Pumpkin Tea Bread

I am so excited for Fall. Last year we were so slammed at this time with the wedding preparations, I'm really not certain October 2009 actually happened. I'm pretty sure it was just a lie. Last weekend on a visit to PA I wore heavy sweaters, I sat near a bonfire, and I drank cider. It was lovely, but that's not why I'm excited. The pumpkins are back. They have returned to my muffins, my lattes, my Jamba Juice smoothies. They crowd tables at the farmers market and as I drove around last weekend, it seemed every town was involved in some kind of pumpkin gathering, pumpkin patch type pumpkin festival. This is the best time of year. Last year I introduced you to my consuming passion for Pumpkin Ice Cream. This year, I bring you Pumpkin Bread.

I was introduced to this bread when someone brought it to an office party. I demanded the name of the bread's creator, swearing I would marry him. It turned out the co-worker responsible was tall, lean, and named Will. I was in luck, I wouldn't even have to have the tux altered. Work Will declined my offer of marriage (I'm sure my Will is relieved) but he did provide me with the recipe which came from a bakery he loved in San Francisco, Tartine. The wonderful thing about this recipe is that it provides both "American" measurements (cups, tablespoons, etc.) and the European style of measuring everything in milliliters and grams. The European way is (A) More precise, a blessing for someone who struggles with the exactness of baking and (B) Gives me an excuse to play with my super fancy awesome digital scale. Win, win.

Quick tip. This recipe require somewhat huge amounts of spices, so check them before you do your shopping. Otherwise your husband (the non-work Will) has to walk to the store at 7pm to buy some. Also, this recipe calls for a large amount of safflower or sunflower oil, which I have found at Whole Foods. If you cannot find these and use something else, please let me know how it goes. If I was a paid test kitchen, I would have tried a loaf with vegetable oil, and maybe one with olive oil. I am not a test kitchen, however, and have a full time job. If you wouldn't mind writing to the New York Times and telling them to hire me, I promise I'll do a much more thorough job of recipe testing. I'll also get to go to cool parties, and then write about them. Doesn't that sound nice? Now come on. Start the viral campaign.

Pumpkin Tea Bread

From Tartine Bakery

Ingredients:

- 1 1/3 cups or 225 g All purpose flour

- 1 1/2 teaspoon or 7 ml Baking Powder

- 1/2 tsp or 2 ml Baking Soda

- 1 Tbsp plus 2 tsp or 25 ml Ground Cinnamon

- 2 tsp or 10 ml Ground Nutmeg

- 1/4 tsp or 1 ml Ground Cloves
- 1 cup plus 2 Tbsp or 25 ml Pumpkin Purée

- 1 cup or 250 ml Safflower or Sunflower Oil

- 1 1/3 cup or 270 g Sugar

- 3/4 tsp or 4 ml salt

- 3 Large Eggs

- Sugar and pepitas or shelled pumpkin seeds for topping

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325°F. Lightly butter the bottom and sides of a 9" by 5" loaf pan.

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves into a mixing bowl. Use a wire whisk to make sure they are blended. Set aside.

In another mixing bowl, beat together pumpkin, oil, sugar, and salt on medium speed until well mixed. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition until incorporated before adding the next egg. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then beat on medium speed for 5 to 10 seconds to make a smooth batter. It should have the consistency of a thick purée.

Transfer the batter to the loaf pan and smooth the surface with a spatula. Sprinkle evenly with sugar and sprinkle seeds on top.  Bake until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let cook in the pan on a wire rack for about 20 minutes, and then invert onto the rack. Turn right side up, and let cool completely. Serve the bread at room temperature. It will keep, well wrapped, at room temperature for 4 days or in the refrigerator for about 1 week.

This bread is delightful. I've brought it to parties or devoured the entire thing myself (followed by a week of guilt and gym attendance). The oil makes it super moist, and it is flavorful and inviting, a perfect thing for a Fall day.

