Thanksgiving pumpkin desserts part four: pumpkin cakes
This is part four in my series of pumpkin dessert recipe roundups. I’ve already looked at cheesecakes, trifles, and bread puddings. And you thought pumpkin pie was the only thing you could serve at Thanksgiving! For this post, I’m turning my attention to pumpkin cakes.
Who doesn’t love cake? It’s really the ultimate dessert, isn’t it? That’s why we serve it at all the important milestones of our lives. You get married, there’s a cake. Baby shower? Cake. Birthday? Cake. You get the picture.
Pumpkin is a great ingredient to use in cakes. I love spicy desserts, full of cinnamon, nutmeg, and other classic flavors of the fall. These cake recipes all include these wonderful flavors that are associated with pumpkin and offer something different for those of you who don’t love custard (which is part of bread pudding, pumpkin pies, and trifles). Plus, just about all of them include cream cheese frosting. Is there anyone who doesn’t like cream cheese frosting?
Thanksgiving pumpkin desserts part three: pumpkin trifles
I’m continuing to scour the internet for you, providing all sort of pumpkin dessert recipes for you to consider for your Thanksgiving feast. I’ve already discussed pumpkin cheesecakes and pumpkin bread puddings. In this post I want to discuss an option that may not even be on your Thanksgiving dessert radar: trifle.
I know I, for one, always think of trifle as a summer dessert, with its layers of cake, fruit, and custard. My siblings and I were obsessed with our mother’s trifles when we were growing up, always begging for her to make it. With layers of peaches, berries, pound cake soaked in orange juice (and sometimes liquor, when we got older), and vanilla pudding, they were (and continue to be) truly delicious. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that I never thought about making a pumpkin trifle.
Thanksgiving pumpkin desserts part two: pumpkin bread pudding
I’ve been digging through all the pumpkin dessert recipes out there so you don’t have to! This is the second in my series of posts about pumpkin desserts, the first being about pumpkin cheesecake. In this installment, I want to turn my attention to one of my favorite desserts of all time (whether or not it’s made with pumpkin): bread pudding.
I love, love, love, love, love bread pudding. There is something so rustic and soul-warming about it. It’s the perfect texture due to the combination of bread and custard. Aside from that, it’s incredibly versatile. If you’re a chocoholic you can add chocolate chips, chunks, or sauce. If you love fruit, you can add just about any type of berry, bananas, apples, or anything else. Of course, if you just like bread pudding, there’s the great standby recipe.
Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies – a little cakey, but did I mention the pumpkin?
As part of my Great Pumpkin Massacre of ‘09, I have been going through the bags of frozen pumpkin puree that I have stored in my freezer and making delicious treats. This weekend, I decided to bust out a recipe I had made once before: pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Fall to me = pumpkin, so I will put it in just about anything if you let me. It just makes everything instantly better. So chocolate chip cookies? Pretty damn good. Add pumpkin to that? Amazing.
Thanksgiving pumpkin desserts part one: pumpkin cheesecake
Thanksgiving is coming, and along with the turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and cranberry sauce it also means pumpkin desserts! Yes, I usually eat so much at the main meal that I swear I won’t have dessert. If we’re being honest here, I’d much rather have another helping of stuffing over dessert, but at the end of the day, if Thanksgiving is about anything, it’s about gluttony (oh, and giving thanks), so there’s always room for dessert.
Every year I bring a pumpkin dessert to the festivities, because I know it just wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without something spicy and pumpkin-y to end the meal. Well, the first part of the meal, anyway, because later in the evening, the first round of sandwiches come out. In any case, I’ve tried to remain somewhat creative in my choices for dessert, avoiding the traditional pumpkin pie, and opting for something a little less obvious. Because of this, I’ve browsed through many recipes, and I want to share some of the ones I’ve tried and some of the ones I’ve wanted to try in a series of posts. This first entry focuses on pumpkin cheesecake!
Pop culture treats: deep fried, homemade Twinkies
A. Camille Nicholson is a graduate student in Cultural Studies and English Literature. Although she worked as an E-Commerce Developer during the .com’s height, she attributes her burgeoning interest in the culinary/baking arts to her volunteer duties at a local non-profit bakery and the past two years teaching cooking classes for kids.
I have loved the Twinkie since the dawn of my birth. As a child of suburban New Jersey in the 1980s, my fuschia green lunchbox frequently entertained the usual elementary lineup: Watermelon Ssips, a bologna or peanut butter sandwich, chocolate milk (which inexplicably required school permission), and a member of the Hostess snack cake family — typically, its irascible younger sibling, the Twinkie.
I have consistently defended the Twinkie against verbal assaults from more nutritionally minded acquaintances. However, the Twinkie’s reputation is slightly better than what they assert, although, admittedly, by a small margin. Surprisingly, one Twinkie provides only 150 calories and 4.5 grams of fat. Although it contains corn derivatives and two types of glycerides, the only preservative embodied within its banana yellow sheath is absorbic acid. When introduced in 1933 during the Great Depression, its offering of two cakes for five cents assisted those enduring financial deficit.
Hold the Meat – My pumpkin massacre
Okay, I feel as though I’ve been pretty honest when it comes to my lack of food knowledge. In fact, the main reason I started writing for this site was so I would have a reason to get into the kitchen more. So here’s my confession for the week: other than from a store or a can, I didn’t really know where pumpkin pie came from.
I know that sounds insane, and of course I knew that pumpkin pie, or pumpkin bread, or any pumpkin dish came from pumpkins, but I didn’t really understand the logistics of the situation. I’m not kidding when I say that I honestly believed that the guts of the pumpkin is what got cooked. Sigh. I know.
So my friend Elizabeth came over and explained very slowly and clearly that it’s the pumpkin itself that gets roasted, while the guts just get thrown away. My mind = blown.
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