Cami's Pumpkin Bread

I finally convinced Calder to cook his pumpkin. I never did convince him to carve a face into it, maybe next year. 

This bread was well worth the convincing. I love it. It turned out just perfectly. The flavor is awesome. It's moist throughout and the exterior was perfectly crisp. I'm signed up to bring pumpkin bread to a church meeting tomorrow so I thought I would double the recipe and make two loaves. I used the whole pumpkin. 

I also added a delicious topping which is a perfect addition to this bread. To make the topping you take 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup butter and mix them together using a pastry blender. Put it on top before baking. You won't be disappointed.

Melanie W.'s Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

I thought these things deserve the name "cakes" rather than "pies." The cookies were quite moist and soft and oh so thick! Pile two on top of each other and it's definitely a cake with the frosting in the middle. They were really yummy though. I halved the recipe because with Thanksgiving and Christmas right around the corner I can't indulge myself too much too soon, right! I started making a large size then switched to making smaller and I should have just made them all small. They're the perfect snack size without feeling too guilty. :)

I forgot to add the vanilla to the cake mix (oops!) but don't think it really affected things too badly. Next time I think I would take it a bit easy on the spices. I thought it had too much cloves perhaps! Plus the cloves made mine look more brown than orange (though this picture makes them look nice and orange).

Cami's Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

I also generally like pumpkin desserts with cream cheese frosting. These did not disappoint. Mine were really really moist. I like that. Thanks to Whitney's advice I made mine smaller. I ended up with 22 whoopie pies and felt they were still large. I think next time I'll make them a little smaller still. I will definitely make these again.

Danielle's Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

After not being able to find pumpkin anywhere here in Springfield, I thought I was in luck when I found some at a grocery store while I was in Seattle. So I stocked up and bought six cans. Turns out on the same day, Max's mom also found some at the Walmart back at home and stocked up with six cans. So I think I'm set on pumpkin for this season. :)

So the following week after returning from Seattle, I put the pumpkin to use and made these whoopie pies. I'm glad Whitney chose this recipe so I can post about it.

These were a little more moist and crumbly than I would prefer (they were easiest to eat with a fork instead of with hands), but they tasted great! I love pumpkin desserts with cream cheese frosting. Max doesn't usually like cream cheese frostings (crazy, I know), but even he liked these.

I agree with Whitney that I'll make them smaller next time. Just one of these was definitely all I could handle at one time. Bite-sized ones would be kind of fun. And it was definitely a huge recipe. I'll be halving it next time unless I'm feeding a lot of people.

Whitney's Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

This week's recipe is the Pumpkin Whoopie Pies. Is anyone sick of pumpkin yet? Hope not!

Thoughts:

- Really yummy! Can't help but love these.

- I didn't have an ice cream size dropper, but I don't think that mattered.

- Needed to be baked for more like 12-15 minutes in my oven, but it depends on the size of the cookie.

- I did large, medium and small sizes and liked how they turned out, but I'm looking at the large size thinking, "who's gonna eat these? there's 2 cookies and they're huge!" If you do different sizes, remember to group them together on their own pans since the small ones cook faster.

- "Yields 12 whoopie pies" - please note that this means 12 HUGE ones ... maybe - next time I'll probably half the recipe and make them really small and tiny.

- For the larger ones, I ended up just putting frosting on the top, rather than make them into a sandwich.

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Do you have any pet peeves? This one is weird, but I can't stand the sound of other people eating cold cereal - the clinking of the spoon and the slurping of the milk sounds just gross to me. I of course don't notice my own cold cereal noises. :)

Any other hobbies besides being an amazing cook? I like to run and am half way to my goal of 10 half marathons. I like any types of crafts and have most recently been designing birth announcements and holiday greeting cards in photoshop elements.

What is your favorite summer activity? Hot-air balloons on the 4th and fireworks

Are you a morning or a night person? I fall asleep during movies if we start them too late, so probably a morning person although I hate getting ready every day.

Are you a go-go-go sight-seeing kind of vacationer or lie-on-the-beach-all-day kind of vacationer? I'm go-go-go and have a hard time relaxing.

What is your favorite store? Costco

What is your favorite beverage? Fruit smoothies (my favorite includes pineapple juce, pineapple sherbert, frozen strawberries, bananas, plain yogurt, ice)

If you had to go back to school, what would your major be? I don't regret studying finance, I just would have taken more fun classes - like golf and photography.

Cami's Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Loaf

I had high hopes for this loaf. It sounds like something I would go crazy for but in the end it was okay. Just okay. I also had problems with the outside being 'well done'. If I were to do it again I think I might drop the temperature a little so it cooked more evenly.

The taste did improve and deepen the next day. It also improved when I put some left over cream cheese frosting on it. That was tasty!