Pumpkin Brownies: A Comedy of Errors

It’s actually quite astounding that these brownies turned out edible, much less delicious.

Let me back up. Hubby and I were invited to dinner at my brother’s house. I promised to bring dessert. I was, for some reason, utterly fixated on the fact that I wanted a pumpkin dessert. Wanted one SO BADLY. I did a lot of googling and ended up quite disappointed because I had neither cream cheese nor sufficient eggs for pretty much every recipe that I found. I finally decided to borrow an egg from my downstairs neighbor so that I could make pumpkin brownies.

My neighbor, T, is an older, retired guy who really shouldn’t be retired. He’s bored out of his mind, lonely, and dying to strike up a conversation with anyone who walks by. Since our front doors are right next to each other and we both have dogs, this happens a lot to me (hubby is better at skirting by undetected than I am). T likes to do things like show me pictures of wolves, commenting on how much they look like my dogs (they really don’t) and share all the neighborhood gossip and ask me questions about hubby. T was the one that greeted the guys who delivered our washer and dryer when we first moved in (the delivery guys were a little stunned by the swiftness by which they became best buddies with this guy), and I still laugh about how seeing hubby in his Army ACUs stunned him into utter silence (for a few seconds at least). Most recently, T has offered to pose for a picture in a Santa suit with my dogs. This fact is only slightly less weird when you know that he’s Santa down at the mall. Anyway, T is pretty weird, but he’s harmless and friendly. He was thrilled to give me eggs and refused to take any back when I finally made a Wegman’s run. I really am grateful to finally live somewhere where I feel comfortable enough to actually knock on my neighbor’s doors when I have these last minute baking problems. I didn’t have that in Maryland.

So I started on my pumpkin brownies.

Basically, you make two separate batters, a chocolate one and a pumpkin one, and then swirl them together. Unless you’re an idiot, like me. We’ll get to that.

The batters start off as one. Flour, baking powder and salt here.

In another bowl, sugar, melted butter, and vanilla.

Gradually add the flour mixture

Until you’ve got this. Leave half in this bowl and put the other half in another bowl.

To the first bowl, add cocoa powder and chocolate chips.

It’s very thick! How weird.

To the other half of the batter, add some pumpkin puree

Along with cinnamon, ground cloves, and nutmeg. Also chopped walnuts, but I didn’t have those.

The recipe says to layer them in the pan, half of each mixture at a time. I used a pie plate simply because my square pyrex was dirty and I didn’t feel like cleaning it.

Sure is a weird texture. Wasn’t too sure about this.

Ended up smooshing it down with my fingers.

The pumpkin mixture was easier to spread.

Chocolate again. Again, required finger smooshing.

And the last of the pumpkin.

The recipe said to use a knife to swirl everything together at this point. I had trouble with this, since the chocolate was so firm.

It wasn’t until just after I put the brownies in the oven that my eyes fell on this.

I forgot the eggs! Total dumbass move. No wonder the mixture was so firm and weird!!! I was supposed to mix them into sugar-vanilla-butter mixture, just before adding the flour mixture and splitting the batter.

So I took the batter back out of the oven, beat my eggs, and then poured the eggs into the batter.

That’s better! I just ruined all chances of pretty marbling, but at least the texture looks better.

You’re not going to believe this. About 15 minutes after I put the brownies back in the oven, I realized that I’d only added the 2 eggs that I already had, not the 3rd that I’d had to borrow from my weird neighbor. At this point, it was too late to mix it in, so I decided to leave it alone.

But wait, there’s more! I also, at some point, managed to turn off the oven without realizing it. My brownies took FOREVER to cook, and it turns out that’s because they were just in a warm oven for a long time. I eventually figured it out, but I’m sure the extended warmness had a drying effect.

Finally, they were done and I took them out.

Looks okay…

Truth be told, they were somehow pretty good. I make a million stupid mistakes, but they were still fudgy and yummy. I’d like to make this again without messing up so much, but at least I know that the recipe has potential.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins

It’s October.

I need pumpkin-themed food.

Need.

So I made these. I’ve been making them for the past few years, every fall. In the past, I’ve taken them to work and had very positive reactions. I’ve also had positive reactions from hubby, even though he isn’t a fan of too much pumpkin. They’re just so GOOD!

The extent of my pan prep is right here: 18 cupcake liners. Mine are foil, but paper works just as well.

