The day after... Thanksgiving Oatmeal Cookies

These cookies sounded so promising -- pumpkin, cranberries, butter, spices...  but somehow they fell short.  They're boring.  They didn't seem to have enough of anything. They didn't taste like pumpkin, the preserved cranberries had no tang, the spices weren't especially distinguishable...   The batter had been SOOO tasty -- like browned butter caramel.  What happened?  Perhaps it was the oatmeal that diminished the flavor.  They were also a little low in salt, even after adding more than called for.  I increased the quantity of cranberries, since they looked scant in the batter, but they didn't add flavor.  I omitted the chocolate because, well, chocolate isn't Thanksgiving and it didn't belong, but I see now that the chocolate was the only thing that might save these.  But if you're going to add chocolate, you might as well just make your own favorite oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies.

Dried cranberries, which would more properly be called candied cranberries, have become so popular these days, and they're found in everything, including things that might have used fresh cranberries 5 years ago.  Fresh cranberries aren't available all year, so take advantage of their bright color and bright flavor while you can.  Their fresh tang would have gone far to liven up these cookies.  I also would add yet another 1/4 teaspoon of salt (or just use salted butter), and even increase the spices a bit.  No sense in this pretending to be a shy cookie.

Here's what I used:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup pumpkin purée
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 3/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups Quaker Oats
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 3/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  In a large bowl, beat butter, pumpkin purée, and sugars until creamy. Add eggs one at a time and vanilla, and beat well.  Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt, and add to butter mixture; mix well. Stir in oats, cranberries, and walnuts.  Drop scoops onto an ungreased baking sheet. These did not rise much, so judge the amount by the size of cookie you want.  I used a heaping, tablespoon-sized cookie scoop.  Bake 10 to 12 minutes, or until light golden brown. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheet and transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.  Made 52 moderate-sized cookies.

Conclusion:  I probably would not make these again.  If I did, they would certainly need more tweaking.  The biggest question would be how to get more pumpkin flavor into them without making them soggy.  This might be a job for pumpkin flour.  They would also benefit from some cream cheese spread on them.

Recipe:  Thanksgiving Oatmeal Cookies via Kitchen Report

Thanksgiving Pies II: Pear and Ginger Pie with Streusel Topping

Okay, I don't think pies should weigh more than about 5 pounds.  I can't believe how heavy this thing is!  I had to weight it -- 8 pounds.  It calls for eight (8!!) whole pears!  And then there's crust, and topping...  That's a lot of pie.

This recipe was requested by the hostess of my Thanksgiving dinner -- a big pear fan -- so I wanted to get it right.  Of course, that makes the preparation nerve wracking.

I honestly didn't think I'd get all those pear slices into the shell, but it happened.  What it took was individually, slice by slice, fitting all the pieces together.  The Monterey Fish Packing Company would be proud.  There was a lot of juice left over, and since it seemed to contain a lot of the tapioca that would be holding the pie together, I decided it was a necessary component and dumped it in.

I'd been concerned about using a decorative stoneware pie tin -- I wondered whether I'd have trouble getting the slices out, what with all the edges.  But they came out without a problem.  The pan was a good choice because it's actually a 10" semi-deep-dish pan.  This never would have worked in a regular 9" pan that the recipe called for.  My leaf edges burned at the tips while I was blind baking the shell, so I covered the edges completely during the bake with heavy duty aluminum foil.

Melted "streusel" ...  What now???

During the hour that the pie bakes, I started writing this blog entry.  It was there that I saw "1 cup flour" as the very last ingredient in the list.  Flour?  What flour?  Gah!  I'd forgotten to put the flour into the streusel!  I'd wondered why it was so gooey, but I have an apple pie recipe that uses a butter and brown sugar crusty topping, so I figured it must be something like that.  The fact is I just never noticed the flour in this recipe.  There was only 18 minutes left on the oven timer, but I took the pie out of the oven and quickly threw together 5 tablespoons of butter, 1/4 cup sugar, some salt, and 3/4 cup flour.  It was very dry, and there was a lot, but I dumped it on and shoved the pie back in the oven.  I didn't keep track of how much in excess of an hour I baked the pie -- I just kept checking the color on the streusel.  I even stuck it under the broiler to see if that would help, but it only darkened the very center.  It probably baked an extra 30 minutes or so.  And it's a good thing I had a catchment tray under the pie!

