PUMPKIN AIN'T DONE YET!
Two Pumpkin Treats that are the Perfect Transition to Holiday Baking
If you think that pumpkin should be banished the moment Thanksgiving is over, we’re here to tell you that YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR DAMN MIND!! Respectfully, of course. :)
This week we’ve got two pumpkin treats that are SO worth making before Chris Kringle gets kringlin’… Anthony’s baking up a Pumpkin Cake that’s to die for, and Elizabeth’s Brown Butter Pumpkin Cookies are a chewy, crispy revelation that should not be missed! Put ‘em both on your baking to-do list and start preheating the oven!
BROWN BUTTER PUMPKIN COOKIES
EK: There is something so satisfying about pumpkin baked goods. I love that they are not overly sweet, full of spice and texture, and generally, very easy to make.
Pumpkin pie the day after Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday breakfast treat, and I equally love a good pumpkin loaf studded with toasted walnuts, crunchy pumpkin waffles and the list goes on…
But I’ve never had a pumpkin cookie that I thought really delivered on the pumpkin promise until this year.
That hasn’t stopped me from trying. I’ve lost track of the number of different pumpkin cookie recipes that I’ve baked. The reason is that I’ve been looking for a recipe that would deliver all the concentrated flavor of an excellent pumpkin loaf, but with the crisp on the edges, soft—and slightly chewy—on the inside texture of a great cookie.
AU: A difficult task, since pumpkin contains a good amount of water, so it lends itself to moist and cakey naturally…
EK: That’s exactly right! A few weeks ago I made a heavily spiced pumpkin cookie that delivered 100% on flavor, but it was still soft and cakey. I rolled the cookie dough in a strong sugar and spice mixture before baking, so it had a nice crinkled top, but it was still soft and cake-like. This wasn’t necessarily bad and I enjoyed the cookies, but they reminded me more of muffin tops than cookies.
AU: Elaine from Seinfeld would’ve been very happy with that!!
EK: Funny and true! Since I had the flavor that I was looking for, but not the texture, I decided to look for outside help. I knew that if there was one person who could help me fix this issue it had to be Anthony! After all, he spent 10 years tweaking his PERFECT Ten-Year Chocolate Chip Cookie.
AU: Ha! Well, I’ve done a deep dive into how different sugars and fats affect textures in baking—it’s one of the nerdiest things about me. (My husband has a very long list of others, if you’re interested! 🤓) TLDR: liquid sugars and fats will react differently during the baking process (than their solid counterparts) to create different textures.
EK: I love that about you! So you suggested that I both increase the butter and the granulated sugar, then take it a step further by browning half of the butter and mixing it in with the sugar while it was still warm. This would help create a chewier cookie as the water in the butter would combine with the flour to help create gluten—think about a great chewy pizza crust, that’s gluten in action.
AU: Plus, the the more butter you have, especially in a cookie, means it will spread more on the baking sheet. The extra sugar helps make the outside edges crisp with a tender center. They both contribute to a flatter cookie which is what you were looking for!
EK: yes!! and I followed your suggestions and mixed the two sugars—light brown and white—with the warm brown butter to semi-melt the sugars and make them less granular.
I followed up with creaming this mixture with the remaining softened butter. The cookie dough looked completely different, like fluffy chiffon.
The rest of the mixing was very standard. I added egg yolks, vanilla, and pumpkin to the sugar and butter, and finished by mixing in the flour, leavening and spices.
The last step was to let the cookie dough “rest” overnight in the refrigerator to hydrate the flour. The next day, I scooped them and rolled them into balls which I further rolled into sugar and spice before baking.
The result was the pumpkin cookie of my dreams! They were bursting with flavor, not too sweet, and crisp on the edges. I was looking for help with the texture of the cookie but the golden brown butter did more than just make a flatter denser cookie, the nutty brown butter is the perfect complement to all the spices and the pumpkin puree—so that one change also increased the layers of flavor in the cookie.
EK: But the biggest difference that I saw in the baking was that the original recipe was domed and fluffy, where this recipe was flat and crinkled like the best molasses/ginger cookie you’ve ever eaten.
