United Cakedom: Thanksgiving

Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes and/or Dessert Bowls {recipe}

This is the first Thanksgiving, I think since I moved to the UK, that I haven't made pumpkin pie. It felt a little odd, but there were no complaints with the alternative.

This recipe suits cupcakes if you don't happen to have a 6 cavity dessert shell that makes cake bowls! After a quick look around the 'ol internet they don't seem to exist any more if you come across one pop a comment below and let us all know!

The special tin isn't necessary though because the recipe makes great cupcakes and when topped with the cream cheese frosting and toasted walnuts and drizzled with salted caramel it's perfection all in one little cake.

Cupcakes aren't generally something that is thought of as a dessert, but as a birthday treat or a snack with coffee. However, I would argue that cupcakes make a great dessert, who can say no to an individual cake?

I mean they can... but I don't understand those people.

No matter if these are baked as cupcakes or dessert bowls or, if you adjust times slightly, as a tray bake the cake itself is a good cake. It's a nice texture and the spices are popularly paired with pumpkin because they work well together.

So, if you are looking for an autumn or winter treat that fills your kitchen with the best smells give this one a go!

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes or dessert bowls

4 large eggs
400g sugar
200ml vegetable/sunflower oil
1 can (425g) of pureed pumpkin
325g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp bicarb of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Heat the oven to 170C and line your cupcake tin or grease your 6-cavity dessert shell tin with butter or shortening.

Beat the eggs, sugar, oil, and pumpkin together. Then beat in the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, bicarb, salt, ginger, and cloves until just combined. Using a medium ice cream scoop fill your cupcake cases or your 6-cavity dessert shell tins. I made a dozen cupcakes and 6 dessert bowls; you could probably get a dozen and a half cupcakes or about a dozen bowls. If you are making bowls you don't need the frosting below, just fill with ice cream or whipped cream and sauce and nuts and whatever you want to top it with!

Cream Cheese Frosting
100g cream cheese
70g butter
1 tsp vanilla
300g icing sugar
walnut halves, toasted (optional)
salted caramel drizzle (optional)
ice cream (optional, but highly recommended)

Beat the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla together. Slowly beat in the icing sugar until combined and smooth. Place about a tablespoon or so of frosting on top and smooth out with a spatula.

Finish off the cupcakes by sprinkling or placing the walnuts on top and drizzling over about 2 tablespoons of salted caramel by placing it in either an icing bag or sandwich and just snip the tip. If you made dessert bowls, then ice cream is always a great filler, whipped cream and toasted walnuts would make a suitable alternative in my opinion!

Pumpkin spice is one of my favorite spice combinations and even though you can use it any time of year, it just feels right in the autumn months leading to winter. English winters are wet, cold, and grey a far thing from my snowy, cold, and grey winters back home, but I still like this time of year. I love sweaters and hats with bobbles and my scarf collection is endless I could literally wear a different one every day of winter... well maybe not every day!

If you like winter as much as me please leave a comment below! And if you try this recipe I hope you like it!

Pumpkin Cake for pumpkin pie haters

When I was a child I hated Thanksgiving dinners, everything except the mash potatoes. Dry turkey with weird jelly sauce and cooked carrots, I abhorred cooked carrots! I could eat them raw, but never cooked.

Then there was the desserts pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and so on. I disliked those too. They were too weird and too nutty.

It’s amazing how our tastes change as we grow up. I can tolerate roasted carrots, if I have too. I have learned to enjoy homemade cranberry sauce, still do not like the caned or jarred stuff.

However I didn't have to wait until I was all “grown up” to fall in love with pumpkin pie.

When I was about 10 we were at a family friend’s Thanksgiving feast and it was there that I was persuaded to try pumpkin pie again.

I am glad that I did because who knows how long it would have taken me to learn that I love pumpkin pie.

Now this post isn't for pumpkin pie, but for a delicious pumpkin cake for those at your Thanksgiving dinner who, like a younger me, hated pumpkin pie.

It has a nice spongy texture with a comforting spicy flavor. The whipped cream and caramel drizzle I added on top complemented nicely!

Pumpkin Cake

425g pumpkin puree, canned or fresh

200g soft unsalted butter

300g light muscovado sugar

4 eggs

300g self-rising flour

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp salt

150g currants

Heat the oven to 180C and line a 8x11 inch (20x28cm) tin with grease proof paper, allow a bit of an over hang so you can get the cake out of the tin.

Cream the butter and sugar together until lighter in color and a bit fluffy. Add the pumpkin puree and beat until combined. It doesn't look pretty; add the eggs one at a time. It still doesn't look pretty all curdled like, but keep beating. Mix the flour and spices together and sift into the weird curdled mixture. Beat until just combined. Then fold in the currants. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 1 hour (60minutes) or until a skewer poked in the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool for at least 10 minutes before taking out of the tin and cutting into squares. Serve with whipped cream and a caramel drizzle! Tastes best when warm out of the oven!

