 |
| My Stitch pumpkin |
About three years ago, I discovered the joy of pumpkin bread, Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes, and pumpkin pasties. Now when I carve my pumpkin, I use all the stuffing to make delicious treats! Baking warms up the house and it smells delicious. Here are some of the recipes I've found that I enjoy!
First step is of course to make sure you pick a pumpkin that will have nice filling, as in not one too old. Generally the humongous pumpkins will be older but have plenty of seeds. A nice medium one without deep ridges has worked out best for me in terms of cooking.
Today I am sharing 3 of my favorite pumpkin recipes.
- Pumpkin Bread a la Alton Brown
- Toasted Pumpkin seeds
- Pumpkin Pasties variation
Pumpkin Bread
<picture coming soon>
5. Wrap your dough in two chunks in saran wrap / clear plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator for 15 to 30 min to rest the dough. While this is happening, it'd be a good time to start preheating the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and making the filling.
8. Put about a table spoon of filling in the dough and fold it over.
If you don't have an "empanada molder" like the one above, just fold the dough over and either roll the edges over, fold them, or the easiest way is to take a fork and mush the edges down so you get little lines along the edge.
The filling will start to liquefy once the ingredients have been combined. Try to get as little of the liquid in there as possible. If you have an empanada molder, you might want to squish it over a sink to make it less messy when the juices come out. If you're doing it by hand, dab any of the juice that leaks out with a paper towel.
9. Place the Pumpkin Pasties on a baking tray.
The original recipe says an un-greased nonstick pan but mine stick to it even if it is nonstick, especially if one pops a little brown sugar juice out while baking. Either use parchment paper on the bottom of the tray or grease it lightly with butter flavored nonstick spray.
10. Take one egg and beat it til its frothy. I use both the yolk and the white because that's what gives it the nice shiny golden glow. Without the yolk, its just shiny but not golden. Anyways, take a brush and brush the pastry tops with it so they come out shiny, golden, and tasty looking.
11. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Don't open the oven over and over to check because you're ruining the constant temperature. Just peak in through the oven window at about 12 to 15 minutes to see how they are doing.
Cook time varies depending on how thick you made your dough and the size. Whenever I cook something for the first time, I only use the baking time as a suggestion. I always check on whatever I'm baking every 10 to 15 minutes because every oven is different. You don't want them to burn (-_-)
Enjoy and Happy Halloween!
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 3/4 cup vegetable oil
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups shredded fresh pumpkin
- 1 cup toasted pumpkin seeds
Directions
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
Sift the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together.
In a separate bowl, mix the sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla. Combine both mixtures and fold in the shredded pumpkin and pumpkin seeds. Once the ingredients are all incorporated pour into a non- stick 9 by 5 by 3-inch loaf pan. If your pan is not non- stick coat it with butter and flour.
Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. At this point a knife inserted into the middle of the loaf should come out clean. Cool for 15 minutes and turn out onto a cooling rack. Cool completely. For muffins temperature should also be 325 degrees F., but bake for 30 minutes.
When I make my bread though, I don't include pumpkin seeds. I don't like the crunchy sharp bits when I bite into my bread.
BTW Alton Brown is my favorite Food Network cook! I love Good Eats! It helps me understand how to cook better or why my cooking goes bad because he always explains the science behind the cooking!
BTW Alton Brown is my favorite Food Network cook! I love Good Eats! It helps me understand how to cook better or why my cooking goes bad because he always explains the science behind the cooking!
Toasted Pumpkin Seeds
<picture coming soon>
Take the pumpkin seeds from your pumpkin and rinse them all out. If you put it in a bowl of water and swish it around a bit, they will float to the top and you can easily separate them from the rest of the stuff that you weren't able to get off before.
Lie them out on a tray to dry out a little. They cook faster if they are dried out but if you can't wait like me, you can still cook them, just pat them down a bit with paper towel. They will still be slightly damp but that should be fine.
Preheat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
Put all the cleaned and dried seeds in a bowl. Put in a little olive oil, maybe a tablespoon or so, depending on how many seeds you have. Then sprinkle in copious amounts of seasoning. Mix it up. Many just like salt and pepper but this is what I put in my mix:
Ingredients
- olive oil
- salt
- pepper
- adobo seasoning
- garlic powder
- onion powder
Spread the seeds out across the tray. Add more seasoning if it doesn't look covered enough. If your seeds are wet, it will take about an hour or an hour and fifteen minutes. If its dried out, it may only take 30 minutes. I would just keep an eye on it. After about 30 min. (wet) or 15 min. (dry) shuffle the seeds about to get them evenly toasted. Re-season if necessary.
You'll be able to tell its done when it sounds light and hollow when you shuffle the seeds about. They will also be dry. They may turn tan or slightly golden. They shouldn't be brown. Test it by biting into one seed. If its crunchy then its ready. It should split in half when you bite it the way you would sunflower seeds. If its chewy then its not ready.
