Pumpkin Bourbon Ice Cream with Ginger Sandwich Cookies

Sometimes you just need a distraction. Or a new job. Or a pickleback and a bunch of bar snacks. Or maybe you’re feeling kitchen-freaky, like you didn’t expend enough energy on Thanksgiving and you desperately need to make something totally easy yet time-consuming in order to reset your maniacal, holiday-plotting ways. Got it; I can help with that last one. These li’l ice cream sandwiches were on my desserts shortlist for last week, but the burden of transporting a frozen ice cream canister in a packed car to Pittsburgh was such that I opted for a full pie arsenal instead. No matter. These sandwiches still have their place. They're a killer way to put pumpkin in its best and proper light—that is, with booze and lightly spiced.

This is the first Thanksgiving that I can think of where there was no pumpkin pie, which was definitely fine with me. The stuff has never been my favorite, playing umpteenth fiddle to whatever else is on the table, which this year was a veritable smorgasbord of delicious weirdo pies, but I do like pumpkin all the same. And I can’t resist how nice it feels to be baking and making with pumpkin in the fall—it’s ceremonial in a way. So give it a shot if you’ve got the means to make this ice cream. It’s subtle and creamy and a lovely way to pay homage to the last licks of autumn.

Pumpkin-Bourbon Ice Cream

Adapted from Karen DeMasco with logistical help from David Lebovitz

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cinnamon stick

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

5 large egg yolks

1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 to 3 tablespoons bourbon, or to taste

3/4 cup canned pumpkin puree (not pie filling)

1.  Make an ice bath by putting some ice and a little water in a large bowl and nesting a smaller bowl with capacity for two liters inside it. Set a mesh strainer over the top.

2.  In a medium saucepan, mix the milk, cream, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, cinnamon stick, nutmeg, and salt. Warm the mixture on low heat until the edges begin to foam.

3.  Whisk the egg yolks in a separate medium bowl. Whisking continuously, slowly pour about half of the milk mixture in a slow, steady stream into the egg yolks. Pour the yolks mixture back into the saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring the whole time and scraping the bottom of the pan with a rubber spatula to ensure nothing sticks. Continue cooking until mixture thickens enough to coat the spatula, between 160 and 170 degrees F if you're using a thermometer (but looks alone are good enough to judge!).

4.  Quickly pour the mixture through the strainer into the bowl that's settled in the ice bath. Discard the cinnamon stick. Mix in the brown sugar, stir for a bit to cool, cover with plastic, and refrigerate until well chilled, preferably overnight.

5.  When chilled, whisk in the vanilla, bourbon, and pumpkin puree. Taste, add more bourbon if you like, then strain the whole thing in a fine mesh strainer one more time to ensure that grainy pumpkin doesn't make it into the ice cream. Freeze in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. If storing in the freezer, place plastic wrap directly on top to prevent the formation of ice crystals. The liquor helps this ice cream stay creamier than most would, so ours has stuck around for three weeks and still tastes as smooth as it did on day one.

Ginger Sandwich Cookies

Follow this recipe, which has had a starring role in this kitchen since 2009.

I actually omitted the crystallized ginger this time around and increased the freshly grated ginger to a full three teaspoons to compensate. It was delicious!! 

1.  Once the cookies are cool, scoop 1/4 cup of pumpkin ice cream onto the back of one, sandwich it with another, and allow to firm up in the freezer for about 20 minutes. If storing longer than that, wrap in plastic wrap.

Maple Pecan Tartlets (And When Things Could Go Better)

Hazelnut cardamom "tartlets"

I have a hard time screwing up. Sometimes I cry, often I break things, and if I'm not snappy then I'm hysterical. Shown are some hazelnut, cardamom, honey tartlets that I absolutely effed up three times in a row (in the same night!). Not shown is my poor little dented tartlet pan bottom that I banged repeatedly and frustratedly with a fork while trying to dislodge a stuck, curdled tart. The truth behind my kitchen is that I'm thrilled with about 80% of what I bake and totally mortified by the rest of it, and usually I only blog about what turned out awesome. I've done a lot of bake sales and events in DC since participating in that first bake sale way back when, and I've always been proud of my contributions. This makes me pretty lucky as far as sharing what I love goes, but I have yet to learn how to troubleshoot or recover when things go disastrously. If there was any day to know how to screw up gracefully, it would have been last Saturday.

