Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Cooking with Carmen: Pumpkin Spice THIS

 It's feels like it's been election season for the last two years, but now we are in the home stretch. November 8 is looming on the horizon. November has never felt so ominous.
 During the debate last night when all the wine in the world couldn't dull the pain that The Donald was inflicting upon us. I took a few moments of peace in my kitchen and whipped up a batch of pumpkin pecan oatmeal cookies.
 With a chill in the air, and not just in Hilliary's side eyes to The Donald. We are all trying to turn our thoughts away from the fascist rantings of The Donald and started thinking about cozy sweaters, boots, and pumpkin spice.
Or at least I am.
I love fall, and I love pumpkin.
 A while back I made Alton Brown's chewy chocolate chip cookies, and wondered if applying the bread flour in his recipe to oatmeal cookies would get the same chewy result. 
 I used the typical Quaker Oats cookie recipe as a guide, changing up the flour, melting the butter, using one egg plus the yolk, using mostly brown sugar and adding pumpkin.
This combination, and letting them have a little time out in the fridge, resulted in a soft, gently sweet nutty cookie.
Chill for at LEAST thirty minutes, an hour or more is better.

PUMPKIN PECAN OATMEAL COOKIES
  
1 1/2 cups Bread Flour
1 teasp. Baking soda
1 teasp. Pumpkin pie spice 
1/2 teasp. Salt
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 stick plus 6 tablespoons Butter
1 large egg plus 1 yolk
1 cup of pumpkin puree
1 teasp. Vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans
3 cups oats ( I used a combo of quick oats and whole because it's what I had. Either or a combination is fine.

Mix wet and dry, adding the oats and nuts last.
Bake at 350 for approx. 10-12 min.
Or until they smell done. All ovens are different, and mine has been on the fritz lately.