Baking With Pumpkin

When I first mentioned making pumpkin pie for Roy & his brothers on Canadian Thanksgiving many years ago, my suggestion was met with … let’s call it ‘uncertainty’! By this time, they had been living in Canada for several years, but they had yet to embrace the idea of using pumpkin as an ingredient in anything sweet, including the deliciousness that is pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. I believe I can speak for Roy when I say that he was an instant fan as soon as he (hesitantly) tasted his first bite of that pumpkin pie 16 or 17 years ago! And that was even with a premade, store bought, generic brand, frozen crust. Pumpkin pie has evolved in our household to now be baked in a much more delicious homemade crust. But I still use canned pumpkin (unlike my mom who always cooks and purees her own!). I’m lazy like that! There aren’t any complaints from Roy or the kids though. Leighton is as big of a fan of pumpkin pie as his father, if not more. And finally, Riley came around to liking it this year and devoured her fair share of the pie, as well.

My love of baking with pumpkin doesn’t stop at pie, however. Pumpkin keeps things moist and is always paired with cinnamon, which I also love. There’s really nothing not to like! So, in case you are a pumpkin lover like me – or even better, if you are hesitant to try it like Roy used to be – I have rounded up my old standby pumpkin recipes and lots of new favorites to share with you!

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Pumpkin Pie

Pie Recipe >> Libby’s Famous Pumpkin Pie
Crust Recipe >> Perfect Pie Crust | The Baker Chick

It only seems right that we start off with the pumpkin pie recipe! It’s just the one from the Libby’s canned pumpkin, and we’ve always liked it so I have not attempted any changes/additions/substitutions. I always used to use my mom’s pie crust recipe but since we can’t get Tenderflake here in the US, it just isn’t the same as hers, and I’ve switched to the butter based one from The Baker Chick instead.

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Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Recipe >> Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins (Like Starbucks) | Food.com

I am not a coffee drinker but was often gifted a Starbucks gift card when I was teaching, and I remember using one to purchase a pumpkin cream cheese muffin years ago in Calgary. I still remember how much I loved that muffin. And when we moved to NYC after our year in England, I was immediately drawn to the pumpkin muffin at the Dunkin Donuts up the street from our apartment because it made me feel like we were ‘home’ again. So, when I came across the copycat version of the Starbucks pumpkin cream cheese muffin on recipezaar.com (now food.com) several years ago, I made it immediately. We all love this muffin recipe, but I realize I haven’t made it in a while because I don’t have any new photos of them. I think I know what I need to bake soon!

I have made some slight adjustments to the original recipe, and this is what I do for a batch of a dozen muffins:

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup canned pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
• 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp vegetable oil (Usually I just do the 1/2 cup!)
• 4 ounces cream cheese
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 Tbsp brown sugar

Directions

1. Mix the cream cheese with the vanilla and brown sugar (I have also read that using powdered sugar is a good way to sweeten the cream cheese, but I haven’t tried it yet myself), and then roll it into a log and freeze it for approximately 15 minutes (or longer, if that works better for you).
2. Mix together first 11 ingredients and divide into prepared muffin tin.
3. Cut cream cheese log into 12 equal pieces and push one down into the middle of each muffin.
4. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

These muffins aren’t the healthiest you’ll find (I don’t mind because I love them so much!), but a friend (Definitely Not Martha) has created a better-for-you version, if you’d like to give it a try! I think she created this at least 5 years ago, and I still have never tried it. I really should get on that, shouldn’t I?!?!

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup oat bran
• 1/2 cup oatmeal
• 1/4 cup ground flax meal
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 1 pinch cardamom (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 eggs (could use whites here if you’re hard-core)
• 1/2 c dark brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups pumpkin
• 3 T vegetable oil
• 1/2 c vanilla yogurt
• 4 ounces low-fat cream cheese (she recommends buying light because the fat free stuff is nasty!)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Put the entire brick of cream cheese on a piece of wax paper or parchment paper and shape it into a long log.
3. Put it in the freezer while you mix and fill the pans, up to an hour.
4. Unwrap and cut with a sharp knife so each cream cheese disk equals 1-2 teaspoons. If the cream cheese disks are too big around, cut thick slices and then cut them in half. This lets you push it down into the batter easier.
5. Mix all ingredients together (except cream cheese and nuts).
6. Fill muffin tins (greased or paper cups) half full.
7. Put cream cheese disc in the middle, pressing down.
8. Sprinkle with 1 tsp chopped nuts.
9. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean from the muffin part (do not touch the cream cheese!).
10. Let cool in pans for 5 minutes, then remove to racks to cool completely. Do not touch the cream cheese until it cools.

