Pumpkin Cookie Bars

Cookie bars to celebrate Halloween in the chewiest and sweetest of ways should include pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spices, along with a good helping of white chocolate candy corn M&Ms. Substitute white chocolate chips for a solely Autumnal treat, sans the spooky.

Some of the hardest things to come by outside of the United States are the wonderful large pumpkins we use for Jack O’lanterns. Or if importers do bring them in, you have to give the shop an arm and two legs just to take one home. Right now in my local supermarket, Spinneys, there is a large pile of gorgeous pumpkins with price tags between 50 and 100 DOLLARS each. Isn’t that crazy? I must admit that there have been times that I’ve paid exorbitant prices – in Singapore, for instance – but then I still had girls at home and can one really put a price on passing cultural traditions on to one’s offspring? I didn’t feel like I was just paying for pumpkins but for a visual representation and demonstration of their heritage. Don’t mind me as I justify a ridiculous expenditure, but I promise not to judge whatever stupid thing you spend your money on.  Plus, who doesn’t love to carve a pumpkin?

Anyhoo, this year, I decided to forgo the whole pumpkins and just stock up on the canned stuff. I love the moisture that canned pumpkin adds to baked goods and knew that my Halloween cookies for this month’s Creative Cookie Exchange needed to have pumpkin. And some Halloween candy.

If you are planning your Halloween party and need some great cookie ideas, you’ve come to the right place. Make sure to scroll down after the recipe to see the links for all the Halloween cookies we are sharing today.

Ingredients
3/4 cup or 170g butter, softened
1 cup or 200g sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 15oz can or almost 1 cup or 215g canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
2 cups or 250g all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 cup or 200g white chocolate candy corn M&Ms (You can substitute regular M&Ms or chocolate chips.)

To decorate:
Reserved M&Ms
Several pieces candy corn - optional

Cream cheese icing:
1/2 cup or 100g cream cheese
1/2 cup or 65g powdered sugar
2 teaspoons milk

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your baking pan by spraying it with non-stick spray or lining it with parchment. My pan is about 9x13in or 23x33cm.

Mix the flour together with the salt and spices in a small mixing bowl and set aside.

Use your stand mixer or electric beaters to cream together the softened butter and sugar.

Add in the pumpkin puree, vanilla and flour mixture and beat until well combined, scraping down the sides occasionally. This takes just a couple of minutes.

Set aside a handful of the white chocolate candy corn M&Ms to decorate the top and fold the rest into the dough.

Scoop the dough out of the mixing bowl and into your prepared pan and spread it out evenly.

This stuff is thick and sticky so you might need to wet or oil your hands and use them to get it into all the corners and relatively even.

Top the dough with the reserved M&Ms and a few candy corn candies if you have some on hand.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the cookie bars are just cooked and golden around the edges.

Meanwhile, you can be making the cream cheese icing. Soften the cream cheese with a few zaps in the microwave and give it a good stir.

Put it in a mixing bowl with the powdered sugar and stir until it is well combined. Add the milk one teaspoon at a time, stirring well in between.

Once the cookies are done, remove them from the oven and allow to cool. Cut them into squares and transfer to your serving platter.

Use a piping tip and bag to decorate the cookies. I wanted an offset spider web so I followed this plate-decorating tutorial on the web. Very helpful! If you only make the spider web, you are going to have plenty of cream cheese icing leftover. You can serve it on the side, or pop it in a airtight bag and freeze it.

Enjoy!

The Creative Cookie Exchange theme this month is Halloween! Spooky, silly, creepy, we’ve got it all! If you are looking for Halloween inspiration to get in the kitchen and start baking, check out what all of the hosting bloggers have made:

• Enchanted Pumpkin Cookies from Kim at NinjaBaking
• French Butter Cookie (Bones) from Jill at Made with Love 
• Headless Gingerbread Men from Tara at Noshing with the Nolands 
• Pumpkin Chip Bars from Sarah at What Smells So Good? 
• Pumpkin Cookie Bars from Stacy at Food Lust People Love
• Pumpkin Macarons from Holly at A Baker’s House 
• Spider Infested Chocolate Chip Cookies from Laura at The Spiced Life 
• Spider Peanut Butter Cookies from Sophie at Sweet Cinnamon & Honey 
• Spooky Almond Cookies from Kathya at Basic N Delicious
• Swirly Halloween Cookies from Heather at Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks 
• The Witch's Cauldron Cookies from Miranda at Cookie Dough & Oven Mitt 
• Witch Finger Cookies from Karen at Karen’s Kitchen Stories 

If you are a blogger and want to join in the fun, contact Laura at thespicedlife AT gmail DOT com and she will get you added to our Facebook group, where we discuss our cookies and share links.

You can also just use us as a great resource for cookie recipes - Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts. You can find all of them here at The Spiced Life). We all post together on the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!

