Pumpkin Treats – Bead Yarn & Spatula

It’s Fall Y’all! And you know what that means… It’s time for some pumpkin treats. Truth be told I feel like Fall came out of nowhere this year. Between working from home and barely going anywhere due to the pandemic the days are just passing by quickly and rolling into each other. Now that September is winding down though I’m doing my best to be cognizant of the days/dates to make sure I get all of my holiday projects and goodies done. I’m kicking off Fall with a Chocolate Pumpkin Flan.

While traditional flan uses eggs as the base to make the custard, this flan uses a combination of cream cheese, eggs and pumpkin. One thing that does remain the same though is the delicious caramel sauce. And I am happy to say that I was finally successful in making caramel sauce. I have tried in the past and all I have ended up with is burnt sugar. I was determined this time to get it right. One thing that helped, besides having patience, was using a smaller saucepan. I normally use a medium sized one and I think that was preventing the caramel from coming together. By using a smaller one it was easier for the sugar to melt into the water and begin the caramelization process. I also resisted the urge to stir it and instead swirled the pan every few minutes to ensure it wouldn’t burn. As with a traditional flan, once the caramel was done I poured it into the pan I was using and then poured the batter for the flan over it. Oh, one other thing this flan has that a traditional flan doesn’t have… melted chocolate. If you didn’t know, chocolate and pumpkin go together really well. After baking in a water bath, initially I was thinking that I could bake a 9-inch pan inside of a 10-inch springform pan, but, after I added the water it seeped right out so I ended up baking it in a water bath inside of my roasting pan, I let it cool and then refrigerated it overnight before unmolding it. It didn’t come out easily, but, once it did it thankfully didn’t break apart.

Final verdict… It was delicious. It had the exact consistency of an egg custard flan but the flavor of pumpkin and chocolate with a hint of spice thanks to pumpkin spice. Which is just a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and allspice.

So, even with all the craziness going on are you looking forward to the holidays? Me and a friend were saying the other day how when the summer started, we had no clue how the summer would be and what we would be able to do. And now here we are, the summer is over, and we made it through without doing anything really. With the extra time on the weekends I was able to get some projects done in my backyard and I am in the middle of remodeling my living room. All in all, I am sure most people are looking to put this year to bed. For now though, bring on the pumpkins, the mums and the scarves!

Chocolate Pumpkin Flan

Servings: 12
Print

Ingredients:

2oz. semi-sweet chocolate

1 1/2 cups sugar, divided

1/4 cup water

1 12oz. can evaporated milk

1 8oz. package cream cheese, softened and cubed

4 eggs

1/2 cup canned pumpkin

1/2 teaspoon pumpkin spice

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Microwave the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl on high for 1 minute, or until almost melted. Stir until completely melted, set aside to cool.

In a small saucepan add 3/4 cups of the sugar and the water. Cook on medium heat until the mixture is golden brown and a syrup-like consistency. This will take 10-15 minutes. Do not stir the contents, instead swirl the pan every few minutes. Pour into a 9-inch round pan.

In a large bowl, using a handheld mixer, combine the evaporated milk and cream cheese and mix together until smooth. Add the remaining sugar, the eggs, pumpkin, pumpkin spice and melted chocolate and continue mixing until well incorporated. Pour the mixture over the syrup in the pan.

Place the 9-inch pan inside of a larger pan, a roasting pan is ideal, and fill the larger pan with enough water that it comes halfway up the sides of the small pan.

Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, or until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Let cool completely on a wire rack and then refrigerate for at least 4 hours before inverting and unmolding. Drizzle any remaining caramel sauce left in pan over flan. Slice and enjoy!

Recipe from Kraft Foods

I tried making pumpkin muffins once or twice before and they have always been a fail. Once I tried making a crumb topped pumpkin muffin and the crumb on top was a disaster. Instead of creating a nice crust on top of the muffin it baked into the muffin. Which was weird since I mimicked the crumb topping from these blueberry muffins that have always turned out great. I am assuming it had something to do with the batter. And another time I tried making a pumpkin muffin similar to the recipe of the pumpkin bread I normally make. Once again, a fail in my book. It lacked any flavor. I wasn’t giving up though. I’ve made pumpkin cupcakes, pumpkin cake, a pumpkin tiramisu, and a few savory pumpkin dishes so I was not about to let a muffin get the best of my pumpkin baking.

Around this time of year Chobani gets in on the pumpkin craze and releases their pumpkin blended yogurts. For the past couple of years they had a Pumpkin Harvest Crisp Flip Yogurt that had pie crust pieces, glazed pumpkin seeds and pecans (YUM!) When I went looking for it this year they replaced it with an Autumn Harvest Crisp Flip Yogurt with pecans, cranberries and gingersnap crust. I like it, but definitely not as much the previous version. I think it’s the gingersnap crust that is throwing it off for me. Not really sure why they changed it… The Pumpkin Harvest Crisp was so good and had good reviews. While eating it for breakfast one day I thought that maybe a pumpkin muffin with pecans and cranberries would be a winner. I was thinking about converting a pumpkin cupcake recipe into a muffin recipe, but decided I didn’t want another fail so I turned to Google and did a few searches. Soon enough I came across a recipe for a Pumpkin Cranberry Muffin. It had some good reviews and pretty much used ingredients I already had on hand. I made one tweak to the recipe though. The original recipe called for just using cinnamon (1tsp.) and ginger (1/2 tsp.) and I just felt that that wouldn’t be enough spice to enhance the pumpkin flavor. So, I upped it to 3 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice. This way not only would there be cinnamon and nutmeg in the batter, but also allspice, cloves and nutmeg.

One thing I should note about these muffins is that they are a 1-bowl muffin. Meaning, you add all of the ingredients to one bowl and then beat or stir to combine them. I honestly did try to whisk all of the ingredients together, but, the mixture was just too thick so I had to break out my hand mixer.

After mixing the ingredients until they were just combined I divided them into a muffin tin lined with cupcake liners – about 1/4 cup of batter in each. The recipe called for 12 muffins, but, I ended up with 15. To ensure that the remaining three baked well I filled the empty cavities of that muffin tin with water about half-way up. I then sprinkled some of the muffins with coarse sugar.

After baking for about 20 minutes I removed them from the oven and transferred them to a wire rack to cool completely. Once they were cool I tried one and I was very happy that I had switched up the spices. I think the original recipe of just cinnamon and ginger would have produce a muffin that was a bit on the bland side.

Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

Servings: 12 Muffins
Print

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cups sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

3 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup canned pumpkin puree

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 cup sweetened dried cranberries

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Coarse sugar, optional

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 F. Line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners and set aside.

In a large bowl whisk together the dry ingredients – flour, sugar, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice and salt. Add in the pumpkin puree, oil, eggs, cranberries and pecans and using a handheld mixer on the low setting beat the mixture until just combined. Do not overmix.

Divide the batter evenly among the prepared cupcake tin (about 1/4 cup in each). If you have remaining batter prep a second a cupcake tin and fill the empty crevices with water about halfway up.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean from the center. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe modified from Betty Crocker