Here's what I used:

For the crust:
1⅓ cups flour
1/3 cup cornstarch
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
1/4 cup, plus 1 tbsp. lard, chilled
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup ice-cold water

For the filling and topping:
8 medium Bartlett pears, cored and thinly sliced (about 4-4.5 pounds)
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup sugar, divided
2 tablespoons minute tapioca
1/2 teaspoon ground mace
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 1"-piece ginger, peeled and grated
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
5 tablespoons butter
1 cup flour

For the crust, pulse flour, cornstarch, sugar, and salt briefly in a food processor to mix, then add the butter and lard, and pulse into pea-size crumbles. Add water; pulse until dough comes together. Form dough into a disk, wrap tightly in waxed paper and seal in a plastic bag; chill 1 hour.

Heat oven to 450°. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough into a 13-14" round. Fit into a 10" pie plate. Trim edges and crimp; chill 30 minutes. Using a fork, prick dough all over. Line dough with parchment paper that's been crumpled to soften and fill with pie weights or dried beans.   Protect any overhanging decorations with foil or edge protectors; bake 15 minutes. Remove paper and weights and gently press closed any open prick marks.  Return to the oven and bake another 5-10 minutes, until it looks dry; allow to cool while you start the filling.

For the filling, toss pear slices in a very large bowl with lemon juice; let sit, uncovered, 30 minutes, then drain, discarding liquid. In a small bowl, stir together ½ cup sugar and the tapioca.  Sprinkle over the pears and mix gently to coat. For the topping, stir remaining ½ cup sugar with the mace, nutmeg, ginger, and salt in a bowl; blend in the butter.  Using your fingers or a fork, mix in flour until small crumbles form; set both filling and topping aside.













Reduce oven to 375°. Tightly arrange pears over dough and sprinkle with topping; bake until the topping is golden and filling is bubbling, about 1 hour.  (Recommend baking pie on another sheet to guard against bubbling over.)  Let pie cool to room temperature before serving.


I think my problems with this pie all started with pears that were too large and slightly over-ripe. The last time I made a pear pie, the pears were under ripe, so I purchased them in advance this time, thinking I was ahead of the game.  They were wonderfully, fragrantly floral about two days before I used them.  Maybe third time's the charm.  Note to self:  for a pie, the pears should be fully ripe -- at the peak of their fragrance -- and firm, but not crunchy.  That should produce less juice, but plenty of flavor.

The original recipe didn't give a total weight of the pears either, and I think what I purchased might have been considered large pears rather than medium.  They weighed 5 pounds total, so I've recommended a slightly lesser amount by weight.   Between have too much pear to start with, and their being excessively juicy from being overripe, all that pear juice made the pie crust soggy.  Curiously, the crust sort of disappeared into the filling, texture and taste being similar, and wasn't that noticeable.  On the up side, I never peel my fruit because, well, it's really not necessary, and I think the peel adds flavor.  In this case, it also added lovely golden and rosy-colored ribbons throughout the interior.

Conclusion:  In the end, after all the errors, the pie was delicious.  I would give it another go, but with caution regarding the amount of pear filling and how the whole thing was put together. I might also go ahead and mix the spices with some butter and dot it on the top so that it drips down throughout the pie during baking, as happened accidentally this time.  (I would still add the proper streusel, but without the spices.)  Regardless, it was not a spicy pie -- the ginger didn't stand out at all, but I'm sure added to the overall flavor.

