Brown Butter Pumpkin Cookies with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Well, well, well, we meet again. It’s time to pick up again as fall finally has arrived (maybe borderline winter here in Kansas) and it’s finally cool enough for me to actually run my oven. Thus here we are.

I brought these cookies to work today, and haven’t had as much of a response to anything like this in awhile. People freaked, and asked for the recipe, and I thought I’d throw it up on the blog for all to see. This recipe comes from The Cookie Book, written by Rebecca Firth. My dear cousin, sister from another mister, my kindred baking spirit, Leah gifted me this for my last birthday and I have been baking my way through it ever since. It is a wonderful book, and I’d highly, highly recommend picking it up.

These cookies are soft, melt in your mouth, and delightfully spicy. Their delicate pumpkin flavor is charged up by a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. If my coworker’s reactions are any indication, I’d say it’s time to grab a can of pureed pumpkin, get out your sheet pans, and get baking. Enjoy.

Brown Butter Pumpkin Cookies with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Makes 32 Cookies

• 8 tablespoons (115 g) unsalted butter

• 1/2 cup (118 mL) neutral oil

• 1/3 cup (79 mL) pumpkin puree

• 3/4 cup (158 g) dark brown sugar

• 3/4 cup (144 g) granulated sugar

• 1 tablespoon (15 mL) vanilla extract

• 2 large eggs, room temperature

• 1 3/4 cup (239 g) bread flour

• 1 cup (136 g) all-purpose flour

• 2 teaspoons (7 g) baking powder

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon sea salt

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

• 1/4 teaspoon cloves

• 1/4 teaspoon ginger

Cookie Coating

• 1/4 cup (48 g) granulated sugar

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

• 1/4 teaspoon cloves

• 1/4 teaspoon ginger

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

• 2 tablespoons (29 g) unsalted butter, room temperature

• 3 ounces (85 g) cream cheese, room temperature

• 2 1/2 cups (325 g) powdered sugar

• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

• 2 to 3 tablespoons milk, or more to think out frosting

1. Place 8 tablespoons of butter in a medium saucepan. Preferably a light colored pan so you can see the butter change color. Heat the butter over medium heat. Stir, and diligently watch the butter as the milk solids begin to brown. It will begin to smell nutty, and right as it starts to turn amber remove it from the burner and pour it in a large heat-proof bowl. The browning of the butter will take 5-6 minutes. Let the butter cool slightly.

2. Once the butter cools., add the oil, pumpkin, dark brown sugar, granulated sugar, and vanilla. Once combined, add eggs one at a time incorporating it completely before adding the next egg. The mixture should be fairly thick. Be sure all lumps are whisked out.

3. In a separate medium bowl, combine the bread flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture. Gently fold in the dry ingredients into the wet until just mixed together. Do not over mix. Cover up the dough, and place in the fridge for at least an hour, up to 24 hours to firm up.

4. Preheat your oven to 350°F and line a few baking sheets with parchment paper.

5. Mix together the cookie coating. In a small bowl add granulated sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Whisk together. Once the dough is completely firm and chilled, roll about 1 1/2 tablespoons, or 21 g of dough between your palms to make balls. Roll the balls in the sugar spice mixture and set on the baking sheet. Leave about 2 inches of space between each. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time, in the center rack of the oven, for about 10 to 12 minutes. Cool them on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before moving them to a rack to finish cooling.

6. For the frosting, mix together the butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg until completely smooth. Add milk one tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is achieved. Spread a dollop on each completely cooled cookie using an offset spatula. Enjoy!

Flour Bakery's Milk Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies

Hi everyone! How’s your winter going? Here in the Kansas City area, it. won’t. stop. snowing. I’ve been pretty much snowed in all weekend; therefore, these cookies. Can we talk about them? Let’s talk about them. First, we need to talk about Nutella. I really, REALLY love the hazelnut cocoa spread, but I really hate baking with it. It’s a mess to measure out, it’s sticky, it gets everywhere. I realize these are all first world problems, but if I can find a cookie with the same flavors, but less mess I’ll take it.

So these cookies. They have milk chocolate, and hazelnuts. The hazelnuts aren’t only chopped up and put in the cookie, they’re also ground into a flour, so the hazelnut flavor is truly throughout. They’re satisfyingly crunchy from the nuts, and wonderfully creamy from the milk chocolate.

If you have snow where you are, you should warm your heart, and kitchen up with these bad boys. Here’s hoping spring is on the way!

Also, a little side note, if you’re looking for any web design, or general design work hit up my cousin (Stephanie Edwards) who lovingly designed this blog for me! You can find her website here: Space Car , her Facebook under SpaceCar, or on Instagram under @_spacecar_. She’s seriously the raddest.