There are four mixtures that you need to make before you can assemble the muffins. The first one is the sweetened cream cheese filling. This time around, I used light cream cheese. I accidentally bought it because an elderly couple was camped out in front of the cream cheese display and oblivious to the fact that they were blocking everyone who wanted some. I just reached an arm in and this is what came out. I figured that even though light isn’t as good when it’s just smeared on a bagel, we probably wouldn’t notice the difference in baked goods (I was right).

Put it in a bowl with an egg, some vanilla extract, and some brown sugar.

All mixed up, this is what it looked like.

Set that aside for a bit and start on the second mixture: the streusel topping. Here’s some flour and sugar. The recipe says white sugar, but I always substitute brown sugar for some of it. There’s also some cinnamon here but you can’t see it because I accidentally covered it up. And cold butter. I could have added pecans but I didn’t have any. I still haven’t recovered from dumping half my pantry this summer when we moved.

Anyway, mix it up with a pastry blender.

And set that aside, as well.

Okay, the third mixture is simply the dry ingredients in your regular muffins. This is all-purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, ground cinnamon, and salt. I made a well in the middle in preparation for the wet ingredients.

And here’s the fourth mixture: wet ingredients. Egg, vanilla, pumpkin, and olive oil in an ugly yellow bowl.

All mixed up!

Pour the wet ingredients in the well of the dry ingredients.

And gently mix it up.

Scoop the mixture into your 18 cupcake liners. I used an ice cream scooper to minimize the mess.

Top with the cream cheese mixture, which of course is the best part.

And then add the streusel topping.

And then bake them! They sure look and smell good.

After a few minutes, I scooped them out with a spoon and let them finish cooling on wire racks.

I had no idea until now that this was my only picture of them being cut open and eaten. It is dark and blurry. I blame the deliciousness and the sugar from keeping me from being able think clearly or to take a decent photograph. Please, use your imagination.

Or even better, make your own so that you can see first hand!

Oh, and if you were wondering, using light cream cheese didn’t seem to have an effect on taste. So good!

 

 

P.S. Stay tuned for a guest post from my good friend Jacki! She will be writing about white chicken chili and pumpkin donuts. Can’t wait to see

Mini Blueberry Muffins

I was perusing the fridge yesterday, looking for something to have for lunch, when I spotted some fresh blueberries. I decided on the spot that I needed to make blueberry muffins after lunch.

I’ve blogged healthy, bran-filled blueberry muffins before, but this time I was more interested in the yummy factor.

I noticed in my review of the cupboards that my SIL has both mini-muffin liners and a pan to fit them. Somehow I needed to use these instead of the normal ones that she also had. I like to live on the edge.

I made a lot of changes to the base recipe, partly because reviewers called for changes and partly because I did, too. For one thing, the original recipe pretty much had you mix everything together in a big bowl. I split mine into wet and dry, then created a well in the dry ingredients and poured the wet in. I’ll get to that.

First, here are my wet ingredients. Let’s start with milk.

And an egg.

A bit of vegetable oil.

And although the recipe didn’t call for this, a teaspoon of vanilla.

Okay, now onto the dry ingredients. Some flour…

And then I decided not to take pictures that would look pretty much exactly the same, so here’s everything all mixed together and shaped into a well. This includes flour, baking powder, and sugar (which I doubled), as well as a bit of salt (not in the original recipe).

Pour in the wet ingredients

And then lightly mix it. You only want to get everything moistened and then stop.

Then I remembered that I wanted to add some cinnamon. So I did.

Finally, the blueberries. I doubled this amount, and rightfully so!

Very gently, fold in the blueberries.

Put a little bit of the batter into each little mini muffin cup.

I had this much left over. Apparently I’d have to do two batches.

One of the first reviewers on the original recipe commented that she used a mini-muffin tin instead of a regular one, while also complaining that they turned out dry. I think she’s an idiot because she didn’t think to reduce the cooking time. In addition to cutting the temperature (400 seemed excessive, so I went with 375), I cut the time from 20 minutes down to 8. They ended up needing about 10 minutes and then looked like this.

I scooped them out of the pan with a spoon to cool on a wire rack while I made another batch.

The biggest complaint from reviewers was that these were bland (thus my additions of vanilla, salt, and cinnamon, and doubling the sugar and blueberries). I can’t decide if that was enough. When I ate these, my focus was entirely on the warm, flavorful blueberries bursting in my mouth as I bit into them. So delicious!

Personally, my only complaint is that I felt like a piggy when I had 4 for breakfast the next day.

I sure enjoyed them.Here's the recipe for my version. I’ll also put a link in the “recipes” tab.