Recipe:  Pear and Ginger Pie with Streusel Topping via Saveur

Thanksgiving Pies I: Maple Pumpkin Brûlée Pie

I am a staunch fan of Libby's basic pumpkin pie.  It's one of my favorite breakfasts.  I eat it by the quarter pie, and can put a whole one away in 2 days.  By myself.  But I do make some adjustments in order to manage such copious consumption.  My customary tweak is to use part-skim evaporated milk, and reduce the sugar by about half.  This greatly reduces the richness and intensity, without turning it into a mere shadow of itself.  The point of this story is to indicate that all other pumpkin pies are compared to Libby's.

With that in mind, this pie was quite good, but it's not one I'd be eating by the quarter pie.  It's basic structure was the same as Libby's -- eggs, dairy, pumpkin, and sugar were all fairly equal -- but this one uses heavy cream instead of evaporated milk, and includes brown sugar and potato starch, as well as the maple flavor.  The primary difference between the two recipes, though, was the quantity of spices.  This recipe uses more than twice the quantity of the Libby's recipe!  Coupled with the brown sugar, the result tastes exactly like gingerbread.

At Thanksgiving, this was delicious.  The next day at room temperature, it tasted too sweet and sticky, and overly spiced.  I had to scrape the sugar topping off.  The day after that, cold, it tasted delicious again, but rich.  Certainly more dessert than breakfast.  The brûléed topping was a nice touch, but doesn't survive -- it became soggy overnight.  (It also served to cover nicely an otherwise unattractive pie.  It doesn't have the beautiful orange color of most pumpkin pies, but rather a dull brown.)

Baked, but not yet brûléed.

I find Saveur recipes a little sketchy on direction.  For example, this one starts, "Whisk sugars and eggs in a bowl until pale and fluffy."  What I had in the bowl was dark from the sugar and very liquid -- I didn't picture it ever becoming pale and certainly not fluffy.  My hostess, however, said she would consider the ribbon stage "fluffy".  I would not.  So perhaps I didn't beat it long enough, which might have contributed to the watery batter.  (Whisk?  Who hand whisks eggs to the ribbon stage these days anyway?  Who do they think I am, Aunt Jemima?)  The other contributor to a watery mix was the pumpkin -- normally I use Libby's, but this time I used Trader Joe's organic, and it was not as good.  It was very pale, and very thin -- much higher water content.  Where the recipe says, "using a spatula, spread into an even layer," what I had was pure liquid, sloshing about in the bowl.  I was thankful for the potato starch, and could only hope that that, and the 2 eggs, were enough to pull this together.  They were, although I did bake it a little longer just to be sure.  (How much jiggle is acceptable?  I don't know. I wasn't comfortable with the amount of movement at 50 minutes, so I gave it an extra 5.)

Here's what I used:

For the crust:
I used this basic recipe, adjusted for 1.2 times the half-quantity (a 9" deep-dish single crust) and prepared as a mealy crust.

For the filling:
¼ cup dark brown sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 15-oz. can pumpkin purée
1 cup heavy cream
¼ cup maple syrup
2½ tablespoons potato starch
2½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1½ teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground clove
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ cup Demerara sugar

Heat oven to 450°. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough into a 12″ round and fit into a 9″ pie plate. Trim edges and crimp; chill 30 minutes.  Using a fork, prick dough all over. Line dough with parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans; bake 15 minutes. Remove paper and weights, and gently press closed any prick holes.  Return to the oven and bake another 5 minutes, covering the edges if they're getting too brown.  Let cool while you make the filling.

Whisk sugars and eggs in a bowl until pale and fluffy.  (I've left this direction as is, in case it means something to someone.  I might have changed it to "creamy" rather than "fluffy".)  Add pumpkin, cream, syrup, potato starch, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, and salt; whisk until smooth. Pour filling over dough; if necessary, spread into an even layer. Bake until just set in the center, 45–50 minutes. Transfer pie to a rack; let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until cold, about 1 hour.

