All In One Holiday Bundt (TWD)

So, we had to cope with our derailed Thanksgiving travel plans. The hubs and I went through a momentary (okay, it was a bit more like a few hours) whiny, pity party phase, and now we've moved on. We decided to make the proverbial lemons into lemonade, and are making good use of our new found time.

The hubs has been a whirling dervish as he's already cleaned the garage, dug out the Christmas boxes, and hung the holiday lights. WooHoo hubs!!! I've been organizing paperwork for next year's tax returns, decking the house with holiday stuff, scouring cookbooks for this year's holiday treat boxes, and taking inventory of the gifts that we've been stockpiling throughout the year. I hope I'm not jinxing ourselves by saying this, but I think we're actually ready for the holidays!

BTW, Siena is doing much better. The first 24 hours was tough on the little girl, but she pulled through just fine (and the vet confirmed that she didn't ingest anything poisonous). She's back to her old exuberant self!
With this gift of time, I took the opportunity to catch up on some baking that I've been postponing. This is a late TWD post for All-In-One Holiday Bundt. I almost skipped this recipe due to lack of time, and I am so glad that I didn't pass this recipe.

The list of ingredients is definitely representative of the holidays: pumpkin, apple, cranberry, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg.

I halved the recipe, which yielded the perfect amount for a six cup bundt pan. The original recipe calls for a cup of chopped pecans, which I decided to omit. Instead, I substituted the nuts with an additional 1/4 cup each of cranberries and apple (I used granny smith). I was too lazy to dice, so I shredded the apple instead (just watch your fingers!).

The baking time for this smaller bundt was approximately 40-45 minutes. The smell of this cake baking in the oven was heavenly!

Once out of the oven and cooled, I opted to drizzle maple icing to finish the cake.

When I first read through the recipe, I thought this could be a case of "too much of a good thing" with all of these ingredients competing with each other. Instead, I was really pleased by the flavors: the tartness of the cranberry and apple was nicely balanced by the sweetness of the pumpkin and maple icing. The spices are definitely present, but doesn't overwhelm the fruit flavors in the cake.

Aside from the delicious flavor, this cake is super moist and will keep for a few days (if it isn't gobbled up before then).
Thank you Britin of The Nitty Britty for this delicious Tuesdays With Dorie selection. For the complete recipe, you can find it either at Dorie Greenspan's column at Serious Eats or at Britin's blog.

Pumpkin Black Bottom Cupcakes

Instead of venturing out tonight, the hubs and I are spending a comfortable and stress-free evening at home. Maybe I'm a fuddy-duddy, but there is nothing more delightful than kicking back in sweats, reading a good book and enjoying a bottle of good wine on a Saturday night. Besides, I didn't want to miss the entertaining parade of trick-or-treaters canvasing our neighborhood.

In keeping with the comfortable laid-back mood this evening, I wanted to bake something that wouldn't take much effort. David Lebovitz's Black Bottom Cupcakes was the perfect remedy for lazy baking. Seriously, this recipe is unbelievably easy to make! Using only a couple of bowls and mixing spoons, you will be rewarded with these impressive looking cream cheese chocolate cakes. I love how each cupcake has its own unique personality:

In keeping with the holiday theme, I tweaked the recipe slightly to create a pumpkin cream cheese filling. You can find the original recipe here, and I made the following adjustments to the cream cheese filling:

- reduced the cream cheese to 6 oz

- added 3 oz canned pumpkin

- added 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

- added 3 drops of orange food coloring

I encourage you to try baking these super easy treats yourself. I promise that these cakes are better than anything that you'll find in a trick-or-treaters bag.

Happy Halloween!

Thanksgiving Twofer Pie (TWD)

Apologies for being so out of pocket lately. Life has gotten in the way of my blog. Work and home life has been extraordinarily hectic this month, and things have been pretty chaotic all around.

The hubby and I did have an opportunity to escape for a bit R&R this past week with our ritual Thanksgiving week trek to Las Vegas. Relaxing in Vegas sounds a bit odd, but the combination of gambling (love blackjack and craps!!), great restaurants, nice spas, and excellent shopping does a lot for a positive attitude adjusment, and all is well in my world again.

The Tuesdays With Dorie gang was given the option of posting this week's recipe after the Thanksgiving holiday (and thus my posting this on Sunday). I was very grateful for the repreive, as there was no way that I was going to make it earlier this week.

Selected by the lovely Vibi of La Casserole Carree, Thanksgiving Twofer Pie was a perfect selection for the season. Part pumpkin, part pecan, this recipe merges these two Thanksgiving favorites into one pie. This recipe starts with Dorie Greenspan's Good for Almost Everything Pie Dough, which is my all time favorite pie crust recipe:


For whatever reason, I expected this pie to have a layer of pumpkin filling on the bottom and a gooey pecan layer on top (did anyone get two distinct layers?). Instead, I ended up with a pumpkin pie with nuts studded on the top:
My hubby and I love pumkpin pie and dislike pecan pie, so we were both a little unsure about the marriage of these two fillings. So, what did we think?
Bottom line, we both agreed that we like our pumpkin pie unadorned with nuts, so the pecans didn't do it for us. Also, the pumpkin filling fell a little flat on flavor (it needed more spice, molasses, maple syrup - something). I liked Dorie Greenspan's inspiration and intent with the recipe, but I'm going to stick with my tried and true pumpkin pie recipe. As I now owe my hubby (in his words) "a real pumpkin pie", I'll share the recipe w. pictures in the next couple of weeks.

For the recipe, you can find it at Vibi's site. To see the pie making talents of 350+ TWD bakers, check out the blogroll.

Pumpkin Muffins (TWD)

I'm going to keep this post sweet and simple...As you are reading this, my DH and I are well into our vacation.... first we're getting back to nature by spending time in Yosemite and then indulging in a lot of great food and wine in San Francisco and wine country (and the bonus of driving down the gorgeous California coast).

In the meantime, I won't be able to visit and comment on everyone's blogs, so it looks like I'll have alot of catch up to do when I get back home! :)

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe, Pumpkin Muffins, was selected by Kelly of Sounding My Barbaric Gulp.
This is a pretty easy and straightforward recipe (as muffins should be). I didn't have any sunflower seeds to top the muffins, so instead topped the muffins with a streusel mix ( made with brown sugar, cinnamon, butter, pecans). I enjoyed the pumpkin flavor and the light fluffy texture of the muffins. My only complaint ---I didn't think that the raisins did much for this recipe. The next time I make this, out with the raisins and in with chocolate chunks/chips.
I thought this muffin was tasty, satisfying and not overly sweet... a perfect accompaniment to a morning cup of coffee. I'll definitely repeat this recipe as it's super easy to assemble and bake.
If you're interested in making this at home, check out Kelly's site. To see the amazing handiwork of the other TWD bakers, check out the blogroll.