**This recipe makes 12.

ORIGINAL RECIPE / NEW RECIPE
349 calories / 175 calories
22 g fat / 6 g fat
5 g sat fat / 1 g sat fat
32 g carbs / 28 g carbs
1 g fibre / 3 g fibre
18 g sugar / 12 g sugar
8 g protein / 5 g protein

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Glazed Pumpkin Scones

Recipe >> TSR Version of Starbucks Pumpkin Scones by Todd Wilbur | Food.com

Around the same time I found the muffin recipe, I was beyond excited to find this copycat version of Starbucks glazed pumpkin scones, too! I can’t remember which one I found or tried first, but I know we love them both and bake them a lot! I actually don’t think I have ever tasted the Starbucks scones, so I can’t really comment on how they compare, but I can guarantee that this recipe is delicious and has been enjoyed by the many, many people who I have made it for!

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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe >> Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies | Sally’s Baking Addiction

I was really intrigued by the idea of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies when I saw some recipes on Pinterest, and what made me REALLY keen to make this recipe was all of the detailed reasons why these cookies would turn out like cookies and not like muffin/cupcake tops like many do. We were all extremely impressed with the taste and texture of these cookies. We shared them with Leighton’s class and with some friends at a play date, and everyone really liked them. It was a bonus that they were so fun to make together with the kids to share! I will definitely be making them again!

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Pumpkin Greek Yogurt Biscuits

Recipe >> Pumpkin Sage Biscuits | Sweet Peas & Saffron

Leighton loves pumpkin flavored items, and really enjoyed the Noosa brand pumpkin yogurt I found for him at Target. It was sweet and thick and tasted like pumpkin pie! When I saw some pumpkin yogurt at Trader Joe’s, I was excited to buy it for his school lunches. Unfortunately, when I tasted it, I assumed he wouldn’t love it because it wasn’t sweet at all and had a bit of an odd aftertaste that sometimes comes with low-fat or fat-free yogurts. I was right, and his yogurt came home from school uneaten!

I decided to use the remainder of the container to bake something savory instead of sweet and searched for a biscuit recipe. I liked the simplicity of this one (and really liked the fact that the blogger is from Calgary and was complaining about snow in the wrong season because I remember that fondly from the years we lived there!), so gathered the ingredients and set out to make it to go with our dinner one night. The recipe didn’t specifically call for pumpkin Greek yogurt, but I assumed it would work out just fine to use it, and it did. These were really moist and tasty. I did use the salted butter AND the salt called for in the recipe, which I don’t often do but figured the pumpkin and yogurt could use a little boost, and didn’t find them too salty at all.

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Baked Pumpkin Spice Donuts

Recipe >> Pumpkin Doughnuts | King Arthur Flour

In the fall, pumpkin donuts were regularly popping up on Pinterest, and I had even had pinned some from the year before. I figured it was finally time I should pull out my donut baking pan (that I’ve only ever used once before) and try them out. I glad I did! These were delicious. To me, baked donuts are really just denser cupcakes in a different shape, but the specifics didn’t matter to anyone here while they happily gobbled them up! I only have one donut pan, so I used the remainder of the batter to make pretend mini donut holes in my mini muffin tin. They were rolled into the cinnamon sugar and devoured, too! These really are best served fresh, but if you have some leftover or are making them ahead of time, don’t cover them in a container or the cinnamon sugar will completely soak in and they will get a bit moist on the exterior.

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Banana Pumpkin Bread

Recipe >> Pumpkin Banana Loaf | Food & Whine

I made the loaf but not the icing. The icing would have been tasty, I’m sure, but I just wanted the loaf this time around. I thought that it baked really well, and the texture was great – not too dry around the edges, not too browned on the top, and super easy to slice without being crumbly all over. The only thing I wasn’t crazy about was the flavor of the nutmeg and cloves because they were a bit too pronounced for me and the ratios were a bit off for my taste. Next time I would reduce how much cloves and nutmeg I use or omit them completely and just use the cinnamon. Also, when I first made this recipe, there wasn’t a baking temp listed so I went with 350 and it took 60 minutes total. I see there is now a baking temp of 350 and time of 50-60 minutes, so when you try it, be sure to check your loaf after 50 minutes.

