What do you do when you have leftover pumpkin? You make these cookies! They’re the loveliest combination of rich molasses-sweet and ginger-spicy. If you wanted to you could substitute wholewheat flour for a more earthy, textural experience – I love wholewheat flour with these sorts of flavours (see: wholewheat pumpkin waffles).
In other news I wanted to thank you all for your emails and messages about my last blog post. What was posted as a quick note received many words of wisdom. More to come soon but for now know that I made the Rustic Black Bean and Sweet Potato Soup I had linked to and it is seriously wonderful. So, make soup and then…make these cookies.
Have a great weekend!
Pumpkin Ginger Molasses Cookies
adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod
Ingredients
- ½ cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar, plus more for rolling the cookies
- ½ cup pumpkin puree
- ¼ cup molasses
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 ⅓ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350° F. Line a baking sheet with a Silpat or parchment paper. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until it’s creamy and smooth. Add the pumpkin puree, molasses, egg, and vanilla extract, and mix until well combined.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, spices, and salt. Add your dry ingredients to wet ingredients gradually and fold until combined. Refrigerate the cookie dough for at least 1 hour.
- Place some extra white sugar in a small bowl. Roll tablespoon-sized balls of dough in sugar until well coated and place on baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10–14 minutes, or until cookies look cracked and set at the edges. The cookies will still be soft. Let them cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.
I don’t know about you but lately I’ve been feeling a little…bleurgh. There’s no other way to put it. I’ve been suffering from intense back pain for the majority of this year. I’ve also been experiencing what can only be described as a groggy sloth-like state. I get plenty of sleep and then battle to wake up in the morning and feel lethargic and exhausted all day.
One of the things I notice has a direct correlation to my grogginess is unsurprisingly the amount of sugar I eat. When I’m baking my little heart out and enjoying the creations that come out of my oven a bit too much I tend to get really sluggish.
So, for one I restocked our pantry with some pretty awesome looking dried beans and whole grains and jammed packed our fridge with fresh vegetables.
I’ve also seen some recipes bouncing round the intertubes have been inspiring me to clean up my act a little and I thought I’d share them with you in case you’re looking for some delicious and healthy inspiration too. Happy healthier eating!
~ Potato, Leek & Celeriac Soup from Nicole Franzen
~ Curried Bean Salad from 101 Cookbooks
~ Roasted Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup w/ bacon & gorgonzola from the little red house
~ Quinoa skillet bread 101 Cookbooks
~ Rustic Black Bean and Sweet Potato Soup from My New Roots
~ Buttermilk squash soup from 101 Cookbooks
I love baking quick breads like this. For a novice baker it’s the kind of thing that gives me a rare hour of ultra-content. Baking quick breads is predictable, stable, and so satisfying. Whisk your dry, then your wet ingredients. Add one to the other, combine and bake.
What could be more simple and rewarding? Nothing better on a blustery Autumn day than a slice of warm pumpkin bread and a hot cup of tea (crazy cat dominating your lap is optional but unavoidable in my case…).
I got to share some of this loaf with new friends. That’s a nice sentence to write. New friends who I was fortunate enough to spend time with at a cabin this weekend. All local food bloggers so…we ate. Oh, heck yeah, we did. Unbelievable bacon jam that I was lucky enough to steal the leftovers of. Homemade breads, salsas, soups, salads, cakes, more jams. We did not go hungry, in case you were worried.
But back to my first pumpkin bread. It’s specked with little chunks of walnut and lightly spiced. It’s not overly pumpkin-y which I appreciate. Americans go so very wild for pumpkin, it’s slightly alarming. If you prefer a more subtle taste of pumpkin, try this. It’s so very good, friends. Share it with yours, old or new.
Pumpkin Bread
adapted from A Cozy Kitchen
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 1/3 cup canola oil
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1 1/4 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan with softened butter and flour.
- In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- In a larger bowl, whisk pumpkin puree, oil, eggs, pumpkin pie spice, and sugar until smooth.
- Using a spatula, fold in the flour mixture until just combined, making sure to not over-mix the batter. Fold in walnuts.
- Add the batter to the greased/floured loaf pan and place in oven. Bake for 40-65 minutes (I find baking times vary wildly depending on your oven so more importantly, bake until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean).
- Cool in pan on rack for 15 minutes, then invert and cool completely on a wire rack. Serve at room temperature.
