…Wait, cookies? Hm, maybe not so hard to think of things after all.

A whole tray of 'em!

Once cookie I just can’t get my head around is the snickerdoodle. I guess it’s because I never had one until a year or so ago, so I have no nostalgic childhood memories of buttery sugar cookies rolled in crunchy cinnamon sugar. (It was all ginger molasses, all the way for me!) Even though the first one I had was good, it just didn’t impress me. I figured there had to be some way to make it more appealing, and eventually I realized what that was.

They so pretty.

Pumpkin + spice = awesome. Plain old cinnamon would sure be fine, what with the spice grinder and whole spices I stocked up on for my Christmas cookie extravaganza, but since I’d already mixed up a batch of my gingerbread spice blend for marshmallows I decided to go with that.

The floating cookie?

Since the recipe I found for pumpkin snickerdoodles only called for white sugar and you can’t REALLY have anything gingerbread flavored without good old molasses flavor, I decided to add a little light brown sugar. Only a little, and only light brown because these cookies are soft like cake.

Slide them into your gullet!

The texture reminds me of the whoopie pies I made back in the day, nice and round and fluffy, just the way I like my whoopie pies. These would be excellent sandwiched with your favorite whoopie pie filling…cream cheese, chocolate, caramel, dulce de leche???

Freaky neon orange insides.

Oh yeah, they really are that orange inside. That means they must have a lot of beta carotene…which means they’re healthy, right? :D

Spicy pumpkiny goodness.

Pumpkin Gingerbread Spice Snickerdoodles (adapted from For the Love of Cooking):

For the cookies:

1. 1/2 cup butter
2. 1/2 cup sugar
3. 1/4 cup light brown or demerara sugar
4. 1 egg
5. 1/2 tsp vanilla
6. 1/2 cup pumpkin
7. 2 cups AP flour
8. 1 tsp gingerbread spice blend*
9. 3/4 tsp baking soda
10. 1/2 tsp salt

For the Sugar Coating:

1. 1/2 cup sugar
2. 2 tsp gingerbread spice blend*

In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla, scraping down the bowl to ensure that it’s fully incorporated. Beat in the pumpkin and scrape down again. Combine the remaining dry ingredients and whisk or sift together (if your baking soda or flour has clumps definitely sift). With the mixer off, add all the dry at once and mix on low speed until almost completely incorporated. Scrape down the beater and bowl (especially the bottom) and briefly mix on low speed until everything is fully combined. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Combine the sugar coating ingredients thoroughly in a small bowl. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and form into balls slightly smaller than golf balls. Thoroughly coat each one in the sugar coating and place at least 1 1/2″ apart on the baking sheets. Flatten each slightly with the heel of your hand. Bake for about 10 minutes, turning the sheets halfway through. Remove from oven when the cookies are firm to the touch on top. Cool for about 1 minute on the sheet then move to a rack to finish cooling.

Makes about 24.

*I make my own blend of gingerbread spices. It’s phenomenal when made with freshly-ground spices (which is why my cookies have bigger specks of some spices and little ginger fibers here and there) but is also really nice with pre-ground spices, too. I usually measure one part as a teaspoon when I make a batch.

1. 2 parts cinnamon
2. 2 parts ginger
3. 1 part nutmeg
4. 1 part cloves
5. 1 part allspice

Spooooky!

Though I do fully intend to get my spiced-pumpkin-and-chocolate fix (in the form of cookies, I think), I decided to go a little more savory and used sage and brown butter. Both excellent friends of the pumpkin. Both among my most favoritest of flavors. It is a trifecta of awesome.

The sprinkles just make them.

I was originally thinking of utilizing fresh sage and frying it, which I’ve utilized in both savory and sweet concoctions before. But I was planning on buying a plant at the Greenmarket, which was closing down for the day as I rushed through, and the potted herbs were nearly all packed up. No matter – I was hurrying on the way to Kalustyan’s (for teas and cocoa nibs and fun things to grind in my brand new spice grinder!) and ended up buying some beautiful dried sage there…which I promptly ground in the spice grinder once I got home. Hooray!

Oh pumpkin!

Dried sage really was the way to go, since it stands up to heat and makes for a stronger flavor in the finished cakes.

Since the cakes themselves would be plenty sagey, I figured I’d focus on making the frosting as brown-buttery as possible. I think I succeeded. The frosting is a French (or pate a bombe) buttercream, made with all solidified brown butter, and half brown and half white sugar, inspiring me to name it “Double Brown Buttercream.”

Oh brown butter speckles!