Sprinkle Demerara sugar evenly over surface of pie. Guide the flame of a blowtorch back and forth over surface until sugar caramelizes. Serve immediately.

Conclusion:  Very good -- sweet, rich, and highly spiced.  Definitely best served cold.  It won't become my standby, but it makes a nice fancy alternative.  The jury is still out on the spice and sugar quantities, since I went back and forth depending on the moment.  Perhaps it's all about the temperature.  Regardless, it was a big hit at dinner.  Homemade whipped cream recommended for serving.

Recipe:  Maple Pumpkin Brûlée Pie via Saveur

Butter Pie Dough I: Saveur

Different pies call for different crusts.  Does the pie require a top crust?  Do you want to make decorations?  Are you prebaking the crust and using an unbaked filling?  Are you baking a very wet filling, such as a custard or fruit pie?  The answers to these questions determine what recipe you'll want to use.  If you'll need a top crust, you really should be making two separate recipes.

The gold standard of pie is a flaky crust -- it's what we all aspire to.  But the reality is that it's not always the appropriate choice.  Flaky crusts are very fragile, and will absorb moisture easily.  They are not suitable for pie fillings that are very liquid and/or need long baking times, such as a pumpkin pie or the bottom of a fruit pie.  They work very well as a top crust, or as a bottom crust that is pre-baked and then filled with a chilled, unbaked filling, such as a chocolate cream pie. For those custard and fruit pies, you will want to use a mealy crust, which better resists moisture and therefore is less likely to become soggy.  And if you're a true perfectionist making a fruit pie with a top crust, you'll want to make two separate crusts:  a flaky crust for the top and a mealy crust for the bottom. It's all about technique.

When making a flaky dough, you want to cut the shortening into the flour until it's about pea-sized bits.  When making a mealy dough, the fat should be in much smaller pieces, so the mixture looks more like bread crumbs.  This video gives a demonstration of the two types (though I don't agree with his recipe -- not nearly enough flour.)

The other thing to consider is how much dough you want.  Many recipes, such as the one here, give quantities for a double crust.  Presumably, it is also suitable for two bottom-only crusts, or halve it if you are making a single bottom-only crust.  But if you plan on that, you'll likely run out of pastry.  A bottom crust requires more dough than a top crust, so dough that is enough for a top and bottom crust will be a little lacking if you try to stretch it to make two bottom crusts.  There is also the question of how deep your pan is -- pie pans range generally from 1-2" deep, which can make a big difference in how much dough you'll need.  And nowadays, pies have gotten so fancy with all manner of decorations around the edge -- you might want extra dough for that.

Therefore, I am amassing a collection of recipes to suit the various applications, so I'll have them at the ready when I need them.  This page entry is based entirely on a basic recipe from Saveur magazine for a flaky butter dough.  The proportions in this recipe result in a basic crust that is fairly short (high in fat), with no noticeable sweetness to it.

Here is the original recipe, which they state makes enough for 2 crusts.  The quantity should be sufficient for one top-and-bottom crust pie, or two 1"-high, 9" bottom-crust-only pies, without elaborate decorations.  Notice also that the direction for "pea-sized crumbles" will result in a flaky crust.

2¼ cups flour
1 tablespoon sugar 

1 teaspoon salt 

12 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed and chilled 

6 tablespoons ice-cold water

Whisk flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Using a dough blender, two forks, or your fingers, cut butter into flour mixture, forming pea-size crumbles. Add water; work dough until smooth but with visible flecks of butter. (Alternatively, pulse ingredients in a food processor.) Divide dough in half* and flatten into disks. Wrap disks in plastic wrap; chill 1 hour before using.

