Pumpkin Chocolate Brownies

This is a fun fall treat.  My youngest child, Andrew, has to bring brownies for a Halloween Party on Friday.  They were very easy to make, but I do think that you can make some adjustments though.  I doubled the batter recipe so that I could make a bigger batch of brownies.  There were really chocolatey though; I would maybe reduce the chocolate chips a little bit.  I am still working on it though.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup butter, melted
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree (Fresh homemade pumpkin puree recipe)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I omitted since we can't have nuts at school)
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease an 8x8 inch baking pan (if you are doubling the batter recipe, I suggest using a 9x13 pan). Stir the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl.
2. In another bowl, stir together the melted butter, sugar, and vanilla extract; beat in the eggs one at a time with a spoon. Gradually add the flour mixture, and stir the batter until it's evenly moistened. Divide the batter in half in two separate bowls.
3. Into one bowl of batter, blend the cocoa powder and chocolate chips. In the second bowl of batter, stir in the pumpkin puree, walnuts, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.
4. Spread 1/2 of the chocolate batter into the bottom of the prepared baking pan, and follow with 1/2 of the pumpkin batter. Repeat the layers, ending with a pumpkin layer, and drag a kitchen knife or small spatula gently through the layers in a swirling motion, to create a marbled appearance.
5. Bake in the preheated oven until the brownies begin to pull away from the sides of the pan, and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Cool in the pan, cut into squares, and serve.

Batter prepared

 Going into the oven

 Final Brownies, I will post a picture of the swirl/layer effect in the middle.

Adapted from http://www.allrecipes.com/

Low Fat Pumpkin-Banana Bread/Muffins

I still have a lot of pumpkin puree left, so I am trying more pumpkin recipes.  Andrew loves muffins and I like to make him healthy things to eat for breakfast.  The recipe was actually for a bread, but I thought the muffins would be more kid-friendly.

Ingredients:

1 mashed ripe banana

1 cup pumpkin puree

1/4 cup canola oil (I half oil and half natural applesauce)

1 large egg

2 egg whites

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 8 1/2 X 4 1/2-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray. Or you can use 18 muffin tins with liners.

Place mashed banana, pumpkin puree, oil, egg and egg whites in a large bowl. Beat with an electronic mixer on low speed. Place flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon in a medium bowl and stir with a whisk. Add flour mixture to banana and pumpkin mixture and beat until just moist. Pour batter into loaf pan and bake for 1 hour or until toothpick placed in center comes out clean. If you are making muffins bake for 18-20 minutes (fill them about 3/4 full).

 

Serves 12 as a loaf or Serves 18 as muffins.

Per Serving as a loaf: Calories 196, Calories from Fat 48, Total Fat 5.3g (sat 0.5g), Cholesterol 18mg, Sodium 206mg, Carbohydrate 33.3g, Fiber 1.6g, Protein 3.7g

 Adapted from Low Fat Cooking

Pumpkin Bread with Cream Cheese Filling

This is a pumpkin bread with a cream cheese filling.  It can be frozen.

Ingredients:
Filling:
• 1 package (8 ounce) cream cheese, at room temperature (I use the reduced fat cream cheese)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon finely grated orange peel (I omitted since I didn't have any)
Bread:
• 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 cup pumpkin puree, canned or homemade (Here's my recipe for easy pumpkin puree with a real pumpkin)
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (you can subsitute natural applesauce)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, optional
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 325°. Lightly grease two 8x4x3-inch loaf pans. In a medium mixing bowl, combine cream cheese, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon flour, 1 egg, and the orange peel; beat until smooth and creamy. Set aside. Into another bowl, sift 1 2/3 cup flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg; set aside. Put pumpkin puree, vegetable oil, 2 eggs and 1 1/2 cup sugar in a large mixing bowl; beat well. Stir the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture just until combined. Fold in the pecans or walnuts, if using. Pour half of the pumpkin bread batter evenly into the two prepared loaf pans. Spoon cream cheese mixture on top of pumpkin batter layer and then pour on the remaining pumpkin batter. Bake in preheated 325° oven for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool bread in pans for 10 minutes; remove to a rack to cool completely. Pumpkin bread recipe makes 2 loaves.

How to make Pumpkin Puree

This past weekend we were at the pumpkin farm with the kids.  When we were looking at pumpkins and we found one that was a perfect "baking" pumpkin.  I have never cooked with fresh pumpkin before and wanted to give it a shot. 

This is the pumpkin that we picked. 

I looked up different ways to make this pumpkin into the pumkpin puree that you can make into pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, cookies, etc.  You can bake it, microwave it, steam it, and boil it.  I started off with preparing it to bake, but then quickly switched to boiling it. 

I used a large pot and started boiling the water.  I cleaned the pumpkin off in warm water (no soap).  Then I sliced it up.  Here's the inside of the pumpkin.  You can save the seads, which you can roast if you like.  I diced the pumpkin into reasonable chunks.  I placed them in the water for about 45 minutes or until tender.  (Some recipes call for removing the skin before placing them in the water, but I tried that and it seemed to take forever, so I just tossed them into the water, skin and all)

Drain off the excess water and then let them cool on a cookie sheet. This is what mine looked like.

Then I used a spoon and removed the pumpkin from the skin.  This was very quick and ease!  I put all the pumpkin into a bowl and then used a blender to puree the pumpkin.  My pumpkin yielded about 5 cups of puree.

You can freeze the puree for about a year.  Use freezer ziplock bags to ensure freshness. 

This can be used as a replacement for pumpkin in a can.  It's the same measurement.  You do not need to add anything to this puree to use in a recipe.  I used it right away for pumpkin cookies and pumpkin bread.