Pumpkin Spice Spice Baby Muffins #MuffinMonday

Pure pumpkin puree and cinnamon flavor a fluffy, tender muffin, topped with crunchy pumpkin seeds and a melt-in-your-mouth pumpkin spice white chocolate kiss candy. 

My self-imposed pumpkin moratorium is over. While a chill isn’t exactly in the air yet here in Dubai, I can finally see that there is hope for autumn and soup and pumpkin recipes. It’s been an extended summer of flights to family and friends and even having family visit me. Bless my mother; she came to Dubai in the hottest month to keep me company while my husband traveled on an extended business trip. We did see some sights, the ones that were inside and air-conditioned. Because that is what makes life tolerable when temperatures soar. The top temperature while she was here was, according to my external car thermometer, 52°C or 125.6°F. So, you are going to laugh at me but the current temperature of 34°C or 93°F actually feels cool. I know, weird, right? But it’s true, at least for the first five minutes outside. I am looking forward to the trend continuing. And I am finally baking with pumpkin.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups or 190g all-purpose flour or gluten-free flour blend
3/4 cup or 150g sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 15 oz can or almost one cup or 215g pure pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
2 eggs
1/2 cup or 120ml canola or other light oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For topping: 1/4 cup or 40g pumpkin seeds and 12 pumpkin spice kiss candies

Method
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C and either grease your 12-cup muffin pan or line it with paper liners.

In one big mixing bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.  Set aside.

In small mixing bowl, whisk the pumpkin, eggs, oil and vanilla extract.

There you have the difference between brands of eggs here.

Fold the liquids to the dry mixture, stopping when they are just mixed if you are using all-purpose flour but stirring until completely and thoroughly mixed if you are using the gluten-free flour blend.

Divide the batter between your prepared muffins cups.

Push one pumpkin spice kiss into each cup and sprinkle the pumpkin seeds all around.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted next to the kiss candy comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Remove from the muffin pan and finish cooling on a rack.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin and Apples Roasted with Brown Sugar #RandomRecipe Challenge

This wonderful recipe comes very slightly adapted from the gorgeous cookbook Bountiful – Recipes Inspired by our Garden, by Todd Porter and Diane Cu, the pair otherwise known as White on Rice Couple.  If you don’t have this one already, buy it now.  No kidding.  While it’s not a completely vegetarian cookbook, it does showcase garden vegetables enhanced by fragrant fresh herbs and warm, wonderful spices, making them the rightful main attraction on any dinner table. 

Bountiful: Recipes Inspired by Our Garden

This month’s Random Recipe Challenge from Dom at Belleau Kitchen is to choose a new cookbook, perhaps one you got for Christmas and open it randomly to a recipe, then make that.  As it happens, I got three cookbooks for Christmas, all from my mother, generous woman that she is.  In addition to Bountiful, she gave me the latest Ottolenghi book, Jerusalem and Clotilde Dusoulier’s new vegetarian cookbook, The French Market Cookbook.   I have spent the last few weeks reading and bookmarking and it’s going to take me ages to make all the dishes I want to make from all three fabulous books.  I’ve already said, “Buy Bountiful.”  But you’ll want the other two as well.

 

Ingredients - side dish for four or main course for two

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons, tightly packed, dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 medium apples (Mine together weighed a little more than 12 oz or 350g, whole.)

1 small pumpkin or winter squash (Mine weighed about 1 lb 13 oz or 840g, whole.) 

1/2 cup or 60 grams chopped pecans

Sea salt 

Freshly ground black pepper

Method

Preheat the oven to 375°F or 190°C.

Peel your pumpkin and remove the seeds.  

Slice into half moons about 1/2 in or 1cm wide.  Set aside.  If you want to toast the seeds later, these instructions are simple and easy to follow.  

Peel, halve and core your apples.  Slice them into thick wedges. 

Choose an ovenproof saucepan and you will save the washing up.  Otherwise, the first steps of cooking will be on the stove and then you will need to transfer the ingredients to a baking pan.   

Melt the butter in your pan over a medium heat.  It will start to pop and sizzle as the milk liquids evaporate.  When it stops sizzling, add in your brown sugar and your cinnamon and stir well until the sugar has melted into the butter. 

Add in the apples and stir well to coat them with the sugary butter.  

Sauté gently until the apples have softened slightly then add in the pumpkin.  

Stir well to coat the pumpkin with the butter and the apple juice that has cooked out the apples. 

Give the whole thing a good sprinkle of sea salt and a few good grinds of fresh black pepper.  And then top with the chopped pecans. 

Pop your saucepan in your preheated oven (or transfer everything to an ovenproof baking pan) and roast until you can pierce the pumpkin easily with a fork.  Mine took about 30-35 minutes.  

Enjoy! 

