Pumpkin Muffins

It has finally started to get cold in New York. I'm so excited, because I love wearing sweaters, and scarves, and boots and everything associated with the cold. In fact, the only thing that I have bought since moving here - clothes wise - are some incredibly warms sweaters from Housing Works. Well anyway, now that the colder are has settled in, I figured it was time to bake some pumpkin muffins. Pumpkins is one of my favorite plants ever. Questions - a vegetable, fruit, or just a squash? I feel it's one of those things that kind of pushes the boundaries. At work, they have pumpkin truffles, which are AMAZING!! I eat one almost every day that I go into work. So this morning, I woke up - early in fact - to bake some muffins. Now as I've said before, my oven here in my dorm room is very faulty, so I turned the oven up a little high then 350 because I was worried they did not bake. When the first batch came out, they were a little darker then usual, but still delicious. The second batch I eyed a little more carefully and took them out the moment they started to brown. In my opinion, they were much much much better. Charlotte said they were just as good as the first batch, so I guess we all just like our muffins at different consistencies. Either way, I will definitely be making these again. RECIPE FOR PUMPKIN MUFFINS Adapted from Gourmet Magazine INGREDIENTS:


• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 
1 tsp baking powder
• 
1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin
• 
1/3 cup vegetable oil

• 2 large eggs
• 
1 tsp pumpkin-pie spice (I ended up using Apple Spice, just about the same)
• 
1 1/4 cups plus 1 Tbsp sugar

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 1 tsp cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:


1. Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven toe 350F. Put liners in muffin cups.
2. Whisk together flour and baking powder in a small bowl.
3. Whisk together pumpkin, oil, eggs, pumpkin-pie spice, 1.25 cups sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl until smooth, then whisk in flour mixture until just combined.
4. Stir together cinnamon and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in another bowl.
5. Divide batter among muffin cups (each should be about 3/4 full), then sprinkle tops with cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake until puffed and golden brown and a wooden pick or skewer inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.
6. Cool in pan on a rack 5 minutes, then transfer muffins from pan to rack and cool to warm or room temperature.

Blueberry Scones

So I'm not going to lie, I have no where near enough time to bake as I would have liked now that I am in college. Everything just seems to be work work work and read read read with no time for baking. That being said, this past Thursday, during an afternoon when my writing class happened to be cancelled, I decided to make some scones. My dad tells me every day I should make scones and my suitemates seemed to like the idea of some pastries in the house as well. I was about to venture out and use a new recipe, but after having already purchased the ingredients a few days prior, I just fell back on the classic recipe that I use all the time and never ceases to fail me. ( I didn't make the glaze and used blueberries instead of strawberries) While the recipe never fails, our oven does. After keeping the scones in for longer then I ever do - and I even cut them smaller - they had still not baked all the way through. The dial said it was at 400 degrees, but I find that very hard to believe. Oh well. They were a little gooey, but still sweet and yummy.

Martha Stewart Cookies

So Saturday night, the cool people that we are, my roommate and I decided that instead of going out and enjoying New York City to the fullest, we were going to make cookies. Okay, that's not quite true. We didn't know what to do, and at 11 o'clock, after it was assessed that we were not going out, making cookies seemed like the best alternative. Usually, when I make the classic chocolate chip, I always fall back on Alton Brown's classic chewy recipe, but to make those, you a) need bread flour b) need to refrigerate and c) really need a mixer. Having none of said items or time, I decided upon another classic's recipe - Martha Stewart. Charlotte mixed it almost all entirely by hand - clap clap Charlotte! - and this was her first "cookie dough/sleepover" experience. Whatever that means. Having no mixer caused it to be a little runny since we couldn't cream the butter properly, but aside from being a bit flat, they were classic chocolate chip cookies. The perfect fix for our late night craving.

Thumbs up from Jessica.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies Adapted from The Martha Stewart Cookie Book

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups (about 12 ounces) semisweet and/or milk chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter with both sugars; beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low; add the salt, vanilla, and eggs. Beat until well mixed, about 1 minute. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
2. Drop heaping tablespoon-size balls of dough about 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
3. Bake until cookies are golden around the edges, but still soft in the center, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool on baking sheet 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool completely. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week.

Of course we had to make a super big one for everyone :-)

An American Experience

A few nights ago, my roommate and I discovered something a magical - a store within our dorm that accepts dining dollars!! What does this mean, you might ask? Well basically, dining dollars is money that is paid by the powers above (i.e. our parents) so when spending it, it's not technically "your money." So within this lovely little convenience store, they sell a plethora of goods - candy, drinks, sudafed, and KRAFT Mac and Cheese. Now if you venture into our kitchen you will see a list of rather American looking foods on our fridge - frozen yogurt, grilled cheese, twinkies, mac & cheese - all foods that our dear Charlotte has yet to try, given her status as an expatriated French women. Well anyway, upon seeing the Mac & Cheese downstairs, I pounced and bought it (well Charlotte technically used her dining dollars because I had left my ID upstairs) and proclaimed we would be having a fine Americanized lunch of mac & cheese the following day. As I prepared the lunch the following day - Charlotte was too afraid to do it by herself even though I was 30 minutes late arriving home - her first words upon seeing the very orange packet of cheesey stuff was, "That is not cheese." I had to agree, but then again, this is Kraft, and this is America where nothing is what it seems. All I can say is, not matter what the substance was that was added to the macaroni, it was quite delicious. Charlotte seemed to agree and upon completion of her very first bowl of American Mac & Cheese she said "It was very good." Now will we be making it again? Probably, but more so because mac & cheese is quite inexpensive, and after all, we are hungry/poor college students. :-)