This was an experiment that I took to work for a Halloween party last week. It was an extra fun cake to make, as I had just bought myself a new bundt cake pan in honor of National Bundt Cake Day coming up on November 15!

Where did I learn that bit of trivia? Why here: Food Librarian’s ‘I Like Big Bundts’ extravaganza! Now that is an awesome task right there. While I am not delightfully crazy enough to make a bundt a day, I did make one — this Sour Cream Pumpkin Bundt with a Streusel-y inside.

The recipe is from Libby’s (the makers of canned pumpkin), although I used a can of Trader Joe’s Organic canned pumpkin. The cake turned out so well! I added orange zest, pecans and a few more spices to the streusel and I also used a chocolate ganache as a glaze, rather than a traditional powdered sugar icing.

Sour Cream Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Streusel
recipe adapted from Libby’s
Streusel
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp orange zest
2 tsp unsalted butter
1/4 cup chopped pecans
Cake
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
4 large eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup sour cream
2 tsp vanilla extract
Glaze
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 oz dark chocolate chips
1/2 tsp orange zest
Optional: 1/4 cup finely chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan.

For streusel: Combine brown sugar, spices and zest in small bowl. Cut in butter with pastry blender or two knives until mixture is crumbly. Add pecans.

For batter: Combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt in medium bowl. Beat granulated sugar and butter in large mixer bowl until light and fluffy.

Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add pumpkin, sour cream and vanilla extract; mix well. Gradually beat in flour mixture.

To assemble: Spoon half of batter into prepared pan. Now, here after making this once, I think it would be easier if after you put half the batter in the pan, you take a spoon and make a little indentation around the middle of the batter for the streusel.

So, you can try that and then carefully sprinkle streusel over batter, not allowing streusel to touch sides of pan.

Top with remaining batter. Make sure batter layer touches edges of pan.

Bake for 55 to 60 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in cake comes out clean. Mine baked for 60 minutes. Cool for 30 minutes in pan on wire rack. Invert onto wire rack to cool completely.

Make Glaze:
Place chips and zest in a bowl. Heat the cream in a pot until it just comes to a boil. Remove from heat and pour oven chocolate and orange zest. Let sit for about 30 seconds then stir until, all the chocolate is melted. Let cool for a few minutes.

Set cooled cake over a wire rack set over a baking sheet. Drizzle glaze over cake and sprinkle pecans over top. Let glaze cool and harden.

Eat.

If I am going to eat something bad, it’s most likely going to be a (some) (all the) peanut butter cup(s). And most likely the white chocolate ones. A couple of years ago I bought bags of those for Halloween candy to hand out and, uh, well, jwa and I ate most of them. I have not made that mistake again (note to self: buy candy you don’t like!)

Anyway, I don’t know why, but I love the white chocolate ones better than the regular chocolate ones. And normally, dark chocolate is my favorite. Weird.

I made these last weekend and oh my, are they good. I approximated cup measurements for the ounces. I also found eating them upside down helpful, as the chocolate hardens a bit more than the peanut butter. I mixed it up a little and melted a little dark chocolate too, probably a 1/4 cups worth of those and 1 cup of white chocolate.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
Adapted from a recipe by Nigella Lawson
1/4 cup soft dark brown sugar
3/4 cup powdered sugar
2 tbsp butter, softened
3/4 cups smooth peanut butter
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips (dark chocolate, milk chocolate or white chocolate — use good quality white chocolate so it melts well!)
12 paper muffin tin liners

Place the brown sugar, powdered sugar, butter and peanut butter in the bowl of a food processor. Blend the mixture in a food processor.

Place 12 paper liners in your muffin pan(s) and fill with a little of the peanut butter mixture. I used a small (about a tablespoon size) ice cream scoop. You want to fill the cups up maybe 1/4 of the way. Press the mixture down into the cases as best you can to form a layer at the bottom of each paper case. It may help to spray your fingers with a little non-stick spray.