***This post includes affiliate links that will earn me some small change, for which I am much obliged, if you make a purchase after following the links.***  

Pumpkin Pie Muffins #MuffinMonday

Baking with mashed pumpkin adds moisture to batters and doughs, making breads, cakes and muffins healthier because of you can cut down on oil and butter, not to mention the betacarotene, but don’t let that reason alone convince you.  Pumpkin adds enormous rich flavor as well.  

I’m going to admit to something autumnally treasonous.  I am not a fan of pumpkin pie.  Please don’t hurt me.  It’s a texture thing.  That doesn’t mean I don’t like the flavors though so I prefer to put pumpkin in blondies, cookies, muffins, bread and cake.  Adding pumpkin pie spice to this muffin batter gave me the joy I imagine folks find in pumpkin pie without that icky wobbly pie filling to endure.  And the whole house smelled like Thanksgiving and Christmas while they baked.  Win-win.

I can’t find pumpkin pie spice here in Dubai, so I used this recipe here  for the batter and made up my own mix of spices.  I’d say it was a successful substitution.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups or 190g all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
(or 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves and 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup or 225g sugar
1/2 15 oz can or almost one cup or 215g pure pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
2 eggs
1/4 cup or 60ml canola oil
1/4 cup or 60ml orange juice

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin pan by greasing it thoroughly, spraying with non-stick spray or lining it with paper muffin cups.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, spices, baking soda, salt and sugar and stir well.

In another bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, oil, orange juice and eggs.

Pour your wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold them together until just mixed.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Bake in the preheated oven about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool for a few minutes and then remove the muffins and put on a rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Pin it!

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Pumpkin Hazelnut Marshmallow Muffins #MuffinMonday

This week’s Muffin Monday recipe was left WIDE OPEN.  No specific recipe to recreate, just a main ingredient to include: Pumpkin.  I think the point was Halloween but I decided to go all Southern Christmas on you.

You know those baked yams or sweet potatoes we make for the holidays down south?  You’ve had them:  Baked with brown sugar and cinnamon and nuts?  Plus mini marshmallows sprinkled all over?  (If you haven’t had them, my condolences.) Anyhoo, here they are in muffin form but made much easier because you just have to open a can of pumpkin, which is an excellent substitute for sweet potato, and you are ready to mix it up and bake.

Then again, sometimes the hardest part is opening the can.

Guess whose can opener went in the airfreight shipment to Dubai?  Thank God for my handy husband and his hacksaw.

The whole house smelled like Christmas.  Is it too early for your house to smell like Christmas?  I thought not.

Ingredients
For the muffins
2 cups or 250g plain flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 95g light brown sugar
1/3 cup or 80ml buttermilk (You can substitute 1 teaspoon of white vinegar and enough milk to make up 1/3 cup or 80ml - which I did.)
2 medium eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup or 80g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
11 1/2 oz or 330g canned pumpkin (about 3/4 of the regular sized can)
3/4 cup or 120g hazelnuts or pecans (Set aside 12 for the tops of the muffins after roasting)  I used hazelnuts.
1/2 cup or 25g mini marshmallows

For the topping:  About 1/4 cup or 55g sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons cinnamon plus one nut per muffin.  You may not use all the cinnamon sugar but save the balance in a Ziploc for cinnamon toast.  Your family will thank you.

Method
Preheat the oven to 375°F or 190°C and grease your muffin tin well or line with papers.

Pop the nuts in a baking pan and put them in the preheating oven.  Set a timer for three minutes.

Put flour, brown sugar, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and ginger into a large bowl.  Mix and mash the lumps of brown sugar until you have a lovely homogeneous mixture.

Yeah, the cinnamon and ginger aren't there in the photo but they got in the muffins. 

Shake the nuts when the timer goes off and reset it.

In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, buttermilk (or substitute), vanilla and butter together.

Shake the nuts when the timer goes off and reset it.  The brown skins should start coming off as your oven gets up to speed and the nuts start actually toasting.  (If you are using pecans, just remove them from the oven at this point or after they have browned slightly.)

Add the pumpkin to the wet ingredients and whisk to incorporate.

Shake the nuts when the timer goes off.  If they smell like they are toasted and the skins are mostly starting to fall off when you shake the pan, they are probably done.

Pour the nuts into a clean dry tea cloth or towel and rub them until the peels are off and you can pick out the clean nuts.  Keep rubbing until the hazelnuts are all (mostly) peeled.  A little skin won’t kill you, as far as I know.

Set aside 12 nuts to top the muffins and chop the rest roughly.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and fold until just mixed through.

Fold in the marshmallows and chopped hazelnuts.

Divide the batter between your muffin cups and then top with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon sugar and one toasted hazelnut each.

Bake in the preheated oven for around 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Remove and allow to cool for a few minutes before removing the muffins from the tin and cooling further on rack.

May I be the first to say to you, Merry Christmas!   If I am not the first, you need to find some less crazy friends to hang around with.  It’s not even Halloween, for goodness sake!

Enjoy!