I let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet so that they continued to cook a little bit, since I took them out when they were just barely browned on the edges. When the cookies were fresh and warm, they were crisp on the outside and super tender on the inside. If this is how you like your cookies, you need to bake them and eat them immediately.
EK: If you don’t mind them getting a little bit softer as they sit, fill a cookie jar with the cookies and snack on them for 3 to 4 days. The cookies stay soft and lose their crispness as they sit due to the moisture in the pumpkin, but they capture the flavor of the season just as much if not more than any pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffin, or pumpkin loaf that I’ve ever made.
A MUST-BAKE PUMPKIN CAKE
AU: I know we’ve featured Alison Roman’s baking book, Sweet Enough, in the newsletter before… But like all good things, I tend to revisit them over and over again. One day I was craving a really good pumpkin loaf. Does that ever happen to you?
EK: More often than I care to admit! And when it hits me—like my pumpkin cookie craving—I have to stop everything and make one!
AU: Well, I think it’s totally a thing to have hyper-specific food cravings all the time, and I think it’s charming AF! :)
Anyways, I was craving a really good pumpkin loaf, but so often those recipes use freshly grated ginger. I had fresh ginger on hand, and could’ve totally grated it… but honestly grating fresh ginger is one of my deal breakers. It’s such a pain in the butt. It rarely works on the microplane grater, and even on the ginger/wasabi grater I have, it’s only marginally easier. So it was a welcome surprise to see that Alison Roman’s pumpkin cake recipe calls for freshly grated ginger OR dried, ground ginger. BINGO BANGO!
The other rather genius move in the recipe is to brown the butter (we love doing this—nothing new), and to then bloom the spices—cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground ginger—in the hot brown butter. The aforementioned spices are all fat-soluble, meaning their flavor compounds are enhanced and carried by the fat (in this case BUTTER).
The result is a deeply flavorful, nuanced pumpkin cake/loaf that honestly could stand in for a spice cake in a pinch. This double identity makes it the perfect quick bread (or cake) to make this time of year. It’s spicy and warm with the peppery ground ginger and cinnamon, but with the very distinct base note of pumpkin. Also, because it uses a fair amount of liquid sugar (in the form of maple syrup), it has a pleasing spongey texture that keeps me going back for another bite.
EK: I couldn’t agree more. Once you told me how good it was and how quick and easy it is to make—it’s one of those recipes that you don’t have to dirty your stand mixer for—I knew I had to try it.
I have to admit that I was a little skeptical because it is a plain pumpkin loaf without any nuts or other mix-ins. Not only did it not disappoint, but I didn’t miss the nuts at all! I loved the pure dense pumpkin-ness of it and how it stays moist until you finish it, even if it’s almost a week! It also freezes and thaws just as perfectly as if you just took it out of the oven, so it’s a great make-ahead loaf.
And if you like making gifts this time of year, the recipe fills 2 disposable loaf pans. I like these pans because they come with a plastic lid that fits snugly over the baked good. I keep them on hand for baking and freezing banana bread and they worked perfectly for this recipe. I traveled for Thanksgiving and made the pumpkin loaf for my hosts. I placed the pan in a sturdy box and packed it in my checked suitcase. When I got to my destination, it was still perfect!
AU: The one addition I made to the whole recipe, is that I added 3 tablespoons of toasted milk powder to the dry ingredients before incorporating them into the wet. This, I think, made a huge difference in the final flavor of the cake. It’s not a super sweet cake to begin with, but adding that extra oomph of brown butter flavor really made it special. If you’d like to revisit how to make toasted milk powder at home, read about it here in our W4D archives. It’s a great ingredient to have on hand to add to all sorts of sweet and savory recipes.
Having made this recipe in both a loaf pan and a round cake pan, I think I prefer the loaf… but that doesn’t stop me from eating every last bite either way.
Re the water in pumpkin: some recipes have you cook the puree in a skillet to dry it out/sort of toast/caramelize it
I never tire of pumpkin-flavored baked goods, especially cookies, loaves and muffins (pies not so much). Love your deep dive into techniques to up the flavor and texture. Definitely want to make some toasted milk powder and see how it changes up things.