Pumpkin Apple Bread or Muffins

I know it looks like I put a giant pat of butter on my muffin, but I'm not crazy, I put a giant pat of CREAM CHEESE on my muffin.  The flash just messed with it.

 There are lots of pictures missing for this recipe and that's because my boyfriend and I started making these and then part way through I remembered, oh right!  I have a crafty blog and should be photographing this for a post.

Pumpkin Apple Bread or Muffins
recipe from food.com


3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree (such as Libby's)
4 eggs
1 cup applesauce
1/2 cup apple juice (or water)
2 apples, peeled, cored, & diced

1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray pans with Pam (2 loaf pans or 1 loaf pan and 1 muffin tray). Or be fancy with butter and flour.


2. In a small bowl combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, & salt.

3. In a large bowl combine sugar, pumpkin, eggs, applesauce, & apple juice until well-blended.

4. Add flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture.

5. Fold in diced apples.

6. Spoon mixture into loaf or muffin pans or both if you're indecisive like me. 

7. Bake for 60 minutes for loaf pan(s) and about 40 for muffins.

Pumpkin* Creme Pies With A Message

I promise that I'm going to have some sewing-related posts coming soon.  But for today here is something that is crafty, yummy, and cute.  These pumpkin* creme pies have something to say: 

 

Of course while you're pretty great, this message was directed at a certain person.  A certain person who left me a message last week with some Bananagrams tiles. 

So I baked up a response and used a pastry bag (or a ziploc bag) for the first time.  Here are the pictures:  

  

I ended up smoothing these out a bit with a knife (cutting a hole that's too big in your pastry bag makes it harder to do this neatly:

 

Here they are nicely patched up with their best matched partners (size-wise):

 

And here they are with the DELICIOUS filling.  You really can't go wrong with cream cheese butter sugar, can you?

And here is the recipe:
Pumpkin Creme Pies
1 cup Brown Sugar
1 cup Sugar
1 cup Vegetable Oil
1 can Pumpkin (15 Oz.)
2 whole Eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
3 cups All-purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Ground Ginger
½ teaspoons Salt
½ teaspoons Ground Nutmeg
¼ teaspoons Ground Cloves

FOR FILLING:
1 package Cream Cheese Softened (8 Oz.)
1 stick Unsalted Butter, Room Temperature
1 package Powdered Sugar (16 Oz.)
3 drops Vanilla Extract
2 dashes Cinnamon

I got it from The Tasty Kitchen which has much more detailed pictures so please go look!

But remember, if you're halving this recipe (as I did) then you need to halve everything and that includes the eggs.  My pumpkin* creme pies are really pumpkin cakes due to the extra egg. Whoops!


*Am I the only one in the world who types pumpking instead of pumpkin EVERY SINGLE TIME?

Apple Crisp

 

It's Fall here which means there are lots of apple and pumpkin desserts being discussed everywhere and craved by me.  So here is some apple crisp for you!  

It took me awhile to find a recipe that I liked.  I picked this one because it was mostly about the apples instead of just being butter-sugar with some apples under it.  Plus I loved that the topping had so much oatmeal in it.  I added even more (probably to 1 cup total) and it made such a nice yummy, hearty crunch on top of the soft apples.

1. Wash and peel 6 apples (I used Fiji):

2. Spend forever coring and slicing:

3. Mix up the topping:

4. Mush butter around with a fork and knife and then add a pastry cutter to your Christmas List:

5. Add topping to the sliced apples:

6. Decide there's not enough oatmeal and add more:

7. Check on the crisp in the oven and notice the topping burned in spots and assume the apples aren't soft enough yet, so add foil to the pan (but logically don't take a picture of it with the foil on it [sarcasm]):

8. All done!

And here is the recipe for you!

Apple Crisp
recipe originally from food.com

6-7 apples, peeled, cored, & sliced (I used Fiji)
3/4 cup oatmeal (I added some more in the end)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup wheat flour
3/4 of one stick of butter

1. Peel, core, and slice all apples.  Add slices to a greased square pan.
2. Preheat oven to 350. Mix the oatmeal, brown sugar, & wheat flour together in a bowl.
3. Use a pastry cutter to mix in 3/4 of one stick of butter.
4. Add topping to sliced apples.
5. Add more oatmeal if you like.
6. Cover the pan with foil to avoid burning the topping.  Cook for 40-50 minutes.

Tiny Apple Pies!

 My boyfriend and I made these together, so please note that the large hands pictured are not mine.

Here is another way to use up your Crockpot Apple Pie Filling.  Tiny pies!  Oh, the cuteness!

1. Add 5 tablespoons cold water to Jiffy pie crust mix (it was very very delicious. Please use this crust!)

2. Roll out half of the dough. (The other half of the dough went to something you'll see tomorrow.)

3. Find appropriately sized circles.  A larger one for the bottom and a smaller one for the top.  Then start making your dough circles.

4. Put larger circle in muffin pan. Fill with apple pie filling. Pinch top and bottom together
(Tip: have more dough sticking up on the bottom than pictured so you can successfully pinch the pieces together.)

5. Add cute air vents.

 6. Bake 15 minutes in 400 degree oven. The only top that stayed on it the one my boyfriend did using a knife.  My pinching was not effective since the bottom wasn't big enough.  But still, the tiny pies tasted delicious.

Best mug ever! It has feet! It even serves as a pie plate when all the plates are in the dishwasher. I love thrift stores.