Pumpkin Pasties
 |
| My Pumpkin Pasties (^___^) |
The famous Pumpkin Pasties from Harry Potter. They are basically like empanadas with pumpkin filling. This is the recipe from the unofficial cookbook. I did make a few changes but I'll list the original recipe first.
Ingredients
- Pastry Crust
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 5 tablespoons cold butter, cut into chunks
- 3 tablespoons vegetable shortening, chilled and cut into chunks
- 4 to 6 tablespoons ice water
- Filling
- 1 cup canned pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Procedures
- 1Place the flour, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse a few times to combine. Scatter the butter and shortening over the flour mixture. Pulse about 15 times until the mixture resembles a coarse yellow meal, with no white powdery bits remaining.
- 2Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle 4 tablespoons of cold water over the mixture. Toss the mixture together with a spatula until it starts clumping together. If it's too dry, add more water 1 tablespoon at a time (better to wet than too dry). Gather the dough into a ball and pat it into a disk. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
- 3Combine the pumpkin, sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Mix well. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Roll out the dough 1/8-inch thick. Use a saucer to cut out 6 inch circles.
- 4Put 2 to 3 tablespoons of the filling in the center of each circle of dough. Moisten the edges with water, fold the dough over the filling, and crimp with a fork to seal the edges. Cut slits to make vents. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 30 minutes or until browned.
When I make my Pumpkin Pasties, I use this recipe for the dough instead because I prefer to make a lot at once. I also like a nice buttery croissant flavor crust on the outside. This will make about 12 to 16 small ones the size of your palm.
Pastry Ingredients:
3 cups plain flour
1/2 cup white sugar (1/4 cup if you only want the crust to have a slight hint of sweetness)
1/2 tspn baking powder
1/2 tspn table salt
2 and 1/5th sticks of cold butter, cubed
1/2 cup cold water
1 large egg (to mix in the dough)
1 large egg (to glaze dough later)
- Filling
- 3 cups fresh pumpkin (from your gutted pumpkin)
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Your pumpkin should be in thin shreds/strips like what you get from scraping the inside of the pumpkin. Use the drier pulp part, not the gooey sticky string you get when you first open it and start scooping seeds out.
Instructions:
1. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
2. Cut up the butter into cubes.
I cut the stick at the sections on the paper then cut each slice into four pieces. Try to do it without melting the butter too much.
3. Mix the butter into the flour mixture.
I bought a Kitchen Aid standing mixer for my Christmas gift to myself last year because I have a hard time with dough because its heavy. Use your dough hook attachment. If you are using one, you know you're ready for step 4 when the butter starts to blend in and you get big crumbly chunks. Same goes for hand mixer. I've heard you can stick it in a large food processor but I haven't tried that yet. You could mold it by hand but you risk melting the butter with your warm hands. Don't mix too much. Just until it starts getting crumbly.
4. Add egg and water.
Add 1/4 cup of water first. Then mix it. If its not mixing together into a smooth dough, add the other 1/4 cup of water. Your dough is ready when its in big dough chunks and not clinging to the side of the bowl. When it starts to do this STOP mixing or you'll over knead your dough.
6. Take one chunk of dough out and roll it as thin as you can get it.
Make sure you add flour to your surface and a little flour to the dough as you roll it out. Knead the dough as little as possible and work fast. The warmer the dough gets the stickier it will be due to its high butter content.
7. Use a round circle cutter, small bowl, glass etc. to cut the dough in circles. You can use the back of the "empanada molder" if you have one to cut the circles.
 |
| I'm lazy to crimp the edges so I use this to fold them in half. It doubles as a cutter for the dough to get the right round shape as well. |
If you don't have an "empanada molder" like the one above, just fold the dough over and either roll the edges over, fold them, or the easiest way is to take a fork and mush the edges down so you get little lines along the edge.
The filling will start to liquefy once the ingredients have been combined. Try to get as little of the liquid in there as possible. If you have an empanada molder, you might want to squish it over a sink to make it less messy when the juices come out. If you're doing it by hand, dab any of the juice that leaks out with a paper towel.
9. Place the Pumpkin Pasties on a baking tray.
The original recipe says an un-greased nonstick pan but mine stick to it even if it is nonstick, especially if one pops a little brown sugar juice out while baking. Either use parchment paper on the bottom of the tray or grease it lightly with butter flavored nonstick spray.
10. Take one egg and beat it til its frothy. I use both the yolk and the white because that's what gives it the nice shiny golden glow. Without the yolk, its just shiny but not golden. Anyways, take a brush and brush the pastry tops with it so they come out shiny, golden, and tasty looking.
11. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Don't open the oven over and over to check because you're ruining the constant temperature. Just peak in through the oven window at about 12 to 15 minutes to see how they are doing.
Cook time varies depending on how thick you made your dough and the size. Whenever I cook something for the first time, I only use the baking time as a suggestion. I always check on whatever I'm baking every 10 to 15 minutes because every oven is different. You don't want them to burn (-_-)
Enjoy and Happy Halloween!