Indian Pumpkin Split Pea Stew

Happy September! It's the last day of healthy vegetarian cooking! It's been quite the adventure this past month, walking staight past the meat case, playing with all kinds of edible plants and legumes. It's working pretty well on the diet front, I am weighing in at 132.9 as of this morning, which means I reached the goal of 132.2 to133.2 that I set for myself at the begining of the month. I hope to keep going, though maybe at a slower pace, until I get back down to the wedding weight of 129. I have carefully gone through the archives of this blog and more clearly tagged the low cal recipes as Diet, and the Vegetarian recipes, so that they are easier for you, my wonderful readers, to find if you are looking for such recipe ideas in the future.

I have a very exact cookbook wish list. Very exact, and a little expensive. They range from the Ad Hoc at Home to out of print stuff, from the newest most in-fashion food to the forgotten vintage recipes. Every once in awhile I do sweeps of NY bookstore The Strand to see if I can pick up one of these cheap, and recently I made two big scores.

Ever since Julia Child became the one to democratize French cooking and bring it to the states, people like to figure out who is the "Julia Child" of other sections of cooking, which usually means "wrote the best and most complete cookbook on the subject." I've been hunting for the cookbooks of two such women, Marcella Hazzan, otherwise known as the Julia Child of Italian cooking, and Julie Sahni, the Julia Child of Indian cooking. The comparisons do not hold up that well, as Julia Child was an American who learned to cook French and brought it back with her, these women actually represent the cultures they are teaching you about. They are, however, the women with the most complete cookbooks, and that meant I wanted them.(Funny side note, this isn't just a cooking thing. I recently took an exercise class with the "Indian Jane Fonda". Good class! A lot of dancing.)

The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking I will have to tell you about later, I haven't cooked from it yet. August was, after all, the month of healthy vegetarian cooking, and I kept drooling over the meat sauces. There probably were some healthy recipes in there, but I kept flipping straight to roasts and heavy cream and lots of butter. Don't worry, these recipes are coming. While I have been searching for Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking for quite awhile, that was not the book I stumbled across this past month. Her follow up, Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking stared back at me from the Strand's shelf. I was reading it by the time I was on the subway.

I haven't played much with Indian cuisine since last year's attempt at Chicken Tikka, but now that I own the spices, I notice them cropping up in more and more recipes. Full on Indian cooking might not be hugely popular, but its influence is being found everywhere. Food Network even finally found itself a chef who knows what curry is, though it took them a competition show to do it (Congrats to Aarti Sequeira by the way!) Digging through the book, there were certainly recipes that felt like they would be a bit challenging, or too spicy for my somewhat weak pallate. Finally I stumbled across a recipe that would be more mild, and perfect for a certain Fall fruit now tumbling out of my farmer's market. Pumpkin and Split Peas with Camphor Basil. Will gave me a dubious look as we walked home. "You are going to cook a pumpkin?"

It's true, my previous pumpkin cooking has all been:
A. Using canned pumpkin, and
B. Dessert

And my last gourd chopping experience went badly. Like me staring at a butternut with a knife jutting out of it after a long struggle and wanting to chuck the whole thing in the trash and order Chinese kinda badly. That was the night of the Butternut Squash Lasagna of last October. Things have changed a bit since then though. For one, Will and I are much better with knifes. For another, I am much better with planning. As my beloved friend Stef was going to be in town on Monday night (an Indian food addict if I ever saw one) I made a very wise decision, I chopped the pumpkin on Sunday night. This was not nearly the warfare I had experienced with the butternut. Will split the thing down the center for me, as I tend to have a bit less muscle. I was going to attack it with a peeler, but cutting the skin off with very shallow knife cuts was a much more efficient and less maddening process. Then I scooped it out (reserving the seeds for toasting) and diced down into 1 inch pieces, which I stored in Ziploc containers in my fridge. The whole process probably only took 20 minutes, and that was 20 minutes I didn't have to spend while cooking the next day.

Unfortunately, despite a trip to our local Patel Brother's grocery, I could not locate Camphor Basil. It is a more bitter basil that's not easily found in the states, which Ms. Sahni recognizes by offering a substitution of Sweet Basil and Star Anise. I did not have Star Anise, but I did have Anise seeds on hand, so I worked with that. The results were still delicious, so I stand by my alteration.

