pumpkin spice

Maple Pecan Pumpkin Bread

October 10, 2017

I know everyone is a little pumpkin obsessed these days (present company included), but there is one Fall flavor combination that I think I prefer even more: maple pecan! Even Starbucks is getting on the bandwagon with their maple-pecan latte, which is delicious, btw.

Last Fall I made this maple pecan cake which may just be my favorite cake of all time (it tastes like a giant stack of pancakes). So, this Fall I couldn’t wait to get the gang back together and make some more delicious maple pecan treats. Since it is October after all, I couldn’t leave pumpkin completely out of the mix. Hence, we have maple pecan pumpkin bread!

This recipe is very similar to my glazed pumpkin bread recipe. The only changes I made were to replace some of the sugar with maple syrup to give the bread a subtly sweet maple flavor; it also makes the bread extra moist!

To start, cream together butter, brown sugar, and maple syrup for about a minute, then add in the eggs and pumpkin and mix until the are incorporated. Move that bowl aside and whisk together the flour (in this case I used both AP and whole wheat flour), baking powder, baking soda, and pumpkin spice just until there are no lumps or clumps. Then mix half of the flour mixture into the butter mixture.

The other half of the flour mixture will actually be tossed with the chopped pecans before being mixed in with the rest of the batter. This helps keep the pecans evenly disbursed throughout the bread.

Then, pour the batter into a loaf pan and sprinkle a few extra pecans right on top. Finally, bake the loaf at 350 degrees for almost an hour. Just sit back, clean some dishes, and wait for your kitchen to fill up with the most wonderful maple, pecan, pumpkin spice scent. Seriously, someone should bottle that scent and make it into a candle!

The hardest part of most recipes (for me, at least), is waiting for the baked goods to cool before I dig in. Since this pumpkin bread takes almost an hour to bake, by the time it comes out of the oven the anticipation is killing me. Oh, and the smell. Have I mentioned how good it smells? (Seriously, someone make this a candle! I will buy your first 20.) Yeah, that won’t help either.

But I encourage you to wait as long as possible before slicing into this amazing loaf. It will take at least 20 minutes for it to cool enough to cut into without crumbling into pieces.

The wait will be worth it.

Promise.
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Fall Pumpkin Cookies

October 5, 2017

While Fall is one of my favorite seasons (who doesn’t love reprieve from the hot, humid Summer?), I still end September dragging my feet to get into the “Fall spirit”. But come October, and I am in the full Fall mode! In the last week alone, I have made four pumpkin spice recipes. This has got to be a new personal record.

These cookies are actually one of those recipes. On Tuesday I shared my pumpkin spice sugar cookies which are freaking delicious. They only deserve the best Fall decoration!

I mean, you can’t make pumpkin spice sugar cookies and not make them into adorably decorated pumpkin cookies, right?

You should know by now that I love throwing royal icing flowers on just about every cookie I make. They are fun way to really dress up a cookie. Plus people are generally pretty impressed with flowers on cookies (little do they know, it’s incredibly easy!).

I also drew inspiration from my own Mother’s Day cookies and made some floral Fall letters, which I love. Again, they look so intricate and detailed, but really the piping tips do all the work.

Speaking of which, these are the piping tips I used for the flowers and leaves (all are Wilton brand, most are included in this set):

#14 (Rosette)
#16 (Rosette)
#24 (Rosette)
#225 (Drop Flower)
#107 (Drop Flower)
#349 (Small Leaf)
#67 (Big Leaf)

I also used couplers along with my piping bags so that I could switch out my piping tips. For instance, on the pumpkins, I piped red rosettes, but on the letters, I switched to a drop flower tip. Couplers just make it easy to switch out colors and piping tips so you don’t have to have a million different tips.

Wouldn’t these be so great for Thanksgiving!? I also made a bunch of letters to spell out “Thankful”, which would be a really pretty display on a Thanksgiving dessert table.

