USA Cookies & Bouquet

There is always a small bag of raw pumpkin seeds in my freezer. They are there for when I make granola or to toast a small handful for a salad. But they are there for another reason, and that is for this Pumpkin Seed Brittle, a delicious confection made of toasted pumpkin seeds encased in a cooked sugar syrup. Pumpkin Seed Brittle is hard and brittle, yet crunchy and sweet. It can be eaten alone or ground and sprinkled over a bowl of ice cream, as a garnish for frosted cakes or it makes a nice topping for a pumpkin pie.

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One cake I particularly enjoy is this honey colored Pumpkin Cake with its shiny chocolate glaze. This cake is full of flavor and keeps fresh for days, thanks to the pumpkin puree and canola oil. The chocolate glaze is a delicious mixture of semi sweet chocolate with enough butter, corn syrup, and brandy to make it flow easily down the sides of the cake. Try to make this cake the day before serving, so the flavors of the cake and chocolate glaze have time to soften and mingle.

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Halloween Cheesecakes are cute little New York style cheesecakes with chocolate crumb crusts that are dressed up for Halloween with cobwebs of chocolate. These cheesecakes would make a nice ending to a Fall dinner party where an unexpected surprise is always appreciated. You can serve these alone or else with a strawberry or raspberry sauce, or even a medley of fresh berries.

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Halloween Cookies take sweet and buttery flavored sugar cookies and covers them with a royal icing. I started making these cookies when my children were very young as they loved their flavor and I, in turn, loved watching them hum and haw over whether they wanted a ghost, a witch, a bat, or a black cat. The trick to making the perfect frosted cookie is to bake the sugar cookies until their edges are tinged with brown, as this makes them sturdy enough to hold up to being covered with the icing. Once the Royal Icing is spread on the cookies, it will take several hours, or even overnight, to dry completely and become wonderfully smooth and hard with a matte finish. Keep in mind that humidity affects the amount of time it will take for the icing to dry, so if possible, do not frost these cookies on a humid day.

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Meringue
Ghosts are haphazard mounds of sweetened meringue studded with cute little candy eyes. Although it is obvious that children enjoy the look and taste of these ghosts, I find that adults are not immune to their charms. I love how the outside of the meringue ghosts are so light and crisp that they immediately dissolve on the tongue, while their insides are soft like a marshmallow, and oh so sweet. Serve these at your next Halloween gathering and watch them disappear.
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In the past, whenever I made Chocolate Coconut Macaroons, I thought these lumpy and bumpy cookies reminded me of spiders. So when I wanted to make something special for a children’s Halloween party I immediately thought about turning these cookies into cute-looking chocolate spiders. This is really easy to do. While the cookies are still warm, just press two candy eyes and four chocolate-covered pretzels into each side of the cookie for spider “legs”. Kids will love both the look and taste of these candy-like chocolate spider cookies.
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Raisin Shortbreads had been in my head for months, ever since I saw a recipe in Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Fruit Cookbook. The thought of soft and chewy raisins sandwiched between two layers of tender and crumbly shortbread sounded too good to pass by. So when a cool and rainy day happened along (perfect day for baking), I went out and bought a good unsalted butter and some Thompson raisins and made the recipe. I wasn’t disappointed. They tasted every bit as good as they sounded so I just had to share this recipe with you. These raisin shortbread fingers go perfectly with a hot cup of tea or coffee and I also think they would be a nice addition to your Christmas baking.

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October is the season of fresh apples, pears, corn, and pumpkins. It is also the season of ghosts and goblins and candy corn. Now candy corn is uniquely American, invented over a hundred years ago by George Renninger of the Wunderle Candy Company. This white, orange, and yellow striped confection is shaped to resemble a kernel of corn and while it may be hard to believe, 20 million pounds of it are sold every year. With such popularity I decided to make a dessert in its honor, Candy Corn Parfaits. These frozen parfaits are made by layering vanilla ice cream, with orange sherbet and lemon sorbet and I can’t help but feel they do the original proud. The idea for making this dessert comes from Matthew Mead’s book Monster Book of Halloween. This book is absolutely bursting with Halloween ideas, from cooking to decorating.
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An Apple Cake is the perfect Fall dessert, with its chunks of apples, pecans and raisins, all wrapped in a cinnamon-laced batter. This cake is best served warm from the oven with a dollop of softly whipped cream, a small scoop of vanilla ice cream, or with a little heavy cream poured over the top. Absolutely delicious.