Maple pecan tartlets. Say it proud!

Before the Punk Rock Flea Market, my pumpkin whoopie pies fell flat, I broke my favorite dish, broke my oven thermometer, broke the sink, and I'm pretty sure that our new oven is out of whack, so maybe I broke that too. I burned cookies, underbaked cookies, over-diluted icing, ran out of butter, lost a tartlet pan bottom, dropped stuff on the floor, and didn't bake my maple pecan tartlets with enough time to allow them to set. Panicked, I called my sister who counseled me to save what I could and walk away from the rest; "remove the stress," she said. And I did! And she was right! In the end, I donated four potato-gruyere tartlets and two dozen cookies (less than half of what I had planned to sell) with moderate success, and Joey and I spent a killer day thrifting and eating food made by others. I learned that if I must mess up, then I shouldn't agonize over it or smash my tartlet pans with a fork. I'll save what I can and walk away from the rest and hey, who knows, maybe by the time I get back, my maple pecan tarts will be set and they will taste so dang good that any anguish will have almost been worth it. Plus, I'll relearn for the umpteenth time that rushing through the kitchen is no way to bake; lesson learned (again).

Maple Pecan Tartlets

Adapted from Gourmet

Makes six tartlets, but could be adapted for one nine-inch tart.

These would be super for Thanksgiving. I love maple with most of my soul, and it's great and gooey with the pecans. The original recipe calls for maple sugar, but since it's so pricey and there's already maple syrup in the tartlets, I opted for tubrinando sugar. I don't think these needed any help in the maple department, but if you've got maple sugar lying around (you luxurious animal!), you might try it.

For the tartlet shells

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick plus 1 tablespoon very cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1.  In the bowl of a food processor, add flour, sugar, and salt, pulse once to blend. Sprinkle the cold butter across the top and pulse several times until mixture has some pea-sized lumps of butter and some oatmeal flake-sized lumps of butter. Do not overmix. Add the egg a little bit at a time, pulsing after each addition. Once it's all in, process in long pulses--about ten seconds each--until mixture comes together in clumps. Shortly before this stage, the processor will make a different, deeper sound; that's how you know the dough is about to be ready.

2.  Dump the contents of the processor onto a lightly floured surface, and using your hands, gently incorporate any ingredients that didn't get mixed in. Flatten dough into a disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, about two hours.  After the dough has chilled, divide into six equal rounds. Roll out each round to a five-inch diameter and gently line your tartlet shells with the rounds. Either trim the overhang or tuck it down for a double wall of crust (what I do). Pop them into the freezer for 30 minutes to chill thoroughly (this helps prevent the crusts from shrinking).

For the filling

2 large eggs

1/2 cup Grade B maple syrup (the good shtuff)

6 tablespoons light brown sugar, packed

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

3 tablespoons maple sugar (I used turbinando)

1 1/2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Rounded 1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup pecans, 2/3 cup finely chopped and 1/3 cup coarsely chopped

1.  Preheat oven to 370 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with foil, and line each of the frozen crusts of the tartlets with a square of lightly buttered foil, shiny side down. Bake the tartlet shells for ten minutes. Remove the foil and bake for an additional seven to ten minutes, or until the edges are slightly gold.  Remove and let cool (in pans) for about 15 minutes.

