Pumpkin Soup w/ Savory Whipped Cream

That, right there, is a big bowl of delicious. As you can probably tell, I've been making a lot of soup lately. This pumpkin soup, however, is hands down the best. I don't think it would quite cut it as a meal on its own, but it is an impressive starter for company or an otherwise boring meal. And it is really easy. (My friend Taylor pointed out that I say everything I make is really easy. But that's because it is!) The nutmeg and ginger bring out the flavor of the pumpkin, and the cream cheese with the sautéed onion and leek round out the soup. The savory whipped cream and roasted pumpkin seeds are a perfect topping and make it look that much prettier, but if you don't have the time/inclination/spare calories feel free to skip this step. The soup will still taste great. I don't know where I'm eating Thanksgiving dinner yet, but this will definitely be making its way to my (or my host's) table.

Before the recipe, a few words to the wise: Make sure you adequately salt the soup. The first time I made it, I used low sodium chicken broth and didn't realize how much salt I had to add to compensate.

And a note about the sugar pumpkin: to get 2 pounds of pumpkin chunks you need a three to four pound pumpkin--which is not that big, about the size of your head. Unless your head is really big. You also need a really good peeler for the pumpkin skin. If your peeler is dinky, you're going to have to use a paring knife. I've done it both ways, but Nic was anticipating a trip to the ER when I used the paring knife. He went out and bought a good peeler soon thereafter.

Pumpkin Soup
Makes 8 servings, as a starter

Ingredients:
soup
olive oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 leek (white only), thinly sliced
2 lbs. (about 6 cups) sugar pumpkin, peeled, deseeded and cut into chunks
6 cups chicken broth
salt/pepper
1 1/2 cups cream cheese
3/4 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

savory whipped cream topping
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup sour cream
pinch of salt
pinch of ginger
pinch of nutmeg
roasted pumpkin seeds

Directions:
-Heat enough olive oil to sauté onion and leek in a large pot. When the oil is hot, sauté onion and leek for about 5 minutes or until they start to become translucent.
-Add the pumpkin chucks and the chicken broth. Season with a little salt and pepper. Bring the soup to a boil on high heat, then reduce the heat and simmer for 45 minutes.
-This is a good time to salt the pumpkin seeds you removed from your pumpkin and put them in the oven on 450 degrees for 5-10 minutes to roast.
-Remove the soup from the heat. (If you want a thick soup, remove a cup of the broth before continuing.*) Stir in cream cheese, ginger and nutmeg. The cream cheese won't completely dissolve, but don't worry, the blender will take care of it.
-Blend the soup in batches until all of it is blended. Stir it all together and taste. Add additional salt, ginger and nutmeg to taste.
-To make the savory whipped cream, first whip the heavy cream with a hand or stand mixer (or a whisk and some upper body strength) until it thickens into the consistency of... well whipped cream, of course. Fold in the sour cream, salt, ginger and nutmeg.
-Top bowls of soup with a dollop of the savory whipped cream and roasted pumpkin seeds.

* I left all 6 cups of broth in when I made my soup. But why not just use 5 cups to begin with if you want thick soup? Because, at least in my pot, it wouldn't cover the pumpkin.

Happy Halloween: Pumpkin Muffins

I've created a monster. I started bringing in sweets to work a few weeks ago, and now I am always getting questions about what I'm baking next. Luckily, I have a devoted audience to give my baking to so I don't eat it all. And they always like everything I bring in, so it's a great morale booster for this blog.

So for Halloween Friday, what better than pumpkin muffins. These turned out just about perfect for a pumpkin muffin in my opinion, light and fluffy with a little spice and a lot of pumpkin flavor. The only problem was that the tops got just a little sticky overnight. That could probably be remedied by using white sugar instead of brown sugar, which has more moisture. These are lighter, fluffier muffins than what I usually bake, but that's probably because they're not quite as healthy. If I make these again on a non-holiday, I will probably substitute half of the flour for whole wheat flour and at least half of the oil for applesauce and maybe reduce the sugar too. But it's Halloween, and pumpkin muffins are at least a little better than a bowl of mini candy bars.

Pumpkin Muffins
Makes 12

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ginger
2 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1/3 cup milk
1 cup canned pumpkin
pumpkin seeds (optional)

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tin with paper cups or grease.
-Combine first 9 ingredients (all the dry ingredients, which go from flour through ginger) in a large bowl.
-In another bowl, beat the eggs, then mix in the oil, milk and pumpkin.
-Slowly mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until well combined.
-Pour into the muffins tins. Top with pumpkin seeds if you like. Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the tops are slightly browned.

I can't believe I made this!

Considering I started baking in ernest about a month ago, not even I would have believed that I could pull off a fancy looking pumpkin soufflé. But when my November Gourmet magazine came, I saw these, and I thought, why not? The ingredient list seemed doable, and the process didn't seem too intense. My friend was coming over with her new boyfriend, so I thought I would make a good first impression. A good, fluffy, powder sugar impression.

I followed the recipe exactly, having zero confidence in my ability to experiment with soufflé. The only thing I did different was I didn't use canned pumpkin. I was making pumpkin soup the night before (I'm still perfecting, stay tuned), and I had too much pumpkin so I made my own puree by cutting the sweet pumpkin in half, deseeding, scraping out the inside, peeling the skin with a paring knife and cutting in cubes. Then I boiled the pumpkin cubes until soft, drained, and threw the cubes in the blender. (This was not nearly as hard as I had imagined it by the way. When my friend told me he made a pumpkin pie this way I thought he had lost his mind.)

The good news: I discovered I can competently make a soufflé and have it turn out quite pretty. The bad news: I think I discovered I don't particularly like soufflé, or at least not pumpkin soufflé. If anything can possibly taste too light and fluffy this does. It tasted like eating pumpkin pie air, if that makes any sense. But if that's your type of thing, you'll probably love this. Myself, I'll be trying for chocolate soufflé next time.

Pumpkin Cake w/ Apple Streusel

My friend MK loves pumpkin. So I knew that I had to incorporate it into her birthday cake somehow. Luckily, I found this recipe in a cookbook I borrowed from the library recently, The New Whole Grains Cookbook. This has to be brief because I am about to run out the door on my way to Baltimore. I only made a few changes, namely I used three apples instead of four, I used gala apples instead of granny smith, I added pecans to the streusel topping, and instead of 2 tbs. of pumpkin spice I made my own spice mixture. So if you want the original recipe you can make those changes back.

The result was a pumpkiny, spicey, pretty heavy cake. You only need a very small slice. But it taste very much like fall, with the two main in-season baking ingredients both part of this cake.

Pumpkin Cake w/ Apple Streusel
Adapted from The New Whole Grains Cookbook

Ingredients:
3 tbs. + 1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 gala apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
5 tbs. granulated white sugar
1 tsp. + 3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/8 tsp. all spice
1/8 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/3 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1/4 cup chopped pecans.

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter and flour a 9" spring form pan (should be at least 3" deep).
-Dice 1/2 cup butter and let it come to room temperature.
-Melt 3 tbs. butter in saute pan, and saute the apples over medium high heat until soft, about 5 minutes. Add 3 tbs. of white sugar and 1 tsp. cinnamon to the apples. Toss and cook until the liquid is thick and bubbly.
-Combine flour, brown sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the diced butter and mix until the butter is broken up into little pieces. Measure 2/3 cup of the mixture into a small bowl for streusel.
-Add 2 tbs. white sugar, 3/4 tsp. cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, all spice, cloves, and pecans to streusel topping.
-To the stand mixer bowl, add baking soda, pumpkin, sour cream, and eggs. Beat until smooth and pour into pan.
-Top the batter in the pan with the apples, then with the streusel. (I didn't end up using all of the streusel. I just added until the apples were covered.)
-Bake for 40-5o minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. (Apple and streusel on the skewer doesn't count.)
-Cool and serve.