You could add some cinnamon to the whipped cream or instead serve with a scoop of cinnamon ice cream or vanilla if you prefer or even caramel ice cream.... I am getting a bit carried away. I will stop now. Enjoy!

notes: recipe was adapted from Rachel Allen’s book Cake, if your pumpkin pie haters hate pumpkin pie because of the spices then chances are they will hate this cake too, but if it's because of the texture then it's a safe bet they'll love it! For homemade cranberry sauce check out my previous post here!

Creamy Cranberry Pie with a Pretzel Crust

This is an awkward post to write. The pie looks beautiful and it tastes good. However it’s not what I was expecting.

Expectations can make or break anything.

If there is a movie that has great reviews saying it’s the funniest movie in a decade; naturally the expectations will be high for a hilarious movie. Once the movie has been viewed and there was only a laugh here or there, disappointment will inevitably follow.

If reviews hadn't been seen previous to viewing the same hypothetical movie, the laughs may have been the same, but as there were no expectations there wouldn't be any disappointment.

I wanted this pie to be more cranberry and less cream cheesey. There was a lack of tartness that I was expecting from the cranberries to balance out the cream cheese and whipping cream.

It could have been because I used homemade cranberry sauce or it could just be the recipe? Plus the recipe for the filling made way too much. Almost enough for a whole other pie!

I saw the recipe in a Better Home and Gardens magazine I picked up when I was in America and immediately knew I wanted to make it. It looked like the perfect addition to any Thanksgiving dessert menu. My expectations were high being a Better Home and Gardens recipe as my sister swears by them.

Saying that this isn't a bad pie, it is definitely creamy so it delivers on the title. It also reminds me more of a cranberry cheesecake than that of a cranberry pie.

Plus, the salty pretzel crust is amazing and it does help balance the sweet creaminess of the pie.

It’s not bad! I just wanted it to be something different!

The recipe is available on the Better Home and Gardens site here, if you are interested in making it for your holiday season. Hey, you never know after reading this your expectations may be extremely low and therefore it will taste pretty darn good.

If I were to tweak it I would start by possibly halving all the ingredients. Then I think I would eliminate the sugar from the pie filling. The reason being that there is a lot of sugar in the homemade cranberry sauce and I don’t know that the pie actually needed it.

notes: If you are interested in this recipe in grams and milliliters instead of ounces and cups let me know I did convert it!

Cranberries! Cranberries! Cranberries! {sauce, butter, sugared}

The only time I have used cranberries in my baking was for granola bars and I think once in cookies. They aren't a berry I tend to think of very much. I thought now, with Thanksgiving and then Christmas around the corner, it would be as good as time as any to change that.

Here are 3 ways I used fresh cranberries in preparation for my holiday dinners!

Thanksgiving isn't Thanksgiving without a side of cranberry sauce. When I was young, the very look of the stuff put me off even wanting to try it. It was a weird red jelly like subsistence that came from a can. And even weirder people ate it with turkey. My younger self thought that very odd. Since I have started cooking my own Thanksgiving dinners I have understood better what the side dish could really add to a turkey dinner! Or to a turkey sandwich... umnum!

I thought this Thanksgiving I would try making my own cranberry sauce from scratch. It is a very simple process and the cranberries themselves contain enough pectin to thicken without having to add any gelatin.

Cranberry Sauce

454g fresh cranberries

400g sugar

450ml water

Wash and rinse the cranberries removing any smooshie cranberries or stems.

Weigh out the sugar and add the water into a medium saucepan and heat on a low/medium heat. Stir occasionally until the sugar dissolves.

Add the cranberries. Turn up the heat slightly and watch as the cranberries start to burst! Once they are all burst and the sauce is slightly thickened, then take off the heat and chill for at least 3 hours. I jarred the sauce in 4 old jam jars. It makes quite a bit, but all the more to share with friends and family! Or just half the recipe!

Instead of offering a side of cranberry sauce with your Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner why not offer a slice of cranberry butter! It works great on any dinner roll or spread on turkey! Or even better for those leftover turkey sandwiches!

This cranberry butter makes a great gift too! If you don’t think you will need as much as this recipe please feel free to half it. It will keep in the fridge for a week and frozen for about 6 months as long as it’s properly wrapped and stored.

Cranberry Butter

250g unsalted butter

150g cranberry sauce

Beat the butter and cranberry sauce together for a few minutes until fully combined. It may look like it won’t come together, but keep beating it, it will come together!

Another way to use fresh cranberries is to make them all sugary! It works as a great way to top pies and cakes and other baked treats!! This is a little sticky and I used light corn syrup, which isn’t readily available in the UK. If you have a big Tescos near you that has a world food section, they sell it there. It’s where I found mine. You could try using golden syrup, but it has a yellowy tint, so not 100% sure how it would work?