2.  Increase the temperature to 375 degrees. As crusts are cooling, whisk the eggs, syrup, sugars, vinegar, and salt in a medium sized bowl. Make sure that everything is evenly mixed.  Put the tartlet crusts on the cookie sheet, and evenly distribute the finely chopped pecans to each of the shells. Then evenly distribute the filling among the shells, and top with the remaining large pieces of pecans. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes until filling is just set. Remove and cool on racks for at least 15 minutes and up to 30, until filling has firmed somewhat. Serve warm or at room temperature, possibly with bourbon whipped cream.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Brown Sugar Icing

It has been an eventful week (okay, okay, eight) since I last blogged and summer reluctantly, finally expired.  It's cold now! And while it was becoming such, a lot happened. I moved from the house that feels like Christmas to the house that feels like Thanksgiving, started selling earrings in an awesome store that newly opened in DC, took a vacation to visit my parents in Maine (where we discovered the perfect flat-iron building for housing a dream bakery), became briefly obsessed with religious snake-handlers after reading a memoir about the exploits of one, acquired shared responsibility for a Rottweiler named Emma Jane who looks cute as pie dressed like a banana, and gave all of the Tootsie pops to a five-year-old who was dressed like Harry Potter and holding the hand of his curly-haired baby sister. I have yet to go apple-picking (for shame!), but a group of considerate folks from New York brought us a bushel of upstate apples that have been put to good use inside cheddar cheese pie crust and given as consolation prizes to the post-candy trick-or-treaters that were banging on our door at 10:30 on Sunday.

And while I hope you haven't tired of the lone September recipe that I bequeathed--and really how could anyone tire of a doughnut recipe?--I come bearing a new autumn-appropriate recipe for pumpkin cinnmon rolls that I hope you'll try. This was originally posted on TheKitchn a few weeks back, and while I was skeptical about the instructions that don't require you to activate the yeast or knead the dough, my dough was nice and puffed the next morning when I pulled it out of the fridge, and these rolls baked up delicious! I would have liked them better with the cream cheese icing from over here, but it's real hard to go wrong with cinnamon rolls of any kind, especially on a Sunday morning when enjoyed first hot and second cold after a bike ride and during a retreat to plaid blankets.

P.S. Please don't forget to vote today!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Brown Sugar Icing

Adapted from TheKitchn.com

Makes about 16 rolls

As I said, I was skeptical about the yeast, so I've provided instructions for activating yeast as I normally would have done. If you'd like to skip that step and want some validation about it, go ahead and consult the original recipe over here.!

For the dough

1/4 cup water, warmed, not hot

1 package active dry yeast (just shy of 1 tablespoon)

1 cup milk

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)

1/2 cup sugar

1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

For the filling

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 1/2 cups toasted pecans, chopped and divided

For the icing

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup brown sugar

2 to 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar (I don't like the taste of powdered sugar, so I try to get away with using as little as possible)

Pinch of salt

1.  Mix the yeast, warm water, and a pinch of sugar in a small bowl, and set aside. Mixture will become foamy if years ts alive and ready to rise.

2.  Warm the butter and milk in a small saucepan until butter is melted.  Combine in a very large bowl with sugar and stir until sugar is dissolved.  Let the mixture cool somewhat until it is just warm (as opposed to piping hot), then stir in your foamy yeast mixture and the pumpkin.  Add the salt and five cups of flour, stirring until the flour is well-incorporated.  The dough should come together in a shaggy ball, but if it still feels moist, add the remaining half-cup of flour (I did).

3.  Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm, dry place for one to three hours; it should double in size.  Then gently deflate it by pressing two fingers into the top, cover it again, and pop it in the fridge overnight for up to eight hours.  If you'd rather bake the dough right away, deflate it and begin shaping instead of refrigerating overnight.

4.  To shape the rolls, shake some flour onto a large work surface.  Dump the dough out, pat it into a rectangle, and use a well-floured rolling pin to push it into a rectangle that's about 1.5 inches thick, and longer than it is wide (mine ended up being about 20 inches by five inches).  To make the filling, mix the melted butter, milk, sugar, and spices in a medium bowl.  Pour the filling onto your dough rectangle, and spread it around evenly, leaving a half-inch border. Sprinkle one cup of the toasted pecans on top.  Working long-ways, roll the dough into a cylinder and pinch it closed at the top. Using a sharp knife or bench cutter, cut cylinder into rolls about 1.5 to two inches thick.  Arrange them side by side in a few buttered caked pans, cover, and allow them to rise until they look puffy, about 30 minutes.

5. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  When the rolls have puffed and are all squished together, bake them for 20 to 25 minutes until golden.  Rotate the pan halfway through baking.  Meanwhile, make the glaze by heating the butter, milk, and brown sugar in a medium saucepan until sugar is dissolved.  Remove from heat, and sift in the powdered sugar; blend thoroughly with a fork. You now have pourable, awesome glaze. 

5.  When the rolls are golden, remove from the oven. Pour on the glaze and the remaining chopped pecans.  These are best if eaten immediately, but will keep for a day, covered. 

Triple Ginger Cookies

Baking isn’t exactly my personal recourse for existential destitution, and neither should blogging be, but, well, if ever there was a platform for public self-expression, then maybe this would be it. That said, my friend Jason is coming to visit me in March, and he asked me the other day what my favorite things to do in DC are and how many days do I think are good for getting a feel for the city. I totally drew a blank. Partial words and blurry things flickered through my head, but I, after living here for more than a year, was completely dumbfounded. “Quick, quick! Better find something I love about this place! Joey, what the hell do I love about DC?”

And now, in a really artistic and seamless segue, I will link in to my recipe for the best ginger cookies ever — it uses three different kinds of ginger — and at the end of it all, I’ll affirm how much I like DC and I’ll figure out how to make Jason like DC too. See? Seamless and artistic. Abby says that maybe part of why we’re still here is because DC is so alienating and weird, and she’s probably right that in a lot of ways, the sense of belonging is part of what propelled us from California in the first place. So maybe these moments of panic are just DC’s way of reminding me to eke out my happiness in a way that is challenging and satisfying — like through cookies.  Recipe after the jump!

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Oh hai, we are pie.

The whoopie pie has been one subject of a few attempts by major media outlets to connect the rising popularity of homespun "throwbacks" to economic agony and escapism in nostalgia. I'd like to think that the whoopie pie could elude connection to national gloom, but hey, if the recession is where I find my right to eat pumpkin whoopie pies for breakfast, well then thank you New York Times, I'll take your hypothesis and run with it.

The recession is fun! It resuscitated the whoopie pie! And farming!

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

My thusly only successful recipe baked from Baked! New Frontiers in Baking

This pumpkin version is excellent as is, but I think it would also be good if you dialed back the sugar in the filling and added some maple syrup instead.

Cookie tops and bottoms
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 generous tablespoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 tablespoon ground cloves
2 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 cups chilled pumpkin puree
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Filling
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Make the pumpkin cookies

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves together and set aside.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk the brown sugar and oil together until combined. Add the pumpkin puree and whisk to combine thoroughly. Add the eggs and vanilla and whisk until combined. Sprinkle the flour mixture in thirds over the pumpkin mixture and whisk until completely combined.

3. Use a small ice cream scoop with a release mechanism to drop heaping tablespoons of the dough onto the prepared baking sheets, about 1 inch apart. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the cookies are just starting to crack on top and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cookie comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool completely on the pan while you make the filling.

Make the cream cheese filling

1. Sift the confectioners’ sugar into a medium bowl and set aside. In a separate bowl beat the butter with an eggbeater until it is completely smooth, with no visible lumps. Add the cream cheese and beat until combined.

2. Add the confectioners’ sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth. Be careful not to overbeat the filling, or it will lose structure. (The filling can be made 1 day ahead. Cover the bowl tightly and put it in the refrigerator. Let the filling soften at room temperature before using.)

Assemble the whoopie pies

1. Turn half of the cooled cookies upside down (flat side facing up). Use an ice cream scoop or a tablespoon to drop a large dollop of filling onto the flat side of the cookie. Place another cookie, flat side down, on top of the filling. Press down slightly so that the filling spreads to the edges of the cookie.

2. Repeat until all the cookies are used. Put the whoopie pies in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to firm up before serving. The whoopie pies will keep for up to 3 days, on a parchment-lined baking sheet covered with plastic wrap, in the refrigerator.