*If using the recipe for a top and bottom crust, divide the dough into two unequal portions.  You'll have to eyeball this, keeping in mind that a top crust needs to be rolled out only a little farther than the diameter of the tin, whereas the bottom crust has to be rolled out far enough to cover the bottom, up the sides, the width of the edge, plus about 3/4" overhang.  Generally that means approximately a 10-11" circle for the top versus a 11-13" circle for the bottom, depending on the height of your tin.


For a bottom crust only in a 9" deep-dish pan, I cut the recipe in half, then increased it by a factor of 1.2.  Here are those quantities:

1 1/3 cups flour
2 teaspoons sugar
2/3 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
3 1/2 tablespoons ice-cold water


For a slightly larger quantity, such as for a single-crust 10" pie, or if you want extra dough for decorations on a 9" pie,  I cut the recipe in half, then increased it by a factor of 1.5.  Here are those quantities:

2 2/3 cups flour
3/4 tablespoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
9 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
4 1/2 tablespoons ice-cold water


Original recipe:  Flaky Butter Pie Dough via Saveur

Chocolate Sourdough Cake for Guy Fawkes Day

Remember, remember the fifth of November --
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot.
I know of no reason the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot!

I'm not a big Guy Fawkes proponent (although I loved V for Vendetta), but the timing was right.  I bought this 3-D skull pan last year and had hoped to use it to make a sugar skull cake, but didn't get my act together soon enough, so it became a Guy Fawkes mask cake.

Some time ago, I made a "sourdough" starter from the wild yeast off my own organic grapes.  It's a very mild starter, not sour at all.  I don't bake bread often enough to use it all, so when I came across this sourdough cake recipe I was eager to try it out.  The recipe calls for King Arthur Flour's own sourdough starter, but by referring to the photos in their blog I was able to make adjustments so it would work with my own starter.

The planned baking day was very cool, and after 3 hours my flour/milk/starter mix hadn't budged.  After six hours it looked good, but by then it was late, so I put it in the refrigerator until the next evening and hoped for the best.  I forgot that wet flour, when left alone for a long period of time, will develop gluten all by itself.

Chocolate mixture.

Sourdough mixture, cocoa dusted.

When I went to use the mixture, it was as tough and stretchy as rubber!  Mixing it with the chocolate mixture was impossible, so I added a little milk to loosen things up.

In the end, I didn't get everything completely mixed together and there were small swirls of white in the final cake that baked up very tough.  I also made a mistake in not reducing the oven temperature to account for the longer baking time.  The pan comes with a recipe that calls for 65-75 minutes in a 325F oven. I had made note of the baking time, but not the temperature.  So I set the oven for 350F as called for in the KAF recipe and after 65 minutes it tested done.  Well, yeah.  Over done.  The best parts were the parts I cut off to get the two halves to fit together smoothly.  (It rose quite a lot in the middle, partially, I imagine, due to the overly hot oven.)  Next time I'll pay better attention... I hope.

Here's what I used:

1 cup "fed" sourdough starter
1 cup whole milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 cup unsweetened baking cocoa (not Dutch process)
1 teaspoon espresso powder
2 large eggs

Combine the "fed" starter, milk, and flour in a large mixing bowl. Cover and let rest at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours. It won't necessarily bubble, but it may have expanded a bit.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (325°F if using a 3-D pan). Lightly grease a 9" x 13" pan.  (If using a 3-D pan, lightly grease and then dust with flour or cocoa.)  In a separate bowl, beat together the sugar, oil, vanilla, salt, baking soda, cocoa. and espresso powder. The mixture might be grainy.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Gently combine the chocolate mixture with the starter-flour-milk mixture, stirring until smooth. Be sure to thoroughly incorporate the two.  This will be a gloppy process at first, but the batter will smooth out as you continue to beat gently.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan and rap a few time on the counter to release any large air bubbles.  (If using a decorative pan, this is especially important in order to settle the batter into the grooves.  For the skull pan, I poured in just enough batter to fill in the face and then rapped it hard several times to make sure the batter was fully filling the form.)  Bake the cake for 30 to 40 minutes, until it springs back when lightly pressed in the center, and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.  Remove the cake from the oven; allow the 3-D pan to cool for 15 minutes before removing cake and cooling completely on a rack.

