Hello Everyone!
Happy Saturday to you! I have a trivia question for you today! Is a pumpkin a fruit or vegetable? Now think about it, the answer is at the end of my blog! But before I get to today’s recipe I wanted to let you know that September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and that I teamed up with OXO to help kick off the Bake a Difference campaign benefiting Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. For creating today’s post, OXO will donate $100 to the Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. I am truly honored to be participating in such an event. As part of participating in the campaign, I was sent some wonderful OXO products to help with baking my cookies that I will be sharing with you today. However, I would have done this post without receiving anything because I believe this is a worthy cause and every year I participate in this event, whether I do a post or donate money.
If your shopping for new baking items this year to help kick off your holiday season, look for the OXO products with the Cookies for Kids’s Cancer logo on them at your local retailer. A $0.25 donation from each product will be made to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer, up to $100,000. If you want to shop on line you can go here and check out the OXO baking products.
Today I have for you Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies!! Oh baby, happy Fall!!! These cookies are a cake like cookie that has the perfect amount of pumpkin taste! They almost taste like pumpkin bread! Yum!! The cookies are light, soft and fluffy. Hmmm, fluffy cookie? Really they remind me of a little bit of cake or a muffin. They are simply perfect for satisfying that that pumpkin and chocolate craving you tend to get this time of year! Please don’t tell me I am the only one?? You know you get that craving too!
I took my basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, which is my Husbands favorite recipe, cut it in half and added canned pumpkin to it for the pumpkin flavor. However the cookies didn’t turn out the exact way I planned because someone ate all, but one egg and even ate the butter! So annoying! Especially when you start a recipe only to come to find out half of the ingredients are missing, so I had to improvise and use what I had on hand. For the butter, I used margarine from the tub and only one egg!! The margarine is what made the cookies more cake like. If you want more of a crunchy cookie, I recommend using butter and a tad more brown sugar. Whenever I make cookies with chocolate chips or any other sweet additions, I always cut back on the sugar. My main goal is to eat only foods that have 9 or less grams of sugar, except fruit! And these cookies fall into that category!
I really enjoyed these cookies too! However, one thing I recommend is storing them in the refrigerator. Anytime I have made recipes that use real fruit like apples or banana’s they tend to get super soft on the counter and just don’t taste as good the next day. These cookies hold up well refrigerated and are perfect for eating the next day, the next day after that and the next day after that! I ate these three days later and they were just as good as the day I made them! The cookies are soft and not hard and flavors really come together nicely! Now if you have any advice on how to store cookies, please tell me! I have the worse luck on storing cookies. I really don’t know how??? Do you store on a plate with foil over the top? Place in tupperware? Store in glass? What do you do? HELP! I have been searching for this answer for two years and I come up empty-handed! With baking season right around the corner, I need to know how to store my cookies!!!
- 1½ cup white whole wheat pastry flour
- ½ tsp. baking soda
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 6 tbsp margarine or butter
- ⅓ cup pumpkin, canned (not pie filling)
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- ½ tsp. vanilla extract
- ½ tsp. pumpkin pie spice
- ¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpat
- In a bowl add flour, baking soda and salt; set a side.
- In a large bowl, cream butter,granulated sugar and brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in pumpkin until incorporated. Beat in egg, vanilla extract and pumpkin pie spice until smooth. Gradually add flour mixture until combined. Stir in chocolate chips
- Drop by well rounded teaspoons onto prepared cookie sheets. Bake 8 - 10 minutes until golden brown. Let cool on baking sheet for a couple of minutes and store on a cookie rack for cooling!
- Store in the refrigerator.
Boy pumpkin season is coming around full force everywhere including in my house and I love it!! Funny how this orange little round FRUIT becomes so popular this time of year! I think it is probably the most popular fruit there is? I just gave you the answer to today’s trivia question. One other fun pumpkin fact: Illinois grows more pumpkins than any other state in the country. It harvests nearly 12,300 acres of fruit. Pretty cool stuff! I just love the Fall!!
Well my peeps, I am off! Lots and lots to do today!
Have a great day and a fabulous weekend!!
Toodles,
Jennifer
P.S. Here is a peek into my Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookie!
* In 2013, OXO will donate up to $100,000 to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer through specially stickered baking product sales, bake sale matches and other fundraising efforts. Cookies for Kids’ Cancer is a recognized 501c(3) public charity duly incorporated under the laws of the state of New Jersey. Your donations are tax deductible to the fullest extent allowable by law. 100% of proceeds raised by Cookies for Kids’ Cancer fund pediatric cancer research.