The thing about brown butter, though, as awesome as it is, is that it’s very unstable, having had its fatty solids all browned up. It liquefies really quickly at room temperature. That’s why I chose to use a yolk-based buttercream – to hopefully return a little fatty stability. It still needs to be kept relatively cool, but firms up fast once refrigerated. It is also unapologetically buttery, and not even pleasant to eat on its own. However, in small amounts on impossibly moist and flavorful cupcakes that just scream of fall, topped off with crunchy sprinkles (which are not optional for both aesthetic and textural reasons)…it is absolutely perfect.

March into my mouth!

One thing to note is that I made my cupcakes in one-bite size, which is probably the best way to consume these particular morsels. Because I didn’t want to deal with nearly a hundred cupcakes, I halved the recipe, which I do not recommend doing with an egg-foam based buttercream, because it is nearly impossible to make that in tiny amounts. I had to try twice but luckily noticed that it wasn’t going to work before I added the precious butter. So do this however you like, though I think it would be hard to get through all that butteryness on a full-sized cupcake. You can always just freeze the frosting and cake batter or baked cakes, though.

Pumpkin-Sage Cupcakes with Double Brown Buttercream

First, Make Those Cakes!

1. 1 1/4 cup butter
2. 1 cup brown sugar
3. 1 1/4 cup white sugar
4. 1 1/2 Tbsp ground dried sage (freshly ground, if possible)
5. 2 eggs
6. 1 tsp vanilla
7. 15 oz. pumpkin puree (1 can)
8. 3 cups AP flour
9. 2 tsp baking soda
10. 1 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350F. Cream the butter and sugars with the sage until light and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between additions and incorporating thoroughly. Add the vanilla and the pumpkin and beat until incorporated. If it looks a little grainy don’t worry; the dry ingredients will bring it back together. Combine all the dry ingredients in a medium bowl and whisk to combine and aerate (sift if you have clumps of anything). Add the dry mixture to the rest of the batter and incorporate on a low speed, stopping to scrape down the bowl a couple of times. Don’t overmix. Scoop into lined muffin tins and bake 20-25 minutes for full-sized cupcakes, 10-15 for minis. Cool completely before frosting.

Now Make That Frosting!

1. 4 eggs yolks, room temperature
2. 1 pinch salt
3. 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp water
4. 1/3 cup brown sugar
5. 1/3 cup white sugar
6. 1 1/3 cup brown butter (start with at least 1 1/2 cups of butter before browning, as you’ll lose some volume in cooking it), solidified and softened

Place the yolks in the bowl of a stand mixer and start beating them on a low speed with the whisk attachment. Add the salt and turn up the speed to high. Whip until pale, thick and noticeably increased in volume. Place the sugars and water in a saucepan and cook over high heat until it reaches the soft ball stage (248F). Pour the sugar down the side of the mixing bowl into the eggs and continue whipping until only slightly warm. Switch to the paddle attachment and turn it on to a medium-low speed. Add the brown butter gradually in small chunks. If the buttercream begins to get soupy or break in some way, stop adding the butter and turn up the mixer until it comes back together, then turn down the mixer and resume adding the butter until it is all incorporated. It will probably be fairly soft, so refrigerate it to firm it up a bit before piping.

And Now to Put It All Together!

1. Cupcakes, cooled completely
2. Buttercream, in a piping bag fitted with a large round tip
3. Large green confetti sprinkles (also known as quins)
4. Orange sanding sugar

Pipe blobs that look like slightly flattened spheres onto each cupcake, directly in the center. Don’t cover the whole surface of the cupcake – about half the diameter is all you need. Once they’re all frosted, apply the green sprinkles to the dead center of each frosting blob, using tweezers if necessary (I wish I’d had some but my almost freakishly tiny fingers did the trick just fine). Carefully sprinkle the frosting on each cupcake with the orange sugar, being careful to not spill too many on the cake itself (they’ll stick). Keep refrigerated and serve slightly cool (or else the frosting will be too melty and buttery).

Makes about 90-96 mini cupcakes or 24-30 regular cupcakes.

The winner of October’s Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge will receive prizes from:

• Angela’s Images; a selection of handmade crafts
• Bake It Pretty; a $5 electronic gift card
• Beanilla; 2-fold Madagascar vanilla extract & 3 Tongan vanilla beans
• Hello Hanna; a pack of Sweet Stands cupcake stands
• Lisa Orgler; an 8.5″x11″ original art print of your choice
• Miss Kitty Creations; a handmade cupcake charm of your choice
• Sweet Cuppin Cakes; a prize pack worth $25
• Tundra Books; a selection 3 very sweet children’s books

Thank you to all our prize sponsors!

Ooh, springy!

Yes, salad. Not something you’d normally bother to post a recipe for, but it was so cute, so tasty, and such a happy coincidence of ingredients that I knew I needed to share.

Color means flavor!

