Pumpkin Carving with the Kiddies

Since our neighborhood rarely has any trick or treaters. We went to our friend's house and did Halloween stuff with their kids.
The adults carved out the tops and kiddos gutted them.
Then we had them trace their patterns onto the pumpkin. The the adults cut out the shapes and the kids pulled them out.
She's super proud of her work. Great team!

I of course took the seeds, cleaned them, then seasoned and baked them. That's my favorite part of carving pumpkins!

Fall is Here! Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

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Well. Maybe tomorrow. But I’m excited. Time for comfort foods. And pumpkin EVERYTHING. Surprisingly, I have not had a pumpkin spice latte yet. I am boycotting them this year because Starbucks rolled it out too early. To get the pumpkin spice fix, I made pumpkin spice cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting.

Can I tell you a secret though? I didn’t use a cupcake recipe. It was for whoopie pies. Whoopie pies look too much like macarons, and I am still on hiatus, so I instead of scooping them into cookies, I just stuck it in a cupcake pan and called it a day.

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Spice up your life.

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Pumpkin, brown sugar and butter.

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I added some cinnamon to this recipe.

Pumpkin Bread

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Can I tell you something? I’ve never made a loaf bread before. Yes, I’ve made baguettes and other “rustic” breads from scratch. But the only thing I’ve made in my loaf pan was…meatloaf. So my gateway bread, is pumpkin bread. Then I will go for hawaiian style banana bread. And then start trying to make up some other sweet delicious bread.

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The best part of pumpkin bread, I think, are the delicious spices. A spiced bread is so yummy, and perfect for breakfast. I can’t believe I never tried to make it before.IMG_7629 IMG_7630 IMG_7634It’s so moist and delicious. I’m particular about the recipes that I use. I have to trust who’s writing it, OR I have to read it and mentally compute how it’s going to turn out. So I didn’t even bother googling a recipe for pumpkin bread. I knew what my favorite pumpkin bread was. Starbucks. So I went for that recipe, or something close to it.

Pumpkin Bread
Adapted from Todd Wilbur’s Top Secret Recipes Unlocked

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cups canned pure pumpkin puree
3/4 cup vegetable oil

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350F.  Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt in a medium bowl.  Beat together eggs, sugars and vanilla in a large bowl with a mixer on high for 30 seconds. Add the pumpkin and oil and mix well.

Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients in the mixing bowl and mix well. Pour batter into a well greased loaf pan. Bake for 60 minutes or until the top of bread is brown and toothpick comes out clean.

Leave bread to cool in bread pan. Once completely cooled, remove from loaf pan and slice.