Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Mochi Cookies

With mochiko being a new-found flour friend, I’ve been on the hunt for good mochi cookie recipes.  Not really seeing anything super exciting, yet while also being taunted by  Pumpkin Mochi by justJENN recipes, I came up with a theory.

Pumpkin cookies are often super cakey, and mochi is wonderfully chewy. What if you just replace the regular flour in pumpkin cookies with mochiko?  Answer: Jessica worries and spends lots of quality time with google.

The solution that I was happiest with and ended up using came from Joy of Baking, where it’s suggested to use 7/8 cup rice flour to 1 cup all-purpose flour. Mochiko is actually sweet rice flour (or glutinous rice flour), but I decided to give it a shot anyway.  To make life easier, I went with her recipe for pumpkin cookies. 2 cups all-purpose flour?  1 3/4 cups mochiko!  Maybe too easy?

My uneasiness with flour experimentation and the lack of daylight at 1 a.m. means no process photos.  You can see that they turned out looking like totally legit cookies, though!  They tasted like totally legit delicious cookies, too.

Pumpkin Stout Gingerbread Bundt with Brown Butter Icing

Ahh, fall.  Your days are shorter, the air is cooler, and leaves crunch beneath our feet.

Wait…what’s that other sound?

Bundt pans trembling with fear!  Or is it with glee?

That’s right, we’re hurtling towards National Bundt Day (November 15!), made popular and most earnestly celebrated by Mary the Food Librarian.   Last year was my first time paying tribute to the curvaceous confection, and thus the Zebra Bundt Cake was born.  This year’s offering is much more visually tame, but the flavors certainly make up for that.  

Pumpkin Cream Pie

Happy Black Friday!  Err, except I didn’t participate in that, as usual.  I’m more of a last-minute kind of gal, and shopping for Christmas almost a month in advance is way too well-planned for me.

I did plan out this Thanksgiving’s bakefest as evidenced in my last post, and thank goodness!  Everything always takes longer than I anticipate, especially since I’m super slow in the kitchen.  I think it’s a perfectionist thing, and I tend to take out/put ingredients back as I need them.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!

Two posts in a row of no recipes?  Don’t be fooled, I’m doing lots in the kitchen, as I’m sure most of you are!

This is my first Thanksgiving as a vegetarian!  My also-veg sister and I are making everything but the meaty essentials, and as you can imagine, I’m in charge of all of the baking.  As usual, I’m making things I’ve never made before: dinner rolls, pumpkin cream pie, and a caramel apple cranberry tart. None of them will be finished until tomorrow though, so I’ll be sharing them later!

As if anyone needs any more ideas the day before T-Day when the last place you want to be is the grocery store, here’s a round-up of my pumpkin binge:

Pumpkin French Toast

Yesterday I went to a David Sedaris reading/signing and he was hilarious.  If you ever get the chance to see him, GO.  He read some stories from his new book (Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk), shared snippets from his diary, and answered several questions.  Though I’ve read a few of his books, I haven’t read the new one yet, but really liked what we heard from it.  It basically seems to be a collection of short stories from the perspectives of personified animals and insects, but coming from the mind of David Sedaris, they’re super clever and funny.

My friend and I waited in line for the signing, but there were SO many people there that we hardly moved.  He had asked people to tell him jokes (he’s been collecting them this book tour!), so I’m guessing that’s part of why it took so long.  Oh, and we didn’t manage to stick around the whole time.  I have no idea how long he stayed there to sign books, but it had to have been at least until the store closed!

Pumpkin, Sage, and Brown Butter Muffins

I had a brilliant idea.  Savory pumpkin bread!   With sage!   And brown butter!  Boy, was I onto something!

Then google burst my bubble.  Sorry, hon, but Martha’s been there, done that.

Figures.  Fine…I’ll make muffins!

I’m not complaining, though.  I’ve found her recipes to be pretty foolproof, and thank goodness for that because I was kind of a fool when I made these yesterday.

Usually, I reread amounts and steps in recipes in an OCD way just to be sure I’m doing the right thing.  Yesterday, my mind was so distracted mainly because I was hungry and hadn’t been properly caffeinated yet.  Why I decided to bake first instead of address these issues is a mystery.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

See? I wasn’t kidding about the pumpkin madness.

How does one run a baking blog and not gain tons of weight?  Answer: bake something, have a little of it, then give the rest of it the heck away!  (and the rest of the time, try to eat on the healthier side…)

For me, this is especially true with cookies as they seem to be both my specialty and my weakness.  When I made Chai-Spiced Snickerdoodles a couple weeks ago, I may or may not have ruined my dinner a few nights in a row because I had no one to give them to.  Definitely should have halved that recipe, or at least put half the dough in the freezer…there’s another idea!

Being an orchestral musician, symphony concerts are the perfect excuse to bake.  I just bring the cookies backstage with me, and hungry musicians gobble them up during intermission and after the concert!  It really is a win/win situation.

Spicy Pumpkin Black Bean Chili

You know how some recipes only use a portion of canned pumpkin, so then you’re left with half a can or so of the stuff?  Sure, you could make something else like pumpkin muffins, but more than likely, you made something sweet and not super healthy in the first place.

That was exactly the predicament I was in after making Cinnamon Swirl Pumpkin Yeast Bread.  Nothing a little dump-it-all-in-a-pot improvisation can’t fix!

I don’t think I’d heard of chili with pumpkin in it until a few years ago, but I never did try to make some.  Having leftover pumpkin inspired me to give it a go…afterall, what was there to lose?

Cinnamon Swirl Pumpkin Yeast Bread

Wait, what?  How is it November already?  And how have I not made anything with pumpkin until now?

Well, look out, folks, because I’m about to go bananas with pumpkin.  (oh, huh..there’s an idea!)  FYI: pumpkin pie is NOT in the forecast.

First up is pumpkin bread.  Sure, when people hear “pumpkin bread” they think of a quick bread, myself included.  While I do love me some of that, I was super intrigued when I found a couple recipes for pumpkin yeast bread at King Arthur Flour.  My yeast bread-baking experience is pretty limited.  In fact, I had only made one recipe twice (it’s awesome!) before this one, so I’ve been wanting to expand my horizons in the Land o’ Carbs.