October 2014 Wrap Up

October was a good month in the kitchen! It felt like fall and I was excited to bake with fall flavors, like apple and pumpkin and cinnamon. I had the chance to try out some new recipes, and I had some new decorating projects to keep me busy, too.

Breads & Muffins

We love when persimmons are in season in the fall! For the third year in a row, we’ve gone persimmon picking (it’s our apple picking replacement since moving away from NYC!), and once those are gone, we stock up at Costco and Trader Joe’s until the season ends. I tried some savory persimmon appetizers last year, but this year I wanted to make sure to bake with some of the ones we had picked. We pick the Fuju variety, which is less common in baking recipes than the Hachiya persimmon, but I found this recipe for persimmon spice muffins that seemed like it would be perfect. Here are my notes on the recipe: I was out of cloves, so I just used pumpkin pie spice in place of the ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. I grated the persimmon. I didn’t use wheat germ. I halved the recipe but used 2 eggs. This yielded 11 muffins. Finally, I almost always halve the sugar in muffin recipes, but I wasn’t sure what to do with these ones since I didn’t know how much sweetness the persimmons would give off when baked, so I kept it as is. They were definitely on the sweet side, but not too sweet to eat (they were enjoyed here!). I would cut the sugar next time, however.

I went to make this pumpkin Nutella swirl bread that was making the rounds on Pinterest, but it was a recipe for 4 mini loaves, and since I wasn’t sure how that would convert to one full loaf in terms of batter amount, I decided to look for another pumpkin loaf recipe that I could make and just swirl Nutella into. I found two recipes (1, 2) and combined them to come up with my final version. It was moist and delicious!

1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 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

I mixed the dry ingredients and then added in all the wet ingredients (except the Nutella) at once. I am a big fan of the one bowl mixing method! I warmed the Nutella in the microwave so it was a bit easier to drop and swirl and then baked at 350 for about 60 minutes. I liked the tip to lower the baking rack to reduce the chance of the top browning too quickly, and it worked really well. I will remember that when I make loaves from now on! A couple other notes to remember for the next time(s!) I make it: 1. I could probably cut the white sugar to 1/2 cup, 2. I would like to try it again with milk chocolate chips instead of the Nutella as an alternative, 3. I’d like to try to layer 1/2 the Nutella part way through and then the rest on the top, 4. I’d like to try it with golden raisins instead of any chocolate.

Brownies & Bars

I had some leftover pumpkin from the can I opened to make the Nutella Swirled Pumpkin Bread, so I did a quick Pinterest search and saw these chocolate chip pumpkin snickerdoodle blondies. I had bought some pumpkin spice m&ms a few weeks ago and thought they’d be a great replacement for the chocolate chips, so the kids and I mixed these up quickly one Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, by the time they were baked and cut I was out of natural light for photos. I set some into a container to take photos the next day, but they didn’t look very nice on day 2 (they still tasted just as yummy though!!!) so there aren’t any photos to share! Note that in her instructions it says to add in the cream in one step, but there is no cream in the ingredient list. I didn’t add it in and don’t think any extra moisture is needed, as these are already dense and moist – far more than a typical blondie recipe.

Cakes & Cupcakes

For Leighton’s 7th birthday, I made these cupcakes for him to share with his class. I had a great cake planned for his birthday party, but we unfortunately had to cancel it because he was sick with a fever.

I was really excited to make my first gender reveal cake for Lindsey and Charlie. I had tried to convince them to be surprised themselves, but they found out at their ultrasound and then I was trusted with the secret until they were able to share the cake and resulting photos with all of their family and friends, including little Nash and Maeve, who were very excited to learn they would be welcoming a new baby sister into their family! They are so many fun gender reveal cakes out there, and Lindsey requested something simple and liked this one split down the middle and these ones with ombre (I am always drawn to anything ombre!), so I used them both as inspiration.

Cookies

Before we knew he’d be sick and we’d have to cancel the party, I had started on these cookies for Leighton’s party favors (we still packaged them up and gave them to all of his friends). When I was mixing the colors, I added in a tiny bit of Americolor Electric Green to a yellow base in an attempt to mimic the color of a tennis ball (there is an ongoing conversation in our house about whether tennis balls are yellow or green!) and a little bit of brown to deepen the orange for the basketballs. I used this image as inspiration for the designs and this tutorial for the soccer balls.

When I was making these wood grain baby onesie cookies, I used this video to get a better feel for the technique. The grey and white wood grain matched the invitation for the baby shower. I also made these personalized periodic table inspired cookies for the same baby shower.

I love the brush embroidery technique so when I had a few leftover cookies, I decided to try it again and made these. Unfortunately, the brush I chose was horrible and the icing was a little too stiff, so it didn’t go as well as it could have. It is a technique I’d like to experiment with again.

The last cookies of the month were for Halloween! I chose to keep it classic black/orange/white and limited myself to only a few designs, even though there are so many fun and amazing ideas out there! I made candy corns, mummies, ghosts, pumpkins, spiders, and some with Halloween sayings. Lindsey took some of the cookies to share with friends in Fort Worth, Leighton and I passed around a lot to the teachers at his school, and we sent the rest to work with Roy.

Decorations & Toppers

I made these Houston Dynamo, Astros, Rockets, and Texans toppers for Leighton’s cupcakes. I used edible images for the logos and decided to try a triangle shape for the toppers for something different. I also stamped them with his name and age.

Riley’s class had a fun Halloween celebration, and I volunteered to make cupcakes. I made these Halloween cupcake toppers for the cupcakes. I wanted to keep it very simple and traditional black/orange/white. I stamped a Halloween word/saying to complete them.

Pies & Pastries

It was Canadian Thanksgiving this month, and we celebrated with a traditional turkey feast. The kids were really excited to help me make the pumpkin pie this year. I used this pie crust recipe again and once again was really happy with how it handled and tasted.

Because Leighton was expecting to have a cake at his party, cupcakes with his class, and cookies as party favors, he decided to have something different as his birthday dessert at home and requested an apple pie. I made this recipe that we had all really enjoyed when I made it for National Dessert Day back in January.

Scones & Biscuits

We love these sweet potato biscuits, and I make them often to accompany BBQ ribs. We have also tried them as the breakfast biscuits in the original blog post on How Sweet Eats. They are moist and delicious, and I highly recommend them!

Other Goodies

Roy and the kids bought this Fleischmann’s Simply Homemade Baking Mix: Pretzel Creations to make some delicious soft pretzels one Sunday afternoon. I had been wanting to make homemade soft pretzels with the kids for a long time, but hadn’t gotten any pretzel salt to do so. If any of you would like to make your own soft pretzels, I can assure you that these were really tasty – and they come with the pretzel salt!