Crockpot Apple Pie Filling

 Crockpot Apple Pie Filling
adapted from food.com


4 apples, peeled, cored, & sliced (I used Fiji)
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons corn starch
1/2 cup applesauce
1 tablespoon cinnamon
sprinkle nutmeg
1 tablespoon butter

Optional: add frozen blueberries (the picture below include blueberries)


1. Peel, core, and slice all apples. The thinner the slices, the faster they cook.
2. Add apples, both sugars, corn starch, applesauce, cinnamon & nutmeg to your crockpot and mix until apples are nicely coated.
3. Place butter on top of apple mixture.
4. Turn your crockpot* to HIGH for 1 1/2 - 2 hours or LOW for 3 1/2 - 4 hours.  Stir the apples halfway through and add more applesauce if you'd like a thicker and juicier sauce.

*If you don't have a crockpot you can cook them on your stovetop in a pot on low.  I'm not sure how long it will take, just keep checking if the apples are soft enough for your liking yet.

Ideas for how to eat these apples once they're done:

1. On top of pancakes instead of syrup:

2. On top of french vanilla ice cream:

3. On top of oatmeal.

4. On top of french toast.

5. Put them into some sort of crust to create a tiny apple pie, or turnover, or crisp.

Please leave your ideas in the comments!  I have over 2 cups of apple goo left and 10 more apples in the fridge!

Easy Cinnamon Biscuits Revisited

Easy Cinnamon Roll Biscuits

2 cups flour

1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup applesauce (I never use vegetable oil)
3/4 cup buttermilk
70% of a stick of unsalted butter, SOFTENED (reduced from 1 stick in the original recipe)
1/2 cup brown sugar 
1 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon

Cinnabon Icing- I halved the original recipe since the above recipe only makes 8 biscuits
30% of a stick of butter (reduced from 1/2 stick in the original recipe, I'm trying to shave calories & fat here and there)
3/4 cups powdered sugar
1/8 cup Neufchatel cream cheese (I didn't taste a difference with the reduced fat)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
sprinkle of salt (technically should be 1/16 of a teaspoon, but....)

1. Mix together dough ingredients.

2. Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface (I used too much, use less than me please).

3. Smear dough with SOFTENED butter (I use salted).  The original recipe said 1 stick, but that just seems ridiculous to me.  I use about 70% of a stick of butter.  Then the rest of it can go in the icing and then in one iced biscuit you only end up eating 1 tablespoon butter.

4. Sprinkle with cinnamon and brown sugar.

5. Roll up dough into a log and pinch seam together.

6. Cut into 8 biscuits.

7. Arrange in greased 9 inch pan.

8. Put in the oven for about 15 minutes.

9. While you're waiting, make icing!  Mix up all icing ingredients:

10. Whip until fluffy:

11. Biscuits!

12. Ice biscuits while they're still warm (mine melted A LOT because I put the icing on instantly.  Hey, I was hungry when I woke up and had to wait like 40 minutes for breakfast). I only did half because my boyfriend wanted to ice his biscuits individually.

Easy Cinnamon Roll Biscuits

 I mentioned the other day that I wanted to try these Sweet Cinnamon Biscuits.  Well this morning I made them since I my Dad and brother were coming over.  This way I wouldn't end up eating half the pan myself.

Dear God.  The deliciousness.  And the simplicity!  I have made these Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls before and while they are the most amazing cinnamon rolls I've ever had, they also take forever to make and are quite the production.

But these biscuit cinnamon rolls are really speedy to put together because there is no rising involved!  And they taste really really really good.  Especially when you slather on some Cinnabon icing!  I think they took me about 20 minutes to make.  And then they only baked for 13 minutes!  That is dangerously fast.

So here is the recipe and a few pictures.  I'm posting what I did since I reduced the butter and sugar and added icing.  Oh and changing the name because I think it's much more appropriate.

Easy Cinnamon Roll Biscuits

 2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup applesauce (I never use vegetable oil)
3/4 cup buttermilk
70% of a stick of unsalted butter, SOFTENED (reduced from 1 stick in the original recipe)
2/3 cup granulated sugar (next time I'm going to try 1/2 cup brown sugar instead)
1 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon






Cinnabon Icing- I halved the original recipe since the above recipe only makes 8 biscuits
30% of a stick of butter (reduced from 1/2 stick in the original recipe, I'm trying to shave calories & fat here and there)
3/4 cups powdered sugar
1/8 cup Neufchatel cream cheese (I didn't taste a difference with the reduced fat)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
sprinkle of salt (technically should be 1/16 of a teaspoon, but....)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Grease a 9 inch round baking dish lightly (I used Pam).

2. Mix together the first four ingredients.  Add in the applesauce and buttermilk until nicely combined.

3. Roll dough out into a 15 x 8 inch rectangle (I didn't measure mine).

4. Spread SOFTENED butter onto the dough.  (If you are impatient like me this will be a very difficult step).

5.  Mix together sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.  Sprinkle mixture evenly over buttery dough.

6. Roll up rectangle, jelly roll style.  Pinch seam together.

7.  Cut biscuits off of the giant roll to about 1 1/2 inches thick.  Arrange in greased pan.

I added butter to the top since I used so much less on the dough than called for.  Next time I won't do this cause it wasn't necessary in the end.

8.  Bake for about 15 minutes. Then you get these:

9. To make icing: Mix together all ingredients until fluffy.  Spread over biscuits while they are STILL WARM so that it melts into the dough.  Yummmm!

You might notice once the icing was on the biscuits immediately disappeared before they could even be photographed.