Pumpkin and Split Peas with Basil
Adapted Slightly from Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking

Ingredients:

- 1/3 teaspoon anise seeds
- 1 cup yellow split peas
- Pinch turmeric
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 small yellow onion, peeled and chopped
- 2 cups of water
- 2 pounds pumpkin (you can substitute butternut squash if needed) cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup water

For the spice-perfumed ghee
- 5 tablespoon ghee (if you can not get this in your area, Alton Brown has a recipe for it here)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds
- 2 tablespoons shredded fresh ginger
- 2-4 hot green chilies, finely diced
- 1/3 cup packed fresh basil, then take the leaves and cut into 1/4 inch wide shreds

Directions:
Put the split peas, turmeric, bay leaves, onion and anise seeds in a deep pot with 2 cups of water and bring to a boil. Cook over medium heat, partially covered, for 20 minutes.


Add the pumpkin pieces along with 1 cup water, sugar, and salt and bring to a boil again. Lower the heat and continue cooking, covered, for 20 more minutes. Turn off heat. Transfer to a serving dish or individual bowls.

Measure out all the seasonings for the spice-perfumed butter and put them right next to the stove. Heat the ghee in a small frying pan over high heat. When it is hot, add the cumin seeds. When the cumin turns dark brown (about 15 to 20 seconds), add the finger and chilies. Reduce the heat to low and let the herbs sizzle for 30 seconds. Add the basil and let the mixture fry for 30 seconds.

Pour all of it over the pumpkin-split pea mixture. Mix with a fork just once or twice to streak it with the spice-perfumed butter. Serve immediately.

OK, so ghee, if you didn't know, is basically clarified butter. And that's a good bit of butter. Therefore, this might not be the healthiest of all of my recipes this month. But it was yummy. Stef ate 2 bowls kinda yummy. The serving suggestion Julie Sahni makes in the book is to pair this stew with an Indian bread, she suggests a Kale Bread that is in another part of the book, but as this was a weeknight meal I wasn't about to bake some bread too but that's the luxury of living in Little India. I popped some frozen Garlic Naan in the toaster oven and presto, side dish.

This dish was a bit on the heavy side especially as it was 90 degrees out, but with fall ready to kick down our door I can see this being a repeat recipe on a chilly fall day. It will be a nice vegetarian distraction, because right now I'm jonesing to get my hands on some meat. I want to roast it, saute it, stick it in a pasta sauce, I am ready to resume my carnivorous kitchen. Just as soon as the temperature drops out of the 90's so I can turn my oven on. Come on Fall, I'm waiting...

Pie!

As yesterday's blog was getting a bit lengthy, I decided to cut the pie stuff. But as you have all hung in there with me as I suffered through the challenge that baking presents, I couldn't deprive you of a great recipe that resulted in a (nearly) perfect pie.

I made the pie the day before Thanksgiving, as I didn't want to pile the entire feast on one day and then kill myself. Taking a deep breath, I did something I have never done successfully before. I made my own crust. I have rolling issues every time I try something like this, I always end up thin on one side and thick on the other, with an oval instead of a rectangle, with the dough either cracking like crazy for being too dry, or gluing itself to my rolling pin for being too moist. Frustration mounts, curse words fly, and a frozen crust comes out of my freezer...then possibly more curse words.

Bracing myself I found a simple butter crust recipe, one that involved the usual suspects of flour, water, sugar and salt, and threw them in my food processor. (Side note: if I didn't own a processor I would probably never try this. Hand mixing dough looks like the worst idea ever, and I am far too lazy for that) The ingredients mixed just like the recipe said they should, I refrigerated the disk for an hour, and then got rolling. Okay, it wasn't the prettiest crust in all of human history, but for right now I was happy it didn't end up in a gooey mess in my trash can. If it tastes good, awesome. I'll work on my baking aesthetics later. Since the filling recipe I used calls for a frozen crust, I stuck the pie plate with the homemade crust into the freezer to chill it. The pie filling is super easy. The original recipe calls for light molasses, but I had dark and it worked just fine. Either will probably do. Also, I did end up with extra filling. If you have a deep dish pie plate I would use it, or if you have little tart pans you could make smaller pies. I may or may not have thrown out the extra, like a lazy, wasteful, worthless American. God bless this holiday.

