Friday, October 30, 2009

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip


About a month or so ago someone brought pumpkin cookies into work and left them in the break room (a tradition that means "help yourselves"). I'd never had pumpkin cookies but they looked intriguing, so I gave one a try and was immediately hooked, I had to add these to my repertoire. Since these had been store bought I couldn't just sleuth out the baker. Instead I turned to the internet. Sadly, my local Publix must not have got the memo that fall=pumpkin because there was no canned pumpkin to be had.

So I waited and last week, when the grocery stores finally* deemed it decent to put out their pumpkin pie fillings I snatched up two cans for good measure. I found this recipe and got to work.

I followed the recipe fairly exactly (considering my current lack of teaspoon/tablespoons I actually use my silverware; good luck with 1/2 a teaspoon being very accurate with that). My only real deviation was to add about 1 1/2 cups of chocolate chips (that's a very rough guesstimate, I just added a bunch; then I stopped). Of course, that wasn't straying too far from the recipe since it's actually suggested on the page, but I was planning to do it even before I read it there.

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened
1 cup LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
PREHEAT oven to 350° F. Grease baking sheets.

COMBINE flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in medium bowl. Beat sugar and butter in large mixer bowl until well blended. Beat in pumpkin, egg and vanilla extract until smooth. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto prepared baking sheets.

BAKE for 15 to 18 minutes or until edges are firm. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

My Thoughts
1. This recipe also describes a glaze. I'm sure it's fine but these cookies are fabulous without it, so why bother?

2. The texture and weights of these cookies is just perfect. The spices however, are very much on the mild side. This is great if you want to be able to eat a dozen in a sitting or if you are baking for picky eaters. However, if you want a real show stopper of a cookie, I think you could adjust the spices on this one and get there quite easily. I saw one recipe online that called for allspice, which might be a nice pairing, or even something a bit punchier, maybe cardamom?

Which, really, what's up with that? We can put out Santa in September, but heaven forbid we have canned pumpkin available before Halloween.

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