More pumpkin

I swear there are so many ingredients in this Pumpkin Date Coffee Cake, it would take forever to list them. The gist is that the dry ingredients {which include flour, sugar, nutmeg, allspice, cloves & cinnamon} are combined with the wet {eggs, pumpkin pulp, milk, melted butter}, then chopped pecans and dates are stirred in. Baking time is an hour at 375 degrees. This was one of those "I don't like pumpkin either, but THIS will be a good cake." It was okay but, you know, it tasted like pumpkin. The spice glaze was amazing: icing sugar, unsalted butter, milk, cinnamon & allspice. Yum!

The last cookies

Two types of chocolate drop cookies for our last night of class. Basic recipes...

Chocolate Caramel Pecan cookies: Butter, sugar, salt, vanilla, egg, flour, baking soda are mixed. Chocolate chips and pecans are added in. Cookies are scooped onto a tray and half a caramel is pressed into each cookie before being baked for 10 minutes at 375 degrees.

Chocolaty Chocolate Chip cookies: Lots of stuff in these! Bread & pastry flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, butter, sugar, white & dark chocolate chips, pecans...baked at 375 degrees for 10 minutes.

Hold the frosting

I'd leave the fudge frosting off this next time; you can barely taste the Chocolate Orange Marble Cake underneath! An easy one: Butter, sugar, vanilla is creamed, eggs are added, then flour, baking powder and milk. The batter is then split into two and melted chocolate is added into one bowl, orange zest in the other. The two batters are dropped into the pan in an alternating pattern, then the end of a wooden spoon is swirled through it to create a marbled effect. Baking time is 40 minutes at 350 degrees.

Panettone!

Fun word. I think because I've been so busy eating the Polish version of this {babka} my whole life, I've never paid attention to the thousands of panettones on store shelves during the holidays. This Italian sweet bread includes only a handful of ingredients but the trick in the preparation. Yeast, warm milk {not too hot!} are combined to form a slurry and bread flour is added to create the sponge, which helps the bread rise. This is left to rest for about 20 minutes.

The sponge is then combined with sugar, eggs, salt and bread flour in a mixer for a minute. Butter is added and the dough is mixed for 4 more minutes, THEN raisins and candied peel are added and everything is mixed for 2 more minutes. We also added marsala {fortified wine}, creme ovo {cream of egg} and citrus essence, so it was the real deal. The dough is rounded up and left to rest for 20 minutes, then split into smaller pieces, eggwashed and proofed for 45 minutes {at home, it can be left under a thin blanket for 1.5 to 2 hours}. Baking time is 45 minutes at 350 degrees. It took just as long to make as it sounds, but was totally worth it.

I hate coconut!

Something to do with the stringy texture in my mouth. And both of this week's cookies included it. They were also both drop cookies, which we've done before, so overall, not my most favourite class. Coconut Macaroons include whipped egg whites, icing sugar, coconut, ground almonds & lemon zest. They are then scooped onto onto a tray and baked for about 20 minutes. Once cooled, they are dipped in chocolate.

Apricot Coconut cookies include more of the dreaded coconut, dried apricots, oats, and the usual suspects {butter, sugar, flour...}. They also include orange juice and zest, which gave them a fresh, healthy taste. Yes, even when I'm not excited by our recipes, I still want to sample them!