Spiced Pumpkin Pie

Adapted from Bon Appetit

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 1/2 cups canned solid pack pumpkin
• 2 tablespoons molasses
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup whipping cream

Directions:

Place baking sheet in oven and preheat to 450°F. Whisk first 8 ingredients together in large bowl to blend. Whisk in pumpkin, molasses and eggs, then cream. Pour mixture into crust.

Place pie on preheated baking sheet in oven. Bake 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 325°F and bake until sides puff and center is just set, about 40 minutes. Cool. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and re-frigerate.) Serve at room temperature.

The pie was like 90% perfect, or some such percentage. It looked all nice and set and puffed when I took it out of the oven, but ten minutes later the center fell and I ended up with quite the dent in my pie. Probably could have left it in the oven a tiny bit longer. It's an extremely tasty pie, however, with more spice then pumpkin on the palate. See above note for my feelings about taste over aesthetics. I felt my dented pie had character.

Pumpin Ice Cream and Soft Ginger Cookies

I am a loyal customer to places that I have genuine affection for. I will go back for years and order the same things over and over again if there are truly dishes that make me happy. Since I was a little girl I have enjoyed the coffee and ice cream at a place known as Coffee and Cream in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. My mother would take me there after trips to the library, it has a deep nostalgia factor for me. They roast their own coffee in a huge machine by the door, so the shop always smells fantastic, and they serve local ice cream in a variety of flavors. In addition to this they also sell baked goods like cookies and bagels.
A few years ago on a chilly fall afternoon they were advertising a special, where they took one of their large ginger cookies, heated it up a bit in the microwave, and topped it with pumpkin ice cream. It was one of the most fantastic things I have ever eaten. I remembered it all year and the following October I headed back intent on ordering it again. I didn't see a sign for the special, but they had ginger cookies and they had pumpkin ice cream. I asked the girl behind the counter if she knew about the special from last year. She blinked at me.
The thing about places like this is they employ a rotating cast of teenage staffers, essential to the economy of girls 16-19 years old, but fairly useless in remembering the history of a business. I patiently explained about the cookie and the heating and the ice cream. She looked at the register in terror. "Um, let me go ask how to ring that up," and she scurried off to find the manager. What the big deal was about just ringing me up for a cookie and a scoop of ice cream I'm not sure, but eventually she got herself sorted out and I got my dessert.

I have gone to great lengths to continue to get my fall treat every year. One year I missed the window of when they had pumpkin ice cream and was nearly beside myself with grief. Since Will and I usually back and forth to New York by a bus whose station is in Doylestown, I convinced Will's parents to take us into town early to catch the bus last year, just so I could eat this desert. Each time I ordered I had to explain to the new crop of teenagers how to make this treat all over again. This year I finally decided that as a permanent resident of New York and the proud owner of an ice cream machine, I needed to stop being a slave to locale and the blank stares of teenage girls. I was getting my fall treat dammit, even if I had to make it myself.

I hunted for recipes. Now that I had conquered my fear of baking, I could handle cookies. It was especially important that the cookies be soft, so they could be broken apart with a spoon. This meant no switching out the Crisco for butter, like I did last Christmas when I produced a batch rather difficult to eat cookies on the recommendation of a Times article. I was fortunate to find a recipe on Epicurious that actually billed itself as Soft Ginger Cookies. The website failed me on a pumpkin ice cream recipe, so I had to look elsewhere. Food Network only had a recipe submitted by a viewer, not one that they had tested. I found a few more on the less rigorously tested recipe sites, and was wary. This was an important desert, not to be trifled with. That's what desserts like trifles are for. I finally found a solid looking recipe on the Williams Sonoma website, and was ready to go.
First up, ice cream. It's important to note here that little direction where the pumpkin and vanilla need to be wisked together and then chilled for 3 hours. I missed that so I didn't get started on the custard until three hours after I had meant to. Oops.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup fresh pumpkin puree or canned unsweetened
  pumpkin puree
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 5 egg yolks
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (Yeah, I'll pretend I
  grated some nutmeg. Sure...)
• 1 Tbs. bourbon

Directions:
In a bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree and vanilla. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or up to 8 hours. (Again, oops)In a heavy 2-quart saucepan over medium heat, combine 1 1/2 cups of the cream and 1/2 cup of the brown sugar. Cook until bubbles form around the edges of the pan, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, in a bowl, combine the egg yolks, cinnamon, ginger, salt, nutmeg, the remaining 1/2 cup cream and the remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar. Whisk until smooth and the sugar begins to dissolve. Remove the cream mixture from the heat. 