Recipes:

Supplies Used:
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Pumpkin Spice Sugar Cookies

October 3, 2017

You just can’t escape it. Everywhere you look, something is flavored pumpkin spice. Coffee, candles, even peanut butter.

Well, friends, if you are looking for some respite from the pumpkin spice overload, this is not the place. Today I am sharing my pumpkin spice sugar cookie recipe that is every bit as good as it sounds! (So good, my mother and law has already requested that her Christmas cookies are pumpkin spice flavored.) It’s my same favorite sugar cookie recipe spiced up with just the right amount of pumpkin spice.

If you have made my sugar cookie recipe (or any cookie recipe for that matter), you know that it starts with butter and sugar.

I like to cream the butter and sugar until it’s light and fluffy. Then I mix in the eggs and vanilla until the eggs are completely incorporated (and emulsified) into the butter.

To the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla I add in the flour and spices. Of course, most recipes will tell you to mix the flour and other dry ingredients together in a separate bowl. But I like to live life on the edge and just add them straight into the bowl with the other wet ingredients.

For the spices, I used a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and a bit of allspice. Then I mix everything together until it’s just combined! Once the dough is ready, I form it into a disc then wrap it in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge until I am ready to roll out the dough.

I find that rolling out the dough is so much easier when the dough is a bit stiff. The cookies hold their shape much better and are less likely to stick to counter.

To make sure all my cookies are exactly the same thickness, I use these rolling pin bands. I also love this rolling pin!

While the cookies bake, they will fill your kitchen with the most wonderful smell. Think about how great your kitchen smells with you make normal sugar cookies. Then add pumpkin spice!

You don’t even have to decorate them, and I guarantee they will be a hit! But if you would like to decorate them, I will show you how I did it later this week! You can make them simple pumpkins or add some more fun details like burlap, flowers, and leaves. They are the perfect cookies for Fall!

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Pumpkin Spice Granola

October 16, 2014

Because it’s October, and the leaves are starting to change and fall to the ground. Because Halloween and Thanksgiving are just around the corner. Because I can’t get enough of Fall and never want Winter to come.

Because of all that, I am adding pumpkin spice to everything. First cookies. Now granola. I can’t tell you when or where it will end.

And granola it just wonderful in and of itself. Even without the pumpkin spice. You can have it for breakfast with milk or yogurt. As a snack on its own. Or over a creamy bowl of ice cream. Pumpkin spice granola just makes that much better.

If for some reason you don’t like granola or pumpkin spice, just make a batch of this granola and give it to a friend. While it slowly bakes, it will fill your home with the wonderfully warm scent of Fall.

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Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles

October 13, 2014

It has been a while since I have been in the kitchen baking….but it felt so good to be back! And since the leaves are starting to change and pumpkin stands are popping up everywhere, I decided to jump on the seasonal pumpkin bandwagon.

While browsing Target’s candy aisle for goodies for a Fall themed care package for some girlfriends, I ran across some Pumpkin Spice Hersey Kisses. This isn’t really my type of candy – I am a classic Kiss girl – but I knew they would be an excellent addition to some cookies!

I started with a snickerdoodle cookie recipe, but instead of just cinnamon and sugar, I rolled the cookie dough in pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon, all spice, ginger, nutmeg, cloves) and sugar.

After baking the cookies for about 10 minutes, I immediately pulled them out of the oven and pressed a Kiss into the top of the soft cookie. Because these Kisses aren’t as dense and actually have a soft filling, they don’t keep their Kiss-like shape, and sort of melt down into a thumbprint.

And once they come out of the oven, your kitchen will smell like Fall!

Is there anything better?

If you can’t get your hands on a bag of the Pumpkin Spice Kisses, you can just skip that step. The snickerdoodles on their own with that extra spice are delicious! Plus, they are the softest, fluffiest, and crumbliest cookies I have ever made. Simply wonderful!

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