Pumpkin Poppers!

 Happy Monday to you one and all!  Hoping your weekend was fabulous, restful, and all that you wanted it to be.  Ours was busy as usual.  We had little league games on Saturday and a birthday party for our seven year old grandson on Sunday.  I baked his cake and cupcakes and that was quite an affair.  I am not a cake decorator, but I do my best.  Will share his baseball glove cake and baseball cupcakes with you one of these days.

Well, fall is upon us and it is time for all things pumpkin.  It is amazing to me how the groceries now turn October in to "pumpkin" month with everything pumpkin you can think of.  I must say we do enjoy some good pumpkin treats, so I thought I would share one with you today that I found on Domestically Speaking.  She calls them Pumpkin Poppers and they are deliciously delectable morsels of pumpkin that are kind of like donut balls only baked in a mini muffin tin.  Yum!

This recipe made 24 of these Poppers in my mini muffin pan.  It's an easy recipe and SOOOO good, especially with coffee.  Then again, what isn't good with coffee?  Here is what you need:

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1  1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp allspice
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup pumpkin (not pie filling)
1/2 cup milk

This is how they look when they come out of the oven before you coat them in the cinnamon/sugar mix.


Coating

1/2 stick butter, melted
1/2 cup granulated sugar and 1 1/2 TBSP cinnamon combined in a bowl

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.   Spray mini muffin pan with cooking spray.

Combine all dry ingredients.  Mix with a whisk until combined.  Mix all wet ingredients and pour into dry ingredients.  Just combine.   Do not over mix.

Fill muffin tins almost full.  Bake 8-12 minutes.  Let cool.  (I baked mine 8 minutes)

Roll in melted butter, then sugar/cinnamon mix.  Serve!

Oh, my.  These are really, really good and it's tempting to not eat all of them at one time.  Restrain yourself if you can - you will want some of these for breakfast, a mid afternoon snack, and evening treat.  They are two bites, three at the most and it's easy to just keep popping them in your mouth.  Yum.  Yum.  Yum.

Give this recipe a try.  It's a great fall treat and super easy.  You are going to love these!

Everyday Donna

Things to Remember:

"Oh how we love pumpkin season.  You did know this gourd-ish squash has its own season, right?  Winter, Spring, Summer, pumpkin....We anxiously anticipate it every year."     Unknown

Pumpkin Streusel Coffee Cake

Oh what a glorious Monday today.  It was a perfect 66 degrees with amazing cerulean skies and it really felt like fall for the first time.  I could do this weather every day.  What's not to love about it?  We worked outside all day and it was absolutely perfect.  Pure bliss.
 
This weather definitely puts me in the mood to bake and cook.  I had the urge for something sweet, perhaps made with pumpkin (it is fall after all) and I  used this recipe that I found on Allrecipes.com.   This is an amazing coffee cake with a lovely streusel on the bottom and a brown sugar glaze on the top.  It has the taste of a pumpkin spice cake which is one of my all time favorite cakes and it is easy to bake.  Yes, the perfect recipe.

This cake can be baked in a tube pan or a bundt pan, whichever you may have.  I love bundt cakes, so I went that route.  Easy peasy.  Here is what you need.

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 15 oz. can pumpkin
3 large eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 TBSP cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt

Streusel Topping

1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 TBSP butter, melted
1/3 cup chopped nuts (I used walnuts)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Spray the bundt pan with cooking spray and set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar on medium with a mixer until well blended.  Add the pumpkin and eggs.  Mix thoroughly.  In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients.  Add to the pumpkin mixture.  Mix on medium until combined.  Pour into prepared pan.

Make the streusel topping by combining all the ingredients.  Sprinkle over the cake batter.  Bake at 30 degrees for 50-55 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool about 15 minutes.  Make the brown butter glaze while the cake cools.  Invert cake on a plate.

Brown Butter Icing
1 1/2 TBSP butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 TBSP milk

Put the butter in a saucepan and melt on medium heat, letting it cook until it bubbles and browns, continuously stirring.  Don't let it scorch.  As soon as it browns, remove from the stove and pour into the powdered sugar.  Stir.  Add milk 1 TBSP at a time.  I only needed 1 TBSP.  Pour over cooled cake.  Serve.

This cake is soooooo delicious and it was very hard to eat only one piece.  It's perfect with a cup of coffee.  It would also be lovely with hot tea or hot apple cider and it just screams fall.  Mm mmm mmmm.

We ate this cake for dessert, not just for breakfast or with coffee.  Deeeeeelicious!  Our grandsons LOVED it.  It is worth making.  Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Everyday Donna

Things to Remember:

I'm pretty sure the secret to world peace is hidden somewhere in the smell of coffee and baked sweets.  Unknown

(What a great quote!)