Pumpkin White Chocolate Snickerdoodles

It’s no secret that my favorite muffin recipe is this pumpkin white chocolate muffin— I make them regularly for my daughter to take to school for afternoon snacks, and given that she’s been taking snacks daily for almost six years now, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve made many, many batches of those muffins. That being said, unless I want to make a double batch (which I don’t always have room for in my freezer), I end up with half a can of pumpkin leftover. What to do with the extra?

Enter the Pumpkin White Chocolate Snickerdoodle. All the delicious fall flavors of the muffin, but with just a bit more decadence and flair. They may not be as pretty as some cookies– mine refused to puff and thus also refused to crack nicely on top as they cooled– but they’re moist and chewy (unlike some cakey pumpkin cookies), full of flavor, and with a nice crackly outside that contrasts with the creamy white chocolate. As an added bonus, there’s no softening or creaming of butter necessary, though you do have to chill the dough for half an hour.

Definitely adding these to my list of cookies to make on a regular basis, especially if I’ve got leftover pumpkin!

Ginger Molasses Cookies

This past holiday season I found myself in need of a treat to make for our neighbors, who were doing us the favor of cat-sitting while we were away in California. The only problem was that I’d already denuded my refrigerator of standard ingredients for baked goods– no butter, no eggs, and I didn’t even have much chocolate in the house! What to do?

Enter the molasses cookie. Spicy and subtly sweet, it sounded like a perfect holiday-themed treat. I found a recipe that eschewed eggs and used oil instead of butter, which also kept the cookies moist and chewy rather than cakey. (seriously, they stayed moist for over a week!) A hefty dose of ginger, both powdered and crystallized, paired with the dark molasses to keep the flavor profile interesting.

Maple Butter Birthday Cookies

If you look at the ingredient list it’s fairly obvious why I call these “maple butter” cookies, but the “birthday” part is more of an inside joke. Almost six years ago, I was eight months pregnant and craving cookies– so I made a batch of these one day and had a lovely evening devouring them with little regard to the consequences. However, the next morning I woke up with an upset stomach, and when I happened to look into the jug of leftover maple syrup I saw a huge circle of mold floating right on top! Convinced that I had food poisoning from moldy syrup, I promptly threw away the remainder of the syrup and the rest of the cookies.

Of course, about three hours later it became obvious that my “food poisoning” was actually early labor, and by the time I returned home from the hospital a few days later, adorable newborn daughter in tow, I sincerely regretted my clearly unnecessary disposal of these extremely delicious and not-at-all poisoned cookies. They’ll always be “birthday cookies” to me, since they’ll forever be associated with the day my girl was born!

Pumpkin Pecan Chip Muffins

I’ve been making these muffins for years now, and they are invariably hailed by my friends as “the best muffins ever.” They’re moist, tender, with plenty of flavor from the pumpkin and spices, and studded with white chocolate chips and pecans as nice surprises in the middle. I tend to make them in fall (our freezer always has a batch ready to defrost for snacks at this time of year) but have been known to make them on a whim out-of-season– they’re that good! Make them yourself if you don’t believe me, and you will be converted!

I will note that the recipe below makes 12 muffins, but if you don’t want to find yourself with half a can of leftover pumpkin and half a bag of leftover chocolate chips, you may as well make a double-batch. You won’t regret it!

Reader’s Digest(ibles): Emily’s Upside-Down Custard Pie

Emily’s Runaway Imagination is one of Beverly Cleary’s lesser-known works, and it takes place on a farm in the 1920s or thereabouts. One of the scenes I remember best is where Emily (a little girl with a big imagination) bakes custard pie for a church potluck. She’d previously overheard someone say that the secret to a light and flaky pie crust was adding “a generous pinch of baking powder” to it, and she’s eager to demonstrate her newfound pie crust prowess.

“Two and a half cups of flour,” directed Mama. “Some salt — not quite a teaspoonful. Let’s see, some lard. You’d better let me measure that.” Mama came into the pantry and deftly measured the lard out of the lard bucket. “Now Emily, take two knives and slash through the flour and lard until it is as fine as corn meal.” Emily started to slash. […]
Quickly Emily added a generous pinch of baking powder and then, not certain how big a generous pinch should be, added another generous pinch to make sure. Then she slashed and slashed and according to Mama’s directions, added water, just a little bit. “There are two secrets to making good pie crust,” said Mama. “Use very little water and handle the dough lightly.” Emily smiled to herself because she knew a third secret. 

Unfortunately for Emily, once the pies come out of the oven, instead of the custard surface being “golden yellow and flecked with nutmeg,” the crust has risen to the top with the custard at the bottom. Her mother concludes that the custard filling was too liquidy to weigh the crust down (apples or raisins would apparently have worked better). No one wants to eat her “funny-looking” pie, until one of her neighbors remarks that the inversion will keep the crust from getting soggy… and then everyone digs in.

I always wondered as a kid if this would really happen if you added baking powder to a custard pie crust. Thinking about it now it doesn’t really make sense, since the custard would have no way of getting down through the bottom of the crust unless the crust had holes in it to let the custard flow through– without the holes even the puffiest crust would just end up pushing the extra custard over the top of the pan to spill on the oven floor. I could dock the crust, of course, but no one would dock a crust with big enough holes to let custard get through in any quantity– that’s just asking for the custard to leak and stick the crust to the pan.

I decided to give this food myth (if one can really call it that) the best possible chance of success by cutting a few 1″ circles out of the pie crust, allowing the custard plenty of space to run through and let the crust rise up to the top. I figured that if that didn’t work, nothing would.

Let’s see what happens!