Gradually whisk about 1/2 cup of the hot cream mixture into the egg mixture until smooth. Pour the egg mixture back into the pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon and keeping the custard at a low simmer, until it is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon and leaves a clear trail when a finger is drawn through it, 4 to 6 minutes. Do not allow the custard to boil.

Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl. Place the bowl in a larger bowl partially filled with ice water, stirring occasionally until cool. (See Stef, that's what the strainer should look like :P) Whisk the pumpkin mixture into the custard. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly on the surface of the custard to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until chilled, at least 3 hours or up to 24 hours. Transfer the custard to an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturers instructions. Add the bourbon during the last minute of churning. Transfer the ice cream to a freezer-safe container. Cover and freeze until firm, at least 3 hours or up to 3 days, before serving. Makes about 1 quart.

The five egg yolk thing almost made me crazy as I stared at the bowl of five egg whites that I had remaining. I use organic cage free eggs because I'm an East Coast Liberal Elitist, and those suckers aren't cheap. I solved the problem by covering the whites, sticking them in the fridge, and making a kick ass egg white omelet with mushrooms and shallots the next morning. Not being wasteful is awesome and delicious.


As the custard chilled I worked on the cookies. When I moved out my mother practically threw her Kitchen Aid standing mixer into the moving van. She had not baked since I was nine and didn't want the massive appliance in her cabinets anymore. I took it gleefully, the thing is a war horse. It's older then I am and shows no signs of stopping. I'm pretty sure I could throw a cinderblock in there and in five minutes have a smooth meringue. I have registered for the pasta maker attachment, but as my mother never used any attachments on it I'm not even sure if that part works, so I have my fingers crossed. The Kitchen Aid makes cookie making way easy, and was even able to deal with the cup of dark molasses, which is a goo that I personally was terrified of. Sticky sticky heavy goo.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup robust (dark) molasses
• 1/2 cup pure vegetable shortening (for the love of god,not butter)
• 1 large egg, beaten to blend
• 1/2 cup boiling water

Directions: Combine first 8 ingredients in large bowl. Add
molasses, shortening, and egg. Using electric mixer, beat until well blended. Beat in 1/2 cup boiling water. Chill dough 1 hour. 

Preheat oven to 400°F. Roll chilled dough by generous tablespoonfuls into balls. Roll in additional sugar to coat. Place dough balls 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake until cookies are puffed and cracked on top and tester inserted into center comes out with some moist crumbs attached, about 12 minutes (do not overbake). Transfer cookies to racks and cool.

By the time Will got home I had cookies cooling on every available surface. I probably could have halved the recipe, but my office enjoyed the leftovers. It was time to dump the custard into the ice cream maker. According to my manufacturers instructions it should churn for 20-30 minutes. By minute 18 I was a tiny bit afraid the custard was going to pour out of the machine, it was forming so beautifully. I let it churn for about 24 minutes before I decided that, no seriously, we have to turn the machine off. As always it was a bit on the soft serve side the night I made it, but the true excitement took place the next day, after it had set in the freezer overnight. Cookie warmed and ice cream scooped, it was everything I had dreamed of all year long, but without the five minutes of explaining "No, you put the ice cream on the cookie" to a girl in a Miley Cirus tee shirt. Coffee and Cream and I are still friends though. They still make me REALLY fresh roasted coffee every time I'm in town. But as far as my very favorite autumn treat--that's now self served.

Before I sign off the week I'd like readers to know the my friend and reader of this blog Evan Reehl Ryer is part of an art show at Union Gallery at 359 Broadway. I went Friday night and it's got great pieces, so I encourage those in the area to check it out!