It was actually SO tasty that I ate one four times in two days, until the magical combination of fresh pea shoots, sweet sugarsnaps, crisp seedless cucumber and brilliant red strawberries ran out. If i come across this combination all at once again I’ll replicate this salad for sure – I’ve still got plenty of the flavorful local honey and I always have Balsamic, extra virgin olive oil and black pepper on hand.

Sweet, leafy and crisp.

This salad is amazing served at any time of day…I ate it for breakfast a couple of times, as dinner once and as a late-night, post-work snack another night. Get the freshest ingredients possible and only buy strawberries that fill the air with their sweet berry perfume. Use good honey. Enjoy devouring springtime.

Amazingly addictive and happily healthy.

Springy Peaberry Salad

1. 1 pint strawberries
2. 1 smallish seedless cucumber
3. About 30 fat sugar snap peas
4. 2-3 cups pea shoots
5. 1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar
6. 3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
7. 2 Tbsp honey
8. Up to 1/4 tsp black pepper

Wash all the vegetables. Hull and slice the strawberries. Slice the cucumber in half lengthwise and slice each half in 1/4″ thick slices. Remove the stems and strings on the sugar snap peas and chop each in half crosswise. Place all in a large bowl. Combine the Balsamic, oil, honey and pepper in a small bowl and whisk vigorously until emulsified. Pour over the salad and toss well. Serve immediately. Serves four.

Ah, that even feels healthy to write about! Don’t worry, though, the next two posts will be all about the ice cream – one fruity with a somewhat curious recipe, the other an eggless but still VERY indulgent classic you probably never thought of making at home.

Golden, pretty and rhubarby!

I wasn’t terribly excited about this challenge at first, and didn’t bother with the whole suet thing, choosing instead to substitute butter (of course). But once I got the idea to use rhubarb, just about the only local-ish source of pastry inspiration that’s in season at the moment, I started to get a little more interested in it. And in spite of the tempting steamed rhubarb pie concept, I decided to go with a much easier sponge pudding.

I love the girly pinkishness of rhubarb.

At first I wasn’t really sure how I’d rig up a steamer system, but I ended up just using one Pyrex container inside of another, with my oven on a low temperature. This worked beautifully and I ended up with a very moist, sponge-like cakey thing, studded with crags of lovely pink rhubarb.

No roses actually came into play in this recipe...they just looked pretty.

It reminded me of tea parties and little girls’ birthday parties, so I fancied it up with some dried rosebuds for pictures. But the recipe itself I kept simple, only adding a bit of vanilla extract to flavor it.

I didn’t have regular breadcrumbs, only Panko, so I crushed it in a plastic bag and it worked just fine, even though I couldn’t get it crushed uniformly.

How lovely.

Since I was making a spongy pudding, I decided to use my second rhubarb stalk to make a nice sauce to pour over the cake. I just cut it up into small pieces and tossed them with a few tablespoons of sugar, then added just enough water to cover and brought to a boil, then simmered on low until the rhubarb disintegrated into the sauce.

I love the golden edge.

I wanted to play up the bright tartness of rhubarb in the sauce so I added a couple pinches of crushed dried hibiscus to the rhubarb before cooking. They added even more vibrant pink flavor and chewy little bursts of acidic sourness.

Nice and warm and moist.

With both the cake and the sauce served warmed through, I found the entire thing to be both springy and comforting. Not too sweet; a very simple, humble little cake. I’m really glad I participated this month.

So craggy and perfectly spongy.

This cake would be just as lovely with nothing added in the batter, as a base for any kind of cooked fruit. Any berry would be amazing slightly stewed and poured over a thick slice of this sponge, as would stewed stone fruits or really anything juicy and summery.

Nomtastical!

Rhubarb Pudding

1. 100g AP flour
2. 1/4 tsp salt
3. 1/2 tsp baking powder
4. 100g breadcrumbs
5. 75g sugar
6. 75g butter
7. 1 egg
8. 7 Tbsp cold milk
9. 1 tsp vanilla extract
10. 1 medium rhubarb stalk, chopped into small pieces, tossed with enough sugar to coat

Generously butter a 4 quart Pyrex dish and place inside a larger, more shallow Pyrex dish. Preheat the oven to 250F.

Sift together the first three ingredients. Add the breadcrumbs, sugar and butter and beat to a thick paste. Add the egg, milk and vanilla and beat to a soft batter, then gently mix in the rhubarb. Turn out into the buttered dish and cover it tightly with aluminum foil. Boil some water and pour it into the larger dish, around the smaller one, being careful not to splash any water into the batter. Steam in the oven for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, until the top edges are golden but not browned. Cool for a few minutes before inverting onto a plate. Serve warm (this reheats in the microwave beautifully).

