Fall Baking

Yay, Fall is here! And because it's finally officially Fall, it's time for me to make pumpkin flavored food (our favorite!).
On Monday I made Pumpkin Chocolate Chip bread. This is one of our favorite things, and last year I made at least ten loaves. The recipe I used last year called for two packages of pudding (!!) and vegetable oil. (It calls for coconut pudding, but I always substituted with vanilla. I don't like anything competing with the pumpkin flavor) While it is melt in your mouth delicious, it's a little too decadent to eat as much as we eat of it. So I decided to change it up and I found a more healthy recipe that has applesauce instead of the oil and pudding.
While it is more healthy, it just is not as good as my pudding pumpkin bread. It's sort of dry and really chewy and it tastes more like applesauce than pumpkin. I don't think I'll be making that exact recipe again.

Then, yesterday with my leftover pumpkin puree I made pumpkin cookies. Someone emailed me this recipe last Fall (I wish I could remember who!), and they are super easy and delicious!

PUMPKIN COOKIES
1 cup shortening
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1 and 1/4 tsp pumpkin spice
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour (all purpose)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Beat shortening, pumpkin, egg, powder, spice, sugar and vanilla until creamy. Fold in flour, soda and salt. Drop by spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet and bake 13-15 minutes at 350 degrees.

CARAMEL ICING
3 tbsp real butter
3/4 tsp vanilla
4 tbsp milk
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup powdered sugar

Frost cookies after they are cool. Combine butter, vanilla, milk and brown sugar. Bring to a rolling boil over medium heat. Boil for five minutes-stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in powdered sugar.The powdered sugar may clump, just stir and the clumps will disappear. If the icing gets too thick, add very hot water 1 tsp at a time to thin.

When I make the cookies, I usually drop the spoonful of batter into a bowl of cinnamon sugar and roll it around. Then I put it on the cookie sheet and squish it flat with a spatula. That way, it's got more of a cookie shape and less of a globular shape. I also omit the caramel icing, I'm sure it's good, but these cookies are tasty enough without it. They're sort of like a pumpkin snicker doodle.

Enjoy!