Place the chocolate in a bowl and melt in the microwave, melting using 30 second intervals. Stir after each microwave blast, until it’s almost all melted. Then, stir until it’s completely melted. Alternatively, you can melt the chocolate in a double broiler.

Spoon spoonfuls of the melted chocolate onto the top of each of the peanut butter base and spread to cover. Transfer muffin tin(s) to the fridge. Let them stay there and firm up at least an hour.

Since the filling doesn’t fill the whole cup, I found it looked nicer to unpeel the cups before serving. Spencer agrees!

This recipe is from The Secret Life of Food by Clare Crespo. I actually saw these this recipe about two years ago but, I kid you not, the last two Halloweens I have had colds. And thus, didn’t really want to bake things. This year? Germ-free, baby!

These are what I made for the Halloween Baking contest at work. Pretty much followed the recipe except I used dots of red tubed frosting for the eyes (instead of red hot candies) and I used a silicone basting brush to coat the cookies with chocolate. So much less wasteful than pouring it, imho. You will also use less chocolate to begin with. I started with a half of a bag of chips and 1 tablespoon of oil, figuring I could always melt more up if I needed more. Also, try to get a larger tub of the chocolate sprinkles. The 10 oz tub size, if you can. You will use at least 6-7 oz. Finally, I used dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate because that’s just how I roll.

Oh and I broke the pretzel sticks in half to make the legs a little shorter. Just as impressive but less delicate when transporting and less tiny little stick to coat with chocolate.

To give you an idea of the time commitment, I started these at 5pm and was completely done about 7:15 pm. I started brushing the melted chocolate on the first batch (I baked them in two batches of 12) about 20 minutes after they came out of the oven. This was also the 2nd time I’ve made these cookies since Sunday, so that probably speeded duh, sped me up a bit.

Cute Spider Cookies to nom-nom-nom
Makes about 2 dozen cookies
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp baking soda
10 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 bag thin, short pretzel sticks
11.5 oz bag of dark (60% cacao) chocolate chips
2 tbsp vegetable oil
6+ oz Chocolate sprinkles
Small red candies, mini m&ms or a tube of red frosting + pastry tip

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat together the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until well blended.

Gradually add the flour mixture and cocoa powder. Beat to form a smooth, slightly dry looking, dough.

Roll a tablespoon-sized ball of dough, and place it on a baking sheet. Arrange eight pretzel sticks around the ball like spokes on a wheel. Press the tips of the pretzel sticks firmly into the dough ball. Continue with the rest of the pretzels and dough.

Bake until cookies start to brown around edges, about 10-12 minutes.

For comparison, I got 24 cookies from my dough and mine were perfect at 12 minutes. So, scale the cooking time to your cookie size.

Lift the cookies from the baking sheets with a spatula, and place on wire cooling racks. Let cool completely. Place the racks on sheets of aluminum foil or waxed paper.

Melt the chocolate chips with vegetable oil in the microwave, 30 seconds at a time, stirring between each blast. When chocolate is almost melted completely, just stir until it’s all melted. You can do this all at once or do half the bag of chips plus 1 tablespoon of oil at a time. That’s what I did. And then I just melted more chocolate and oil when I needed it. And I did have melted chocolate left over. I’m sure I will think of something to do with it!

Use a pastry or basting brush to coat each spider with melted chocolate.

I did about 4 at a time, then sprinkled down with chocolate sprinkles. If you are pressing the eyes into the spider (red hots, m&ms), do it now, while the chocolate is still soft. If using frosting, let the chocolate firm up a bit first.

You can set the chocolate and sprinkles quicker by putting the cookies in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. Then squirt all te frosting eyes on.

The cookies are very tasty — not just all show.

We ate all the ones I made this weekend as a test (well, jwa brought some into work too) and hopefully, these will go fast at the Halloween Party Wednesday.

This month’s Sugar High Friday 31 is hosted by Seven Spoons and the theme is — “Shades of White.” Fun! Of course, it would have been nice if I had realized that my post was supposed to be up at the beginning of the week but I read the announcement wrong…Hopefully, I can sneak my entry in!

