took this to be the perfect opportunity to make my pumpkin pancakes!

I know this might be kind of weird because the ingredients aren’t really local for people unless you live in Colorado and happen to go to Rock Creek Farm, but I haven’t blogged in a while and I just wanted to share my enthusiasm for these amazing pancakes! :)

bubbles popping :P, also the house smalled amazing after this!

 first pancake always burns, oh well

 adding the chocolate chips! mmm

 stack of pancakes! :P for once it made the number that it was supposed to

 pumpkin pancake mix

 the best pumpkin bread I've ever eaten!

For this I used the egg whites and it turned out really nice. I also added some mini chocolate chips to a couple of the pancakes and it made it even better! :)

Ingredients
makes eight 4" pancakes
1 egg (or 2 egg whites)
2/3 cup of milk
1/4 cup pumpkin butter or pumkin pie mix
1 cup of Rock Creek Farm pumpkin pancake mix

Directions

1. preheat your griddle to 400 degrees F
2. Beat egg and milk together. Once its mixed together add the pumpkin butter (or pie mix) and beat until fully incorporated. Then add in the 1 cup of pancake mix and whisk together until combined.
3. Lightly grease your griddle (I used a regular pan) and put 1/4 cup of mix into it. Once bubbles start to pop flip over once.

It's Finally October!

I am so glad its finally October! I absolutely love this month and plus it feels like fall now :D I don’t care what the calendar or the news reporters say, I don’t believe it’s fall until the first of October. I love the smell of autumn and the food it brings, especially the dessert type foods! Yum. This year I might actually carve my pumpkin for Halloween. I’ve always been afraid because I don’t like the pumpkin guts but hey, maybe this year will be the year…


Now that I have said what was needed to be said I would like to present to you Chocolate Bat Cookies! So these were an impulse bake. The Betty Crocker Two Holidays: One Packed Cookbook magazine was on my bed (because someone keeps forgetting to help build my second bookshelf *cough*) and I’m like, you know what it’s October and I think it’s time to start baking Halloween goodies. So I flipped through the magazine and I came upon the chocolate bat cookies. I had seen them before and I said I would make them and by golly I did! They were really fun and I had to make a few adjustments to the decorating part but I don’t care. I’m not sure what to call them. They kind of have the consistency of shortbread but it tasted better than the chocolate shortbread that I made last year for Christmas, either way they were pretty good. 3.5/5

 the dough was kind of hard to work with but they still turned out pretty

finished product and they taste pretty good too.

 
Chocolate Bat Cookies
from the Betty Crocker Two Holidays: One Packed Cookbook magazine
makes about 4 dozen cookies (I got 45 cookies)
 
Ingredients
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups Gold Medal all-purpose flour (I used Pillsbury so I don't think it makes a difference)
3/4 cups unsweetened baking cocoa
1/8 tsp salt
2 tbsp red cinnamon candies (96 candies) (omited)
black decorator sugar cookies (omited)
colorful decorater gel
 
Directions

1. In a large bowl, beat butter, granulated sugar, egg and vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed. Stir in flour cocoa and salt. Divide dough in half and flatten each portion into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
2. heat oven to 375 degrees F. on lightly floured surface, roll one prtion of dough at a time 1/8 inch thick. (Keep remaining dough in refrigerator until ready to roll.) Cut with 4 1/2 inch bat-shaped cookie cutter (I used bat, pumpkin and ghost). Place two red cinnamon candies on each cookie for eyes. Sprinkle with sugar crystals. On ungreased baking sheet, place cookies about 1 inch apart.
3. Bake 8-10 (8.5 minutes was good enough for me) or until edges are set. Cool 1 minute and transfer onto cooling rack.
4. I omited the candies and sugar crystals and baked the cookies then once they were cooled I decorated them with a colorful gel type thing 

Nutrition Facts
amount per serving (1 cookie):
Calories 71.9 Total Fat 3.3 g Saturated Fat 1.9 g Polyunsaturated Fat 0.1 g Monounsaturated Fat 0.9 g Cholesterol 13.0 mg Sodium 3.5 mg Potassium 2.6 mg Total Carbohydrate 9.8 g Dietary Fiber 0.4 g Sugars 6.1 g Protein 0.8 g