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A Chocolate Cheesecake is a real showstopper that combines three delicious layers of chocolate. The first layer is a sandy textured chocolate crust made with crushed chocolate wafers mixed with a little melted butter. The middle layer is a chocolate cheesecake made with a knock-out combination of melted chocolate, cream cheese, sugar, eggs, and sour cream. It is sinfully chocolately yet with a delightfully tangy flavor that has a texture that will remind you of a thick, silky smooth chocolate mousse. Once baked, cooled, and chilled, the final smooth and shiny chocolate layer is added. It is a mixture of cream and chocolate (a ganache) that makes you think you are eating a chocolate truffle.
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Raisin Cookies are very popular with kids probably because of their soft and chewy texture and buttery sweet flavor. These homey raisin-packed, old fashioned drop cookies are a busy mother’s friend as the batter is quickly made and then all you do is drop small spoonfuls onto a baking sheet. The cookies are baked until their centers are just beginning to turn brown yet their edges are a lovely golden brown color. Raisin Cookies make a great after school snack and they also make a welcome surprise when tucked into the kid’s lunch boxes.
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Ginger Cookies are aptly named, as they are both ginger colored and ginger flavored. They have a sugar coated crackly surface, and when you bite into one you will find the texture soft and chewy with a flavor that is buttery and spicy. Although this cookie is ideal any time of the year it does seem particularly well suited to the Fall and Winter seasons when our palates seem to prefer stronger flavors. The combination of molasses with ground cinnamon, ground ginger, and cloves gives these cookies a sweet and warm fragrance and flavor that makes eating
one just about impossible.

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This is the Banana Bread that I love to have sitting on the counter, so I can enjoy a slice whenever my sweet tooth beckons. The combination of flavors, sweet bananas paired with vanilla and cinnamon, is sure to please and this quick bread is not only good with your morning coffee but is also makes a nice accompaniment to a salad at lunch time.
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“Healthy Desserts” is a section that includes all sorts of baking, from muffins to granola to cakes to cookies to candies. It gives a variety of recipes, some of the recipes are virtually fat free or low in saturated fat, others are fruit based, some contain whole grains, and there are also some recipes that are just lower in fat than what you would normally find.

Now there are some whole foods that are just naturally healthy. Fruits (fresh, frozen, and dried) are one example. They make really great desserts as they are naturally sweet, full of flavor, contain essential nutrients, and they are low in calories and saturated fat. When fresh fruits are in season, sometimes all that is needed to finish a meal is a bowl of ruby red Bing cherries, a slice of juicy sweet watermelon, a medley of lightly sweetened berries, or crunchy slices of apples. But there are also ways to incorporate fruits into our baking. Fresh, frozen, and dried fruits can be stirred into batters for muffins, scones, bars and squares, and quick breads for added flavor and texture. Berries (either fresh or frozen) also make delicious fruit sauces that can be poured over sorbets or frozen yogurts, or served alongside a slice of angel food cake or a Pavlova. You can use a variety of fresh and dried fruits to make delicious fruit salads, and berries make great fruit sorbets, fruit smoothies, a jellied fruit terrine, or jellied strawberry creams topped with jellied raspberry puree. And don’t forget to add fresh berries or dried fruits to a bowl of granola or, better yet, layer the granola with fruit and yogurt for a lovely granola trifle.

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It is hard to beat the combination of bananas and chocolate. While I enjoy bananas flavored with ground cinnamon in a banana bread, my favorite banana dessert is these Banana Chocolate Cupcakes where mashed ripe bananas are mixed in a batter along with cocoa powder. Their flavor is rich and their texture is moist and when you top each cupcake with a creamy smooth Ganache frosting my sweet tooth is instantly satisfied.

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