I’m really glad I participated in this challenge. I had been wanting to experiment with steamed cakes after eating cloudlike eggy cupcakes from a bakery (steamery?) in Chinatown and noting that some of the desserts at work are steamed to make things extra moist. Stay tuned for more steamy adventures…

You give me really awesome cupcake wrappers, I WILL make you cupcakes in said wrappers!

As it turns out, there’s actually a lot more to a real red velvet cake than the hint of cocoa and often garish color. For one, buttermilk. That was all well and good…if I didn’t have to make it dairy-free (so I could share with my best friend). I usually use either coconut milk or condensed soy milk (which I condense myself). Luckily, after a little searching I found out that soy milk could, in fact, be spoiled with a small amount of acid just like regular milk can when you need a buttermilk substitute. One hurdle down!

Another issue I ran into was the leavening – mochi cakes generally only call for baking powder for leavening (which falls into a dense, chewy awesomeness moments after coming out of the oven) while red velvet calls for baking soda and vinegar to be added, foaming, at the last second. I went with the red velvet method and it worked out great.

Lookit that frosting! So smooth!

In keeping with my dairy-free theme, I decided that fake cream cheese and margarine was too creepy a combination to use for a frosting (despite mochi cakes not really needing frosting in general, I don’t think you can have proper red velvet without some kind of white frosting), so I went with a white chocolate-coconut milk ganache. I know white chocolate isn’t dairy-free but a small amount is tolerable, and the ganache is so rich and luxurious that you don’t need a lot. Just one little creamy, slightly coconutty swirl is enough.

Not neon red, but a more pleasant, edible shade.

Another difference between red velvet cake and mochi cake is that the fat in red velvet is generally all vegetable oil, as opposed to the melted butter used in mochi cakes. I used all vegetable oil the first time I tried to make these (yes, it took me two tries) and they came out just fine. Except, being the first try, they weren’t quite right yet. A bit too much cocoa, not enough red.

Artsy shot!

Not unexpectedly, I had been posting to Twitter the whole time about my experiment, and got a fantastic suggestion from a like-minded Twitterer. Why not add red bean paste to the mix?

OF COURSE!

So, on my second try, I substituted red bean paste for half the oil, decreased the amount of cocoa powder and used only enough dye to turn the batter a pinkish-orange color. The cakes baked up wonderfully and taste not completely unlike red velvet, from the hint of cocoa and the tang of the acidic “buttermilk”, but also a little classically Japanese with the red bean and mochi flavors also popping up a bit. And, of course, there’s that frosting…

Parrots love cupcakes too.

Red Velvet Mochi Cupcakes

First, Make the Ganache (because it takes a while to set up):

1. 200g white chocolate, chopped
2. 100g coconut milk

Melt the white chocolate over a simmering double boiler. Set aside. Heat the coconut milk until steaming (you can do this in a small saucepan or just in the microwave) and pour it into the chocolate. Using a small spatula, stir gently from the middle of the bowl until the ganache is fully emulsified, scraping along the sides once in a while but not incorporating any extra air. Set aside to set up – you can chill it if you’d like but give it a stir once or twice to make sure it doesn’t set up too hard. It can be softened at room temperature if it does.

Then, Make the Cakes (red velvet recipe adapted from Pithy & Cleaver):

1. 12 oz. plain soy milk
2. 2 tsp white vinegar
3. 2 oz. vegetable oil
4. 2 oz. sweet red bean paste
5. 1 cup (200g) sugar
6. 2 eggs
7. 2 Tbsp cocoa powder
8. 5 1/3 oz. Mochiko
9. 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
10. 1/8-1/4 tsp red gel food coloring
11. 1/2 tsp baking soda
12. 1/2 tsp white vinegar

Place the soy milk in a small saucepan and simmer until it reduces to 6 oz. Remove from saucepan and allow to cool.

Preheat the oven to 350F and line a muffin tin with paper liners (or prepare a cake pan if that’s how you roll).

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the oil, red bean paste, sugar and eggs. Add the cocoa and Mochiko, mix thoroughly. Add the 2 tsp. vinegar to the condensed soy milk and pour it into the mixture, whisk to combine. Whisk in the color gradually until you get a reddish-orange color. Measure the baking soda into a small bowl, pour in the 1/2 tsp. of vinegar and allow to begin frothing, then dump into the batter and quickly mix. Pour immediately into prepared baking vessel. Bake 20-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into a cake comes out clean. Cool on a baking rack.

Once the cakes are fully cooled, fit a piping bag with a star tip and fill it with the ganache. Pipe a swirl onto each cupcake.

Makes 12 cupcakes.

I know there are a lot of weight measurements in this recipe, and frankly I’m not interested in converting every little thing I make. I wouldn’t make this without a scale personally. My advice to those who wish to convert the weights to volume? Don’t. Just buy a scale. They’re not expensive and after one or two recipes you’ll wonder how you ever baked without one.