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Nutella Swirled Pumpkin Bars

Recipe >> Nutella Swirled Pumpkin Bars | Lemons for Lulu

I made these to contribute to a bake sale at the kids’ school. I had envisioned more of a brownie/blondie/bar texture, but I should have just looked at the photo in the recipe and paid attention to the ingredients to realize it would end up as more of a thin loaf/muffin. They were fine, but it just wasn’t what I had hoped to make that day! If I were to make these again, I might bump up the sugar and/or spices to give them a bit more flavor. They were a bit too plain and ‘healthy’ tasting underneath all the swirls of Nutella!

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Nutella Swirled Pumpkin Bread

Inspiration Recipe #1 >> Nutella Swirled Pumpkin Bread | Rasa Malaysia
Inspiration Recipe #2 >> Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread | Sally’s Baking Addiction

My Final Version:

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup pumpkin
• 1/4 coconut oil
• 1/4 cup water
• 8 Tbsp warm Nutella

Directions

1. Mix dry ingredients
2. Add in wet ingredients (except the Nutella)
3. Pour half the batter into a loaf pan (lined with parchment & sprayed with coconut oil cooking spray)
4. Swirl in half the nutella
5. Pour in remaining batter and swirl with remaining Nutella
6. Baked at 350 for 50-60 minutes on a rack in the lower 2/3 of the oven.

I made this recipe for the first time in October and have made it 4 times since then. In my October 2014 Wrap Up I had mentioned I wanted to try to lower the amount of sugar and to layer the Nutella part way through the loaf. I have done this successfully the last two times I’ve made the loaf. I think the sugar could even be reduced a bit more, and I will try that the next time I make it!

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Pumpkin, Coconut, and Cranberry Granola Bars

Recipe >> Homemade, Nut-Free Granola Bars | Mealtime Mayhem

We really like these! I have never included the chocolate chips, but I can only assume they’d be tasty in there! You can see my full notes in this Granola Bars blog post. I made these again recently and forgot to take a photo again, but I think I stashed some in the freezer, so maybe I can take a shot of them Frozen when I pull them out!

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Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Blondies

Recipe >> Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Blondies | Call Me PMC

We have really enjoyed the other blondie recipes I’ve made, and we love snickerdoodle cookies, so I figured these would be a hit. We did enjoy them, and since I did’’t get a photo the first time around, I guess I will have to make them again sometime! Please see my October 2014 Wrap Up blog post for my full review and notes.

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Turkey, White Bean and Pumpkin Chili

Recipe >> Crock Pot Turkey White Bean Pumpkin Chili | Gina’s Skinny Recipes

Although baking with pumpkin seems to be most popular in our house, Roy does sometimes bake or steam pumpkin for us to eat as a savory side with dinner. Leighton has always loved it and enjoys choosing a pumpkin for eating when we make fall pumpkin patch visits! I don’t have a recipe for Roy’s pumpkin, however, so I thought I could share another savory pumpkin dish I have made.

Last fall, I saw this turkey, white bean, and pumpkin chili recipe on a blog and figured I should try it out. I was interested to see how the pumpkin base would taste. When it was first mixed up in the pot (I did this on the stove top and not in a crock pot), I was worried it wasn’t going to come together because the tastes just weren’t working for me. There wasn’t any depth or something. After simmering for a while and topping each serving with some fresh cilantro and sour cream, I can say that it definitely came together was pretty yummy. And I can’t speak for the crock pot version, but if you make this, I highly recommend doing a good saute of your onions and garlic and meat to develop some flavor there before adding in the pumpkin and stock. I also like to wait until shortly before serving before adding in the beans to recipes like this or else they can sometimes mush up and disappear into the sauce/base/gravy. If you are not a cilantro fan, then try some parsley because this dish really benefits from the brightness of fresh herbs, I think.

I have served this with cornbread (we LOVE this recipe!) in the past, but next time I will try it with the pumpkin Greek yogurt biscuits. And maybe we should then have one of the sweet pumpkin items from above as dessert to make a full pumpkin meal!