This is a neutral shade and S-I-M-P-L-E to make. Chocolate. Nuts. Assorted flavor whatnots (lavender + orange zest). That is all.

White Chocolate Clusters with Lavender & Orange Zest
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup cashews (edited to add: I used roasted, lightly salted)
1/2 tsp dried lavender
1/2 tsp orange zest

To begin, put the chips, orange zest and lavender in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat in 30 second increments, stirring between each time, until the chocolate is melted. You could also, of course, use a double-boiler for this.

Add the cashews to the melted chocolate and mix until all the nuts are coated.

Scoop 3-4 cashews out in a cluster. I found using two spoons worked well for this. Drop the clusters on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Let cool for about 15 minutes, then pop into the refrigerator to completely firm up — about 30 more minutes.

Because of the orange zest and Spring weather, I would store these in the fridge. I doubt they will last longer than a few days (because you will eat them all, not because they will go bad).

Thanks again to Seven Spoons for hosting SHF31!

Look, strawberry season is upon us, so says the new issue of Bon Appétit (June 2007), which is where this delicious recipe comes from. I made these little chocolatey shortcakes for dessert when jwa’s parents were over for dinner Saturday night. Making the biscuits one day ahead worked well and it was also easy to make the strawberries a couple of hours before serving. All the make ahead possibilities are very helpful when having guests over.

You may notice that recipe calls for whipping cream to make the biscuits. Oh, my. Now, I normally would have subbed the cream with 2% milk (and not whipped it) but since this was for company, I went ahead and used the cream. That’s what makes it decadent! I also drizzled a little extra Grand Marnier onto the biscuits before covering with the strawberries.

Biscuits
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup chilled whipping cream (and perhaps 2-3 tbsp more)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Strawberries
2 pounds small strawberries, hulled, quartered (about 3 1/2 cups)
4 tbsp powdered sugar, divided
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
2 tbsp Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur (optional: 6 extra tsp of the liqueur)
1/2 tsp finely grated orange peel
Pinch of salt

1 cup chilled whipping cream
Orange zest for garnish

For the biscuits
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment. Whisk first 5 ingredients in large bowl. Using electric mixer, beat cream and vanilla in medium bowl until firm peaks form.

Stir cream into flour mixture until moist clumps form. Transfer mixture to lightly floured surface and knead gently until dough forms ball, about 10 turns.

Too crumbly…

I found that I needed more moisture here, so I added a couple of tablespoons more cream until I managed to knead a ball.

Just right…

Pat the dough out to 3/4-inch thickness. Using 3-inch cutter, cut out biscuits. Gather dough, pat out again, and cut out total of 6 biscuits. Place biscuits on prepared baking sheet.

Bake biscuits until toothpick inserted into centers comes out clean, about 15 minutes. Transfer to rack; and cool. Let stand at room temperature until serving or cool completely and store in an airtight container until using.

For strawberries:
Stir strawberries, two tablespoons (I decreased this from the recipe’s original six tablespoons) powdered sugar, and next four ingredients in medium bowl. Cover and chill at least two hours and up to five hours.

Next, using electric mixer, beat chilled whipping cream and remaining two tablespoons powdered sugar until soft peaks form. You could also add a little more (one teaspoon or so) of the Grand Marnier. You know, just for fun. Now, place one biscuit on each of your plates. I popped the biscuits in the microwave for about 30 seconds to warm them up just a bit. Then, after plating four of them, I drizzled about 1 teaspoon of Grand Marnier on each biscuit.

To finish it, place a few large spoonful of berries with juices atop the biscuits. Top with whipped cream. Now, whatever will we do with the leftover two chocolate biscuits?

Here’s a picture of the huge lamb platter I made for dinner — red wine, rosemary & garlic grilled lamb tenderloin over lentils and carrots with sauteed zucchini and asparagus on the side. Oh and the awesome toasted Parmesan flatbread from Eating Well magazine.