Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Butter Icing

WARNING: This recipe makes about 6 dozen cookies, which is A.LOT. So, while they're good, maybe bring along your calculator and halve the ingredients? Just my thinking.
For the Cookies
2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 ¼ teaspoons coarse salt
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 ¼ teaspoons ground ginger
¾ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
2 ¼ cups packed light-brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 ½ cups (14 oz.) canned solid-pack pumpkin
¾ cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the Icing
4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
10 Tablespoons (1 ¼ sticks) unsalted butter
¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon evaporated milk,
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1. Make cookies: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg in a medium bowl; set aside.
2. Put butter and brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Mix in eggs. Reduce speed to low. Add pumpkin, evaporated milk, and vanilla; mix until well blended, about 2 minutes. Add flour mixture; mix until combined.

3. Transfer 1 ½ cups batter to a pastry bag fitted with a ½-inch plain tip. Pipe 1 ½-inch rounds onto parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing 1 inch apart. Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until tops spring back, about 12 minutes. Cool on sheets on wire racks 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks; let cool completely.

4. Make icing: Put confectioners' sugar in a large bowl; set aside. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, swirling pan occasionally, until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Immediately add butter to confectioners' sugar, scraping any browned bits from sides and bottom of pan. Add evaporated milk and vanilla; stir until smooth. Spread about 1 teaspoon icing onto each cookie. If icing stiffens, stir in more evaporated milk, a little at a time. Cookies can be stored in single layers in airtight containers at room temperature up to 3 days.

FALL

Getting to cook this recipe is one of the reasons I *heart* fall!

Recipes

Hey!
Some of you know I love to share recipes and type recipes and organize recipes and clip recipes and think about which recipes to try next. And every once in a while I actually cook those recipes. And quite often I forget which ingredients I should have on-hand in order to get started.
So...thanks to the new-fangled wifi in some stores around here, I've been able to look up recipes using my new-fangled (thanks for the fabu Mother's Day gift, fam!) iTouch. In an effort to tap every possible method of recipe categorization, I've begun to enter some of my faves (as well as the Staples Collection many of you contributed to a few years ago) to *yes, yet another!* blog:
http://staplescollection.blogspot.com/
If you have any recipes you'd like to add, shoot me a note!
Let's cook, not just contemplate!

Hazelnut Meringue Kisses

I wanted to try these...but haven't yet. Sooo, filing them online. Where they won't get lost in a pile. So I can throw away the page I clipped from the Delicious Living magazine.

Makes about 24
These ethereally crispy clouds are easy to make, very low in fat, and a pretty addition to a candy platter or gift tin. Prep tips: Heating the egg whites with the sugar dissolves the large crystals and results in a loftier meringue. If you have a pastry bag with a large round tip, it will come in handy for this recipe. If not, just use a spoon to shape the kisses.


2 large egg whites
1/2 cup natural cane sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup finely ground hazelnuts
Unsweetened cocoa powder, for dusting

1. Line a baking sheet with cooking parchment. Preheat oven to 275°.

2. Place egg whites and sugar in a bowl that can nest on top of a pot filled with a few inches of water. Bring water in pot to a simmer. Place bowl over water and whisk egg-white mixture until sugar is completely dissolved and mixture is very warm, 3 minutes. Remove bowl from hot water and add cream of tartar. Beat on high speed until very dense and shiny, about 5 minutes.

3. With a spatula, gently fold in vanilla extract and hazelnuts. Spoon mixture into 1-inch dollops (or use a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch plain tip) onto prepared baking sheet. Bake until meringues are dry and firm to touch, and almost dry inside (break one open to test), 35–38 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes on sheets, then transfer to racks to cool completely. Sift cocoa powder over meringues and store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one week.

PER SERVING (2): 37 cal, 24% fat cal, 1g fat, 0g sat fat, 0mg chol, 1g protein, 6g carb, 0g fiber, 9mg sodium

Cupcake Tips

Cookies

Yummmmm.

Life is flying, was this the 6th annual cookie exchange?

Going-for-Coffee French Toast

Okay, if I'm going to be really, really honest, this is called:

Going-for-Starbucks-Because-I-Was-Up-WAY-Too-Late-Reading-Twilight-Last-Night French Toast.
Here it is:

• 3 slices of bread, on-its-way-out-the-door bread is great for French Toast, especially if it's a Caffeine Now! Morning and you haven't had a chance to go grocery shopping in a while.
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/2 - 1 c milk, or more, if you want to make more toast
• 1 teaspoon vanilla, that's probably more than you need, but I always like a lot of vanilla
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 dash cinnamon - do you like how I use these technical terms? It's because I never measure any of this except maybe the egg and the bread.
  

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

Butter or Spray-Pam a smallish baking pan with 1-inch sides. Place the bread in the pan. Depending on the number of pieces I cook, or my concern about the appearance for guests, I tear the bread in half, so I can smoosh it all in there.

Mix all the remaining ingredients together, and pour over the bread in the pan. It will seem, unless you've really whacked it out of proportion (coming from one who's never had to add a little milk on top), like there is much more liquid than you need. But just be patient, and the coffee trip will do its magic. In fact, if you're adept enough at delaying your departure with where-is-that-other-boot, seriously-can-you-please-not-have-just-pooped-right-now-ALL-over?, and what's-wrong-with-the-d*&$-garage-door-that-makes-it-necessary-for-me-to-be-pulling-out-of-the-driveway-before-realizing-it's-just-not-going-to-close-from-the-car-and-I'll-have-to-go-back-in-and-come-out-the-front-door-s, you may get an extra trip or two inside the house, and you'll see that the way too much liquid has, in fact, already been sopped up by the thirsty bread!

Now, you deserve it, go get a BIG cup-o-joe. Go through the drive-through, because you haven't gotten out of your PJs yet, though you may have put on jeans over them, and a scarf. Oh, and the kids are barely clothed, unless pre-heating the car and putting boots on them counts as clothing.

Come home to find the cat sequestered in the basement because the timer you set for 30 minutes was already 10 minutes down before you came back in the house to head out the front door before someone drove off with your kids in the car you left running so they didn't freeze, and it's been going off for about 15 minutes because everyone else in the neighborhood apparently stayed up reading Twilight too long last night too, so the drive-through line lasted long enough for you to hear just the lead-ups to several interesting NPR stories before one of the kids started screaming about something or another. Turn off that timer. Thank goodness for high altitude and low temperatures.

Pull out the pan of French Toast. It may look a little brown on top, but brown's okay because underneath that brown is a moist, egg-y piece of toast, begging for some syrup and butter.

Slather it up, slice it, and suck it down with your cup-o-Ahhhhhhh...

Let me know if you have any questions while trying this. I tried to put in a few tips, but you never know when someone might need a little extra direction.

Most Dangerous Chocolate Cake

I haven't tried this, but I'm up for a challenge! I'll post again once I've taken the plunge.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?

Most Dangerous Chocolate Cake in the World
(serves 1-2)

1 coffee mug
4 Tablespoons plain flour
4 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons baking cocoa
1 egg
3 Tablespoons milk
3 Tablespoons oil
3 Tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
Splash of vanilla

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well with a fork.
Add the egg and mix thoroughly.
Pour in the milk and oil and continue to mix well.
Add the chocolate chips and vanilla and mix again.
Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts.
The cake might rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed!
Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.

ENJOY!

P.S. If you try this before I do, let me know what you think!

O Likes COTC

Good thing she's got some choppers.