Constructing the cake was a little tricky, but went smoothly.  I sandwiched the halves with purchased dulce de leche, then went about constructing a nose out of cake scraps, also attached with dulce de leche.  (That stuff is sticky!)  I should note that both halves of the cake have a portion that rests on the plate, so your filling doesn't have to be firm enough to support the face.  (I hadn't been able to tell prior to making it.)  I also had to construct a lower lip.

 

I had yet another new thing to try in the frosting.  I find most frosting too sweet, so when I heard about cooked flour frosting that was less sweet, I had to try it.  You start with a loose roux, and that helps give body to the frosting.  I used half the full recipe and had just barely enough to cover the outside of the cake.

While very tasty, this frosting is not especially good for intricate decorating, as it has a whipped consistency that's difficult to smooth.  To get it truly smooth (and I did not do this), you should chill the completed cake to firm up the frosting, then use CLEAN fingers to smooth out the surface, just like cold butter.

Conclusion:  This cake was delicious!  Where I didn't over bake it, the cake was soft and moist.  It is not a very sweet cake, so your taste might require you to add another half cup of sugar or so, but with a sweet frosting it balanced out nicely as is.  I feel sure the issues with texture were due to over-developing the gluten in the flour and/or over baking.  I definitely will make this again, including adapting it to other flavors.

Recipe:  Sourdough Chocolate Cake via King Arthur Flour

Heritage (Cooked Flour) Frosting

I'm not a fan of super sweet frosting unless it's on something that's not very sweet (like Lofthouse-style cookies.)  There has to be balance.  So when I heard about cooked flour frosting, reported to be less sweet, I wanted to try it.  It was used during the depression and war years to extend expensive and hard-to-find butter and sugar, but is also the traditional frosting for Red Velvet Cake.

Here's what I used:

4 tablespoons flour*
1 cup whole milk
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1-1 1/4 cup sugar (granulated or powdered)
2 teaspoons vanilla or other flavoring

Put the flour in a small pan and slowly add the milk**, whisking all the while.  Cook over medium heat until the mixture reaches a boil. After about 30 seconds of full boil, the mixture is as thick as it’s going to get. Allow it to cool about ten minutes, then apply plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the mixture. Let it cool another fifteen minutes or so, then put the saucepan in the refrigerator for about an hour.  At the end of that time, it should be a thick, pudding-like consistency and retain its shape when scooped.

In the bowl of a mixer, combine the butter and sugar and beat about 4 minutes until very light and fluffy.  With the mixer running, beat in the milk mixture.  Beat for about another minute until you have a sweet and silky faux buttercream.  If it looks curdled or broken, follow the golden rule of buttercream and just keep beating until it’s where you want it.  Beat in the vanilla.

*Another recipe calls for 6 tablespoons of flour.  Presumably this would make the frosting less sweet and more stiff.
**Alternatively, you can cook the sugar with the milk and flour in order to fully dissolve the granules.  In this case, your roux will be more soupy and could result in a softer frosting.

Conclusion:  This frosting was delicious!  It has a very light and whipped consistency, and the pronounced flavor is butter.  (The whole point to a buttercream, right?)  I was surprised at my desire to add sugar, but the cake I was making that time was not very sweet either.  The only downside is that it does not hold up well in heat -- best to keep chilled.  This will become my go-to frosting from now on.

Recipe:  Heritage Frosting via Joe Pastry

November ABC Challenge: Pumpkin Cranberry Pan de Muerto... sort of

Feliz Dia de los Muertos!

I think it was purely coincidental that these spicy, flavorful rolls were assigned during a time when many around the world are enjoying the festive pan de muertos, but I decided to take advantage of the happy coincidence.  Truth be told, I had already made the rolls once, but on realizing the synchronicity, I decided to make them again.

