sugar and spice

I love Delicious Orchards of Colts Neck, New Jersey chocolate sugar cookies. They are soft and fudgy tasting. While I can purchase a bag anytime, I enjoy baking as I find it relaxing. I’ve had since December 2018 a recipe for chocolate sugar cookie dough from Southern Living Magazine. The dough is made with unsalted butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, unsweetened cocoa, baking powder and salt.

The dough was to be rolled out and used in bar cookies and pressed into miniature muffin pans. However, I decided to roll the dough into 1-1/2” balls, dip one side into raw sugar and lightly press down before baking. I had to experiment with baking times. I baked them at 350 degrees with one batch baking for 12 minutes and the other 14. While my husband thought both cookies tasted delicious, I thought those baked for 14 minutes had the texture and mouth feel that I was after. They were comparable in taste to Delicious Orchards. They were scrumptious! 
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I have two other chocolate sugar cookies recipes. However, one of them takes less butter and sugar and one uses unsweetened cocoa and the other Dutch process cocoa powder. The difference in the two types of cocoa is the flavor. Regular cocoa is intense and full flavored. Dutch-process is treated with an alkali which neutralizes its acidity. The process darkens its color and makes for a smoother and mellow flavor. The two cannot be interchanged. Recipes containing cocoa are leavened with baking soda to neutralize the acidity. Dutch-processed cocoa on the other hand is leavened with baking powder because both ingredients are neutral. I will probably make the recipe containing less butter and sugar and unsweetened cocoa.

During today’s inclement weather, I decided to bake pumpkin-walnut bread, but as muffins. I had some remaining pumpkin purée from another recipe and the amount was perfect for this recipe. Besides the pumpkin purée, spices such as cinnamon, allspice, cloves and ginger lend this bread a wonderful flavor. You’ll also need flour, baking soda, salt, eggs, water, sugar, neutral flavor vegetable oil (I used corn oil as that’s what I had), vanilla extract and chopped toasted walnuts. 
The recipe was easy to prepare and I was able to make 15 nice size muffins. I baked the muffins for 30 minutes, but checked them after 15. Thirty minutes was perfect. I let them cool before having a late afternoon snack. The muffins were tasty with a nice balance of sweetness. And the muffins would go perfect with a cup of Darjeeling tea or Earl Grey. So, if you still have a remaining can of pumpkin purée, this a perfect recipe for it.