Pumpkin Passion

A few days ago we received a package of lavender and lavender sugar in the mail. It pays to have a relative who works for a spice company. Thanks Anita! Every holiday, we make our spice wish list and she transforms into our own person Spicy Santa. It’s completely awesome.

With my lavender gifts, I quickly set out to bake this lavender pumpkin bread recipe. I may have been a little too eager because both the muffins and the bread were a tad undercooked but they remained delicious even though I had to put them back in the oven for a few more minutes. It is called “lavender pumpkin bread” and not “pumpkin lavender bread” but I would up the amount of pumpkin pie spice to at least 3 teaspoons. The aroma of this baking in the oven is well worth it. Our house smelled warm and delicious for the rest of the day.

We also had an abundance of over-ripe pears and so I also made a batch of this Vanilla Spiced Pear Butter to go with the muffins. I’ve had pumpkin butter and apple butter several times before but I tell ya, nothing beats pear butter. It was strangely perfect with the muffins. It came out as runny as apple sauce but after adding some instant pectin the consistency was more like a thin jam.

I’m going to be eating this for the next few months because Shannon thinks anything with lavender in it tastes like soap but I’m up for the challenge. I love baking!

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!