Posted in Home, Nature, Photography, tagged Autumn, Nature, Nurture Photography Challenge, Orange, Persimmons, Photography, Pumpkin on October 18, 2013| 5 Comments »
This week’s prompts are orange/fiery so I chose orange. Our leaves haven’t really started to turn yet so I had to search for a few orange things.
The persimmon tree in the fence row behind our house is loaded with fruit this year.
This fallen branch had a pretty orange/yellow fungus growing on it, if fungus can be pretty.
It wouldn’t be fall without a few pumpkins, now would it?
Please join me for:
Posted in Cooking, tagged Baking, cream cheese, Lady Behind The Curtain, Lady Behind The Curtain Dessert Challenge, muffins, Pumpkin on October 10, 2013| 21 Comments »
October is in full swing and that means that bloggers everywhere are embracing pumpkin as an ingredient. I must admit that pumpkin is not my favorite flavor, but I like it well enough. This month’s Dessert Challenge at Lady Behind The Curtain features pumpkin and cream cheese so I went searching for a new recipe to try.
I really like muffins and it was an easy decision when I found this recipe at Sweet & Crumby. Her recipe makes 24 muffins so I made a half batch instead. The muffins are really moist and have a great flavor, but if I make them again, I will probably sweeten the cream cheese just a tiny bit before I put it in the muffins. Otherwise, this was a really tasty treat!
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp. apple pie spice
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup canned pumpkin
5 oz. vegetable oil
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
4 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
4 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and put liners in a muffin pan. Sift the flour, spice, baking soda and salt together on a paper plate and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, combine the pumpkin, oil, sugar, and eggs. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and gently stir until combined. Don’t over mix the batter and don’t worry if there are a few lumps left.
Using a small cookie scoop, fill the muffin tins about 2/3 full. You will have a little batter left over. Cut the cream cheese into 12 pieces and put one piece into each muffin, pressing it down into the batter. Then spoon a little extra batter over the top to completely cover the cream cheese.
In a separate small bowl, combine the brown sugar, pecans, cinnamon and butter until crumbly. Sprinkle a little of the topping over each muffin. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool and enjoy!
Please join me and others at the Lady Behind the Curtain Dessert Challenge.
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Posted in Cooking, tagged Baking, Blog, Brown Sugar, Cookie Exchange, Cookies, Pumpkin on December 10, 2011| 13 Comments »
Today I am joining up with other food bloggers to participate in the International Food Blogger Cookie Exchange hosted by Lori over Fake Food Free who happens to be a fellow Kentucky food blogger. Everyone that is taking part had to email a favorite holiday cookie or candy recipe to another blogger. Then that blogger has to make the treat and post about it on their site. I received a recipe from Joanne at Eats Well With Others and this is the link for the original recipe.
Now, I am going to be totally honest with all of you…I am not a big pumpkin fan so when I received this recipe, I was a little hesitant. I had no reason to be though. These little cookies don’t scream “pumpkin” when you take a bite; they are just soft sweet little cookie pillows. The texture was amazing and the brown sugar glaze finished them off perfectly. Delicious!!!
Note: The only change that I made from the original was the kind of nuts I used. Joanne used hazelnuts, but I didn’t have any so I used toasted pecans instead. Other than that, I followed her original recipe.
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp. milk
3/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, cream butter and combine with sugar on high speed for about 3 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add egg, pumpkins, and vanilla. Beat well.
Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Combine flour mixture with the butter/sugar/pumpkin mixture until just combined. Stir in nuts.
Drop batter in heaping tbsps. onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. (I used a small cookie scoop.) Bake for 10-15 minutes (mine took about 14) or until just starting to get a bit brown around the edges.
Before:
After:
Cool on a wire rack. While the cookies are cooling, make the frosting. In a small saucepan, combine the brown sugar, milk, and butter over low heat, stirring, until the butter is melted and the brown sugar is dissolved.
Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and confectioner’s sugar, whisking until no lumps are present. Ice the cookies with the frosting.
Picture Perfect Cooking 