ICBC Pumpkin

This is the first time probably since this Iron Chef Blogger Challenge started that I've actually cooked an ingredient during the week it was selected. Blanca, our newest Iron Chef, chose pumpkin as the secret ingredient, perfect for the season! For my secret ingredient recipe, I found this recipe on one of my favorite food blog sites, Annie's Eats. Annie makes a lot of amazing looking baked goods, and also has a lot of really accessible recipes for the type of cooking I like to do, simple, homemade stuff. Here's a link to her recipe, Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins.

I ended up making two dozen muffins, and still had batter left over. The muffins are pretty delicious, and I love the surprise of finding the cream cheese in the center. There's a little too much clove in it, so I would probably recommend taking the clove down to a 1/2 teaspoon or 3/4 teaspoon. But the cream cheese balances the spice in the muffin nicely. And overall, I would say the effort behind the recipe isn't too bad. For a little bit of bragging, I made these muffins in the morning before I went to work.

Here's a link to La Monica's Iron Chef Blogger Challenge, Pumpkin.

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree

1 container pre-made cream cheese icing

1. Preheat oven to 350. Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices in a medium bowl.

2. In a different bowl, whisk together butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar and eggs. Add dry ingredients, whisk till smooth. Add pumpkin puree. (The batter will be fluffy, don't be concerned.)

3. Fill lined cupcake pans halfway with batter. Bake about 20-25 minutes, until inserted skewer comes out clean.

4. Let cool before icing.

---Review---

Let me start by saying that I don't usually like pumpkin anything. I don't like pumpkin pie, pumpkin lattes... I don't even like Halloween.

But, I LOVED these cupcakes. Loved. I made them for a pumpkin carving party B and I hosted and almost ate all of them myself.

The original recipe that I found called for the cook to make their own icing. I couldn't find "icing sugar" at the grocery, so I just bought pre-made.

Makes about 18 cupcakes.

Recipe found here.