Flour Bakery’s Milk Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies

• 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened

• 2/3 cup granulated sugar

• 2/3 cup packed light brown sugar

• 2 large eggs

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1 1/2 cups whole hazelnuts (divided)

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

• 12 ounces milk chocolate, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces

• Flaky sea salt for sprinkling (optional)

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugars until fluffy. About 5 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl

2. Add the eggs one at a time, fully incorporating after each addition. Add the vanilla.

3. In a food processor, pulse about 1/2 cup of the hazelnuts into a fine powder or flour. Once it’s completely ground, stop, or it will turn into a paste. Roughly chop the rest of the heazelnuts.

4. In a separate medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, chopped chocolate, and the chopped and ground hazelnuts.

5. Add the flour mixture to the butter and sugar mixture and mix until just combined.

6. Let the dough rest overnight, or for at least 3-4 hours.

7. The next day, preheat the oven to 350℉.

8. Measure the dough using an ice cream scoop. Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Press down the balls of cookie dough a little bit, and then sprinkle with flakey sea salt.

9. Bake for 16-18 minutes or until the edges are golden.

10. Let the cookies cool for 10 minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer to a wire rack. Enjoy!

Cherry Amaretto Bakewell Tart

Hi friends. Again, I'm sorry for the lengthy time in between posts, but 2017 was a BUSY year! I bought a house, and more importantly got married in December of 2017! Life has been so wonderful to me and I'm so thankful for what the past year has brought!

Currently my now husband (!!!!) Lee and I, are planning a trip to Peru for this summer. Machu Picchu is at the top of my bucket list. Pretty surreal I'm crossing that off. We are beyond excited. I'm also headed to Las Vegas at the end of this coming week for the first time! We have all sorts of adventures planned, and I wouldn't want our first year of marriage, or honestly any year of our marriage to be any different!

Now onto the important stuff. Cherry. Amaretto. Bakewell. Tart. I've had an obsession with the Great British Baking Show, or the Great British Bake Off for a hot second now. The 2016 winner, Candice Brown, is honestly everything I want to be when I grow up. She's beautiful, ridiculously talented, and generally seems like the most pleasant person.

This recipe comes from her cookbook Comfort: Delicious Bakes and Family Treats. I had never made a bakewell tart before, and it's a traditional English tart made with a layer of shortcrust pastry, a layer of jam, and then a layer frangipane. In this case, the jam is an Amaretto cherry jam and the frangipane has a little splash of Amaretto too. Oh and it's topped with beautiful flaked almonds for a nice toasty crunch. It's wonderful, and decadent without being too rich. Also, amaretto. Just. It's everything. More things should have amaretto. Without further ado, here's some beautiful pictures and the recipe.

Quick note: the recipe will be in metric units as the book was written and published in London. If you don't already have one, get yourself a kitchen scale! It makes things so easy!

Cherry Amaretto Bakewell Tart

Short Crust 

• 100g turbinado sugar
• 100g unsalted butter
• 4 egg yolks
• 175g plain flour
• 25g ground almonds
• pinch of salt

Jam

• 200g frozen cherries
• 100g turbinado sugar
• 2 tbsp Amaretto liqueur
• grated zest of 1 lemon

Filling

• 120g unsalted butter, softened
• 120g turbinado sugar
• 1 tbsp Amaretto liqueur
• 2 eggs
• 120g ground almonds
• pinch of salt
• finely grated zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 30g flaked almonds

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350℉.
2. For the short crust, beat together the sugar and butter in the bowl of a stand mixer until fluffy and pale. Beat in egg yolks, followed by flour, ground almonds, and salt. Bring together with your hands to form a ball of dough. Flatten into disc and wrap in cling film and chill for 30 minutes.
3. Roll out the pastry on a floured work surface to 3-4mm thick. Lift with a rolling pin and drape into a 9 inch loose-bottomed fluted tart tin. Gently press the pastry into the flutes and remove the excess pastry so it is just at the top of the tin. Prick the bottom of the crust with a fork.
4. Line the pie with parchment paper and fill with dry beans, or blind baking beans. Blind bake the crust for 15 minutes then remove the parchment paper and beans and bake for a further 5-10 minutes until set and golden. Set aside to cool. Leave oven on, but turn the temperature up to 375℉.
5. Next up, the jam. Place a plate in the freezer. Put the frozen cherries, sugar, Amaretto, and lemon zest in a small sauce pan. Set over a low heat and stir to dissolve the sugar. Turn up the heat and allow to bubble away for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, then test to see if it has set. Remove the pan from the heat and spoon a blob of hot jam onto the frozen plate. Leave for a few seconds, then run your finger through the jam - if the surface wrinkles, the jam is ready. If it doesn't, return to the heat and bubble for a further 5 minutes, then test again. Set aside to cool.
6. For the frangipane filling, beat together the butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add the Amaretto and eggs, then mix in the ground almonds, salt, lemon zest and flour.
7. Up next, assembly! Spread the cherry jam evenly in the baked pastry crust. Top with the almond filling and level out with a spatula. Sprinkle the flaked almonds over the filing. Bake for 35-40 minutes until the filling is just set and the almonds look toasted and golden. Cool before serving.