For the first batch, I reduced the recipe by one-quarter, producing 4 rolls, and doubled all the dry spices.  I was making them during the week, so in order to accommodate the rise times I mixed up the dough during my lunch break and let the dough rise in the refrigerator while I went back to the office.  So imagine my dismay when suddenly around 3:30 in the afternoon, for no particular reason, I remembered the butter I'd left sitting on the windowsill to soften!  Crap.  My impression from the directions was that the dough shouldn't be disturbed too much after the first rise -- perhaps that was only to keep from mashing the soft fruit too much.  But it couldn't be helped; I wasn't going to leave out the butter.  Fortunately, I had used homemade dried cranberries, which have no added sugar and therefore dry quite hard, so they didn't mind the manhandling.  Nonetheless, I didn't want to overwork the dough, so I didn't get the butter mixed homogeneously into the dough and the results were rather lumpy.  Let's face it:  they were ugly.

A different sort of "ugly but good".

I didn't like my baking pan options.  I could have used a muffin tin, but I wanted the soft sides created by having them sit together.  (I also wasn't anxious to have to wash a whole muffin tin for four cavities!)  In the end, I simply baked them in the same steel bowl I had mixed and risen them in!

For the pan de muertos, I made a few more minor tweaks to the recipe.  Again, I did a small batch of 4 rolls and doubled the spices.  I didn't feel like fooling with halving an egg, so I used this tiny chicken egg I got from a friend.  How cute is this?

It's much cuter in real life.

This time, I increased the quantity of cranberries, and macerated the fruit in a little rum to try to soften the cranberries, as they had stayed rather compact and chewy the first time.  In the absence of orange zest, I added some orange extract to the dough.  I forgot to add water, but with the additional liquid from the egg, rum, and extract, it didn't need it.  I had intended to use half whole wheat flour but, um, ... I forgot.  (Hey, it was 12:30 at night -- but at least this time I remembered the butter!)

Here's what I used; deviations from the exact 1/4 reduction of the original recipe are in italics:

1 cup + 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/16 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/16 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon dark molasses
3/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon instant yeast
3 tablespoons canned pumpkin or squash
1/2 large egg (or one adorably tiny egg -- um, see note)
3 tablespoons water (if necessary)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
3 4 tablespoons dried cranberries
1 tablespoon diced crystallized ginger
2 tablespoons dark rum (or orange juice)
1/4 teaspoon orange extract

Mix the cranberries, crystallized ginger, and rum in a small container with a lid and keep in a warm place for several hours until the fruit softens and the rum is absorbed, shaking occasionally.  Mix and knead all of the dough ingredients except the fruit and crystallized ginger (adding water only if  the dough is dry or feels tough) until you've made a soft, fairly smooth dough. Pumpkin varies in water content, so add extra water or flour if needed. Right at the end, knead in the fruit and crystallized ginger. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover the bowl, and allow the dough to rise for 1 1/2 hours at room temperature or overnight in the refrigerator, until it's almost double in bulk.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly greased surface, gently deflate it, and divide it into 4 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball. Place rolls in the lightly greased cups of a standard muffin pan (which will help them maintain their round shape), or onto a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Set aside, covered lightly, to rise for 1 hour, or until the rolls look puffy.

Bake the rolls in a preheated 350°F oven for 25 to 30 minutes (I baked the first batch 23 minutes, and the second 26), until they're lightly browned and the center of one reads 190⁰F on an instant-read thermometer. Remove the pans from the oven and turn the rolls out onto a rack to cool.

Just before baking.

Note:  As I've mentioned before, when doing small-batch baking, it's imperative that you measure exactly.  Small variations can have big effects.  I tend to be careless with measuring, and this time it caused a failure.  The tiny egg I used in the second batch was really quite a bit more than 1/2 an egg -- something I didn't realize until I actually looked at them side-by-side.  The dough was somewhat greasