Pumpkin Passion

On Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010 in Ohio, the New Bremen Giant Pumpkin Growers attempted to break their previous record for baking the world’s largest pumpkin pie. In 2005, they set the world record with a 12 foot wide pie that weighed 2,020 pounds. This year they decided to break their previous record, not by a couple of inches or pounds, they went super berzerk and made a 20 foot wide, 3,699 pound pumpkin pie.

The pie was later divided into about 5,000 slices and was passed out to the crowd on hungry onlookers.

If you’re wondering how you can make your own super giant pumpkin pie, here’s the recipe:

187 #10 Cans of Pumpkin
233 Dozen Eggs
109 Gallons of Evaporated Milk
525 Pounds of Sugar
7 Pounds of Salt
14.5 Pounds of Cinnamon
3 Pounds of Pumpkin Pie Spice
Pie Crust

Bake in a 20 foot pie pan for 11 hours, cool for 2.

I have been baking up a storm lately. Some recipes I took one bite of and promptly put in the trash while others will now become wonderful seasonal standards. Here’s a quick run down:

Pumpkin Spice No-Bake Cheesecake from Gina’s Weight Watcher Recipes
I have enjoyed several recipes from Gina’s Weight Watcher Recipe blog and was looking forward to making the pumpkin cheesecake. This recipe seemed perfect: pumpkin and guilt-free dessert. I’d tried making a similar recipe before minus the pumpkin and was not impressed. Still, my hopes were high. However, the cream cheese was just too strong and tangy. We didn’t finish our slice. Maybe next time we’ll add more pumpkin and lighten up the density with some fat-free whipped cream

Pumpkin & Corn Fritters by Emeril Lagasse
I haven’t eaten many fritters before or I might have know better than to have made this recipe. Essentially these are like a savory pumpkin bread with corn added and then fried. A more realistic name would have been fried pumpkin corn bread. They did have some good flavor but they were just too much. It needed some kind of sour cream chipotle sauce…actually any sauce would have been an improvement. I ate a few of these but most of them went in the trash. Savory fried bread balls are not my thing. However, these Golden Ricotta Pumpkin Fritters sound like a delicious improvement and so do these pumpkin banana fritters.

Pumpkin Waffles by the Pumpkin Waffles Blog
We have also been pumpkin waffle making fools lately and I really do mean fools. The first batch of these pumpkin waffles that I got from a recipe at the aptly named Pumpkin Waffle Blog turned out CRAZY BAD. They were runny and thin and I couldn’t get them to cook without burning in the middle. I had no doubt that I’d done something wrong. Trying out a new recipe early on a Saturday morning without taking the time to drink a cup of coffee beforehand is a bad idea. I gave them another try a couple of weeks later and they were completely delicious. They have the Pumpkin Passion Seal of Approval. Yummmm!

Pumpkin Bread by the Polka Dot Cottage
Hands down, my favorite pumpkin recipe we tried over this past Pumpkin Eatin’ Season was the Pumpkin Bread recipe over at Polka Dot Cottage. I swear that I would not be eligible for a spot on the Food Network’s “Worst Cooks in America”–btw, I HEART Rachel Coleman. I can be a pretty decent cook when I try but I almost messed this recipe up too. I didn’t read that this was a recipe for two loaves, instead of the one gigantic loaf I tried to make. Luckily I realized my mistake shortly after putting it in the oven. I quickly took out the full loaf pan and took out enough batter to make 12 gigantic Costco muffins in addition to the one loaf. Even with this mistake the bread and muffins came out wonderfully. We’ve made this recipe several times and have frozen and thawed the second loaf without being able to tell that it wasn’t freshly baked. It’s moist and delicious. I highly recommend trying this recipe all year long. In fact, I think I’ll make some more this weekend!

I’ve already ruined my personal goal of posting a blog entry every Monday for all of the 2008 Pumpkin Eatin’ Season. My excuse is as follow: Last week was the craziest work week ever in my entire working life. I could have used a case of pumpkin wine and have still not forgotten my troubles. It feels a little like the sky is falling and my only hope is that on November 5th we’ll see some actual change.

To forget my troubles, I’ve recently had some excellent pumpkin filled weekends . . . . . but for this post I’m forgoing the excellent. Oftentimes, I’m quick to post about the really awful pumpkin finds or the really awesome pumpkin finds. The mediocre ones get pushed to the side and forgotten. Not this time! This is my mediocre pumpkin post.

First off….

Name: Jack’s Pumpkin Whoopie
Purchased At: West Coast Whoopies in Calimesa, CA
Price: $2.50
Availability: Year Round

From the first moment I was told about Whoopies I’ve wanted to try them. The one thing I possibly love almost as much as pumpkins are cupcakes and since Whoopies are a variation on the cupcake I was totally excited to hear about them. A Whoopie is like a crème-filled cookie but it’s more like if you took the tops off two cupcakes and used them for the cookies but put the frosting in the middle, which sounds great. The only thing wrong with cupcakes are the wrappers and this eliminates that step.

We set out to get ourselves a Whoopie and when we pulled up to the shop I noticed the sign outside read PUMPKIN Whoopies. Yea! We got one pumpkin and one chocolate with peanut butter frosting. I took a bite of the chocolate one right outside of the shop but was unimpressed. They seemed dry and ordinary. The pumpkin Whoopies are frozen so we decided to take them home and have them later in the day.

I was hoping that my patience would be rewarded but it wasn’t. They aren’t horrible but they’re nothing special. They made the classic mistake of using a vanilla cream cheese frosting, which I have bemoaned frequently on this blog, and the cake was dry and uneventful.

Yawn, we probably won’t be going back but it did spawn the idea that if I’m going to ask the bakers of the world to STOP using cream cheese frosting then I have to come up with an alternative. Keep watching because I’m going to try out a variety of frosting recipes until I come up with the perfect one for pumpkin cupcakes.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Name: Phenomenal Pumpkin Spice Cookie
Purchased At: Nearly Every Independent Coffee Shop in Southern California
Price: $3.00ish
Availability: Year Round

I buy the “Phenomenal Pumpkin Spice” (their use of the term “phenomenal,” not mine) cookies made buy the Alternative Baking Company too often. I see them year round and I’m always thinking that I really should blog about them but they’re just too boring to say much about. The taste is decently pumpkinish but the cookie ends up feeling like a ball of lead in my stomach. It’s probably because it’s vegan but the texture is Dense with a capital “D.” Another mark against it is that one cookie has 440 calories and it is sooo not worth it.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Name: Mini Pumpkin Pie
Purchased At: Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
Price: $2.25
Availability: Seasonal

The mini pumpkin pie at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf looked cute in the pastry case but was a yawner. It’s mostly crust and the dollop of whipped cream is rubbery and artificial.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Name: Pumpkin Latte
Purchased At: Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
Price: $3.75
Availability: Seasonal

It tasted better than the Starbucks’ version but not by much.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Name: Pumpkin Loaf
Purchased At: Starbucks
Price: Forgotten
Availability: Seasonal

There is nothing new at Starbucks in the way of pumpkin treats. It’s all the same old stuff that they’ve had for the past few years. Maybe they think they can trick us into thinking the pumpkin loaf is new because this year because they put crushed pumpkin seeds on top instead of the cream cheese frosting with the tiny candied ginger pieces like every other year but it’s soo not new. I prefer it the old way.

Blah, Blah, Blah . . . it’s fine but boring.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Wow! I’m kind of caught up now. I’ve also made some great pumpkin finds and I’ll post them soon. Hopefully you are still awake after all this boredom.

Name: Pumpkin Pie
Purchased At: Hof’s Hut
Price: $5.99
Availability: Year Round

Remember my last blog about early pumpkin sightings? Well, I failed to mention that I was in such a pumpkin mood that I had to run out and buy myself some pumpkin pie from Hof’s Hut. While eating my mini pumpkin pie I couldn’t remember if I’d ever blogged about them. It turns out that I never have, which is surprising because I probably eat these more than any other pumpkin product.

There are tons of different pumpkin pies in the world but Hof’s Hut pumpkin pie is my Go-To pie when I need some comfort food. It’s not fancy. There’s no pecan crust or spices plucked directly from a tree only moments before being grated and baked into a $50 pie. Nope, it’s just your simple pumpkin pie that tastes so much better than mom’s…if your mom, like mine, made hers by taking a cardboard box home from the freezer section of the grocery store.

What makes this pumpkin pie my favorite is 3-fold:

1.) Crust: There’s plenty of yummy tasting crust because it’s a mini pie and it tastes fresh.
2.) Filling: It’s properly seasoned with enough cinnamon and nutmeg plus they serve it chilled so the texture is firm like a proper pumpkin pie should be.
3.) Topping: They give you plenty of real whipped cream if you pay a few quarters extra.

There’s simply nothing to complain about. It’s a good pie but it clearly doesn’t inspire me to scream it from the mountains or even to previously blog about it.

Rating: 5 out of 5
Mostly for its “comfort food” qualities and its simplicity.

Name: PumpkinPalooza
Purchased At: Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge
Price: $7.00 admission fee
Availability: Year Round for the gardens/Seasonal for the Palooza

On Saturday I visited Descanso Gardens’ for their PumpkinPalooza Festival. With a name like PumpkinPalooza I had some high expectations. The festival was described as a fanciful pumpkin celebration with a costume parade, hay rides, an antique farm tractor display, pumpkin people, and an enchanted railroad.

The gardens were beautiful to walk around and view. There were plenty of off-the-beaten paths to hike and view the fall foliage. In Los Angeles you’ve got to seek out trees with beautiful fall colored leaves because they’re difficult to come by.

One section of the gardens looked like a scene straight out of “Sleepy Hallow.” We had to run through it just to make sure the headless horseman wasn’t chasing after us. Then we came to a site of mini looking headstones…freaky. Most of the gardens, however, were of the typical rose, lilac, Japanese garden variety

The pumpkin festivities were located in the main lawn area loaded down with pumpkins stacked in clusters and the obligatory gigantic pumpkin. The “pumpkin people search” was extremely disappointing. There were TWO pumpkin people in the center of the main lawn, which is not a “search.” There was a costume parade and some pumpkinish crafts but these were for kids under the age of 6. The festival was overrun with the young ones but they mostly stayed in the central and rose garden areas of the park.

The PumpkinPalooza Palace was SOOO not a palace. It was a room in the food court area with a few crafts, cookies, cakes, and toys but few were of the pumpkin variety. However, the gift shop did have a good variety of pumpkin trinkets.

The best exhibit was the antique farm tractor display. The vintage tractors were interesting and surely a RARE sight for all the L.A./Pasadena kids. Admit it, who doesn’t love to look at a shiny green John Deere tractor?

My absolute favorite part of the whole day was probably the food. For the festival they had an outdoor barbecue for grilling hamburgers and hotdogs. I haven’t had a barbequed hotdog in so long that I’d forgotten what a taste of heaven those things are…yummy. Mini pumpkin treats were available for dessert for $1.50 each–one was a pumpkin pie and the other a pumpkin brulee. They were both only two-bites big but were delicious. The pumpkin pie had excellent flavor as did the brulee; the only difference between the two was a deep creaminess to the brulee.

In sum, it was a good day and I’m glad that I went but it was not a true celebration of the pumpkin…it was more of a fall/Halloween festival.

PumpkinPalooza Rating: 3 out of 5
Pumpkin Pie Rating: 5 out of 5
Pumpkin Brulee Rating: 5 out of 5