Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies and my new job

More fall weather = more pumpkin!

I am so pumped about all the pumpkin, and I'm trying to find out how to incorporate it into everyday life. Last week I made pumpkin bars, which have been great for after-dinner desserts. But don't you like to have something small after lunch, too? What better than a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie! (Or two!)

Pumpkin and chocolate chips? What?? I know, not typically what you might pair your pumpkin with, but I promise it is an incredible combination. The pumpkin results in a more soft and cake-like cookie, but the chocolate chips give it a bit more of a cookie-type crunch. Don't be surprised when they come out of the oven looking like little muffin tops instead of crunchy cookies.

These bad boys went over a lot better than I thought. I made a double batch, just in case they were too good. And good thing I did.

The cookies went tailgating at the Iowa State/University of Iowa game this weekend, and got eaten up by buzzed Cyclone fans before they would melt in the sun. The cookies accompanied me at work yesterday and made me lots of new friends. Their cake-like texture made me think people wouldn't like them, but I was wrong. Everyone seemed to like the pumpkin/chocolate combination.

And I still have plenty left for Boyfriend and me, but he is the only one who doesn't seem to like them. More for me :)

Also, I have good news. I recently got a new part-time job which involves cake, ice cream, and frosting. Any guesses?

Midnight Delight anyone?

I'm decorating cakes at Coldstone Creamery! This Midnight Delight cake pictured here is one of the first ones I made. It is built with layers of devil's food cake, fudge, and chocolate ice cream, then covered in chocolate ganache (which I am learning is the devil to work with) and sprinkled with chocolate shavings.

Strawberry Passion Cake, another one I enjoy making.  Photo credit: www.onsecondscoop.com

I get to do this about 10 to 20 hours a week, in addition to my restaurant job. This keeps my urge to bake and decorate satisfied. Good thing, because Kyle is starting to get nervous about all the sweets in the apartment.

The hardest part about this job is not eating my work.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1c. pumpkin puree
• 1c. white sugar
• 1/3c. plain Greek yogurt
• 1 egg
• 2c. flour
• 2t. baking powder
• 2t. pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2t. salt
• 1t. baking soda
• 1t. milk
• 1t. vanilla
• 2c. chocolate milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Combine pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil and egg. Mix until combined. In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, salt and baking soda. Add milk and vanilla extract to flour mixture.
3. Add pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture and mix until fully combined. Add in chocolate chips.
4. Drop spoon size dough balls onto the greased cookie sheet, about an inch apart. Bake for about 8 to 12 minutes. I wanted to leave them in longer, but they really won't get more crunchy. Remember they are cake-y!

Pumpkin Bars

September brings colored leaves, campfire weather and happy feelings of fall. All that good stuff might not be here yet, but it is September, and I'm busting out the pumpkin.

I used to be a picky kid. Anything with pumpkin grossed me out, even pumpkin pie. When I decided to grow up a few years ago, I realized I was quite in love with the orange puree.

For one thing, it's a healthy ingredient for baking. One cup has only 49 calories and plenty of fiber to keep you full for a while. When you bake as much as I do, you have to make a healthy dish every now and then.

Secondly, it's orange! It takes on its own bright personality without any added dye.

And, now that I'm a big girl, I'll admit that pumpkin has flavor. It tastes so good in a pie, in a cupcake, mixed with chocolate, and, my favorite, pumpkin bars topped with cream cheese frosting.

Since Boyfriend wants healthier desserts (and I could stand for some low-cal treats, too), I used a recipe from sheknows.com which substitutes Greek yogurt for any butter or oil you'd normally use. This swap takes away lots of fat and calories, while keeping the delicious taste.

These pumpkin bars are quite easy to make and don't take a lot of time. The cakey part is fluffy and pumpkin-y, everything you could want. I used a light cream cheese frosting and topped them with slivered almonds. They taste great with only the frosting, but the almonds make them look like they're ready to party.

I recommend chilling the bars before eating so the frosting will set and harden. I think they taste better when the frosting is cold.

I think I'll be making these a lot this fall!

Pumpkin Bars

Yields: About 16 cake bars

Ingredients:

For the cake:

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
2/3 cup low-fat Greek yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 egg whites
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup white sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
Cooking spray

For the frosting:

8 ounces light cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup toasted almonds, chopped

Directions:

To make the cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 x 8-inch glass cake plate with cooking spray.
Mix pumpkin, yogurt, vanilla, egg whites and sugar well in a large mixing bowl. Once combined, add in baking soda, baking powder, flour, salt and pumpkin pie spice until fully mixed.
Bake for about 30 minutes, or until cake comes out dry when inserted with a toothpick.
To make the frosting: Mix cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla together. Once cake has cooled, frost and garnish with toasted almonds.

Caramel Scotcharoos

I've posted about the awesomeness of scotcharoos before...the crunch of a Rice Krispie treat mixed with a sweet honey and peanut butter twist, and topped with a rich chocolate and butterscotch mixture...what's not to love?!

Scotcharoos are also great for their versatility. You can get creative with them, change the cereal, melt different flavored chips on top, throw in something crazy.

 This past weekend I experimented with caramel, a first for me. I love the combination of chocolate and caramel. In ice cream, fudge, brownies, you name it. Caramel and chocolate are meant to be together. I've never made caramel sauce on my own however, and now I know why. The recipe I used from keyingredient.com asks you to unwrap a bag of those little caramels that are so chewy and tasty, it's a wonder I had enough left to make a topping for my scotcharoos. I could eat those things all day.

So after a lot of will power, I melted all those caramels with about 3T. of water, until they were all melted and boiling. Then I mixed in 1/2c. of peanut butter and poured the mixture on top of the already made Rice Krispie dish. Let it chill while you melt the chocolate part. That's right, we're not done yet!

This recipe has you mix the melted chocolate with 1/2c. peanut butter as well. (This treat is going to be intensely sweet, if you couldn't predict that.)

Look at that yummy caramel! 

At that point, Kyle asked what I was going to do with the pot of melted chocolate. I said, "Pour it over these." The pan of caramel-covered Rice Krispie marshmallow goodness waited anxiously for its top and final layer, when Kyle said, "Who would eat all that??!!"

Easy answer: Chalkey women. My sweet Grandma Barb. Sweet tooth crazies.

The real question is, who wouldn't want to try it? They look like your usual scotcharoos, but once you take a bite, prepare to chew for a while on the gooey, tasty caramel, and slip into scotcharoo bliss.

Caramel Scotcharoos

Ingredients

• 3T. butter
• 10oz. bag mini marshmallows
• 1T. vanilla
• 7c. Rice Krispies cereal, or Special K
• 14oz. bag unwrapped caramels
• 2T. water
• 1 1/2c. peanut butter, divided
• 12oz. bag chocolate chips

Directions

1. Butter a 9X13in. pan.
2. Place 3 tablespoons of butter and the marshmallows in a saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until melted. When completely melted and smooth, stir in vanilla. Turn off heat and stir in cereal until completely coated; the mixture will be very sticky. Pour into buttered pan. Coat hands with butter and press in mixture firmly. Place in the refrigerator to chill. In another saucepan, place caramels and water over low heat, stirring frequently as caramels melt until smooth. Add 1 cup of the peanut butter to the caramel and stir until completely blended. Pour onto the chilled Rice Krispies mixture and spread to the edges. Place pan back in the refrigerator.
3. Over low heat, melt the chocolate in a saucepan, stirring frequently and being careful not to scorch the chocolate. When melted, add in the remaining  1/2 cup of peanut butter, stirring until smooth. Pour chocolate mixture over caramel layer, spreading to the edges in an even layer. Place dessert in the refrigerator and allow to set up for about 1 hour or until chocolate is firm to the touch. Cut into squares or rectangles when firm.

How to make a classy 21st birthday cake

Ah, 21...there's so much to look forward to on your 21st birthday. Unfortunately, birthday cake doesn't really compare to legally buying and drinking your own alcohol. Unless of course you legally put booze in your cake.

Kaitlyn (my first friend in Ames!) turned 21 last weekend. I don't know who was more excited: her for being able to get into bars or me for getting to make a new cake.

After eating some cake and going to the bar, we were both pretty happy.

21st birthday cakes require some kind of alcohol, in my opinion. I have a great cupcake cookbook called Intoxicated Cupcakes that has all kinds of recipes for using leftover booze in cupcakes. From margarita cupcakes to Guinness and cosmopolitan, this cookbook has a recipe for any type of liquor.

Since Kaitlyn like's coconut, I went with the recipe for pina colada cupcakes and converted it to a cake (use the same amount of ingredients, same oven temperature, just use two round cake pans and bake for about 35 minutes instead of 25). The recipe was composed of Malibu rum, pineapple, and coconut. This was also a perfect cake to end the summer with. 

Once the recipe was chosen, the next decision was whether to make a classy cake or a drunken cake. By drunken, I mean those cakes with the sloppy party Barbie and quotes or mini bottles of alcohol on top. Kaitlyn's favorite color is lime green, so I went with a classier looking 50 shades of green cake.

How much fun is that cake?!

I found this design on Pinterest and couldn't resist. At first I made a normal two-layer cake, but when I started decorating, it wasn't going to be big enough for all those layers of green. Solution? Four-layer cake!! Double the cake, double the fun, and double the yum.

The best part about decorating this cake was mixing all the greens. I used kelly green, electric green, mint green, leaf green, and turquoise to get all of the fun shades.

To make the swirls on the cake, I used a Wilton 1m tip, the big one that is used to make roses. I simply went around in a tight circle to get the swirl. They weren't perfect, but they were good practice. 

I wanted to add a little contrast to the cake, so I added a martini-shaped sugar cookie. I made a green one at first, but liked the pink better.

I was so happy with the finished cake, and I think Kaitlyn was, too. I got lots of drunk hugs and thank yous all night.

Those four layers of coconut and fruity cake tasted so good with the Malibu and coconut frosting. Click here for the pina colada recipe.