A LOT of cooking and baking.
I've been pulling together recipes to use for freezer meals once little one makes her appearance. I suppose what happened this weekend could be called a trial run. I'm wanting to give some of these recipes I've never made before a go before adding them to my list of meals to make and freeze come January.
On Saturday, I was up and on my way out the door before 9. I went to a total of 7 stores, 5 of which were grocery stores, as each are having different deals on different things and well, we're frugal. The other two were Target and Dollar Tree. Meanwhile, Brady, his dad, and Ryan were busy installing the floors in the guest room. (That'll get a post of its own when I snap a picture of the new floors!) When I finally returned home and everyone was fed and the groceries were put away (there were A LOT), I skimmed through my recipes to see what to try making first.
Pumpkin loaf, pumpkin muffins, and chocolate chip pumpkin bars
I looove pumpkin. It's perfect for this time of year and if you've never tried this combination, try it with a blended iced mocha. I don't know what it is, but the flavors just go together so well. Perhaps that's why I'm wanting a coffee drink so much right now.
All of these came from the same recipe, but I just added chocolate chips for the pumpkin bars with the mixture that was left.
Ingredients (I doubled this recipe)
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups canned pumpkin (approximately 1 large can of pumpkin)
For the chocolate chip pumpkin bars, I used about 1/3 of a bag to make an 8x8x2 pan's worth. It just depends on how rich you want them.
Directions
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
Sift the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together.
In a separate bowl, mix the sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla.
Combine both mixtures and fold in the pumpkin. Once the ingredients are all incorporated pour into a non- stick 9 by 5 by 3-inch loaf pan. If your pan is not non- stick co
at it with butter and flour.
Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. At this point a knife inserted into the middle of the loaf should come out clean. Cool for 15 minutes and turn out onto a cooling rack. Cool completely. For muffins temperature should also be 325 degrees F., but bake
for 30 minutes.
To freeze wrap well with plastic and then tinfoil and put in Freezer bags and Make a note on bag what it is and date made!
My reviews (out of 5 stars):
-Pumpkin loaf--4 stars simply because I haven't tried it yet. It looks like it'll be moist though!
-Pumpkin muffins--3 stars, they'd be awesome if I hadn't forgotten about them until the loaf was ready. For that reason they turned out a little dry. When I do another batch, I'll definitely take them out after 30 minutes.
-Chocolate chip pumpkin bars--5 stars, sooo yummy and extremely moist. It's a nice combo of the pumpkin and the chocolate chip without being too rich, but it's really filling too! I might bake them slightly longer, maybe the full hour and 15 minutes. (I took them out at an hour) This is a blurry photo...I was eating a piece while baking and cooking other things on Sunday and realized I didn't take a photo for the blog.
Changes for next time: Adjusted bake times, as noted above. I'd also probably make a triple batch and do more with chocolate chips. I'm planning on making mini loaves of these with chocolate chips to give to coworkers for Christmas.
I also made mashed potatoes, but was without a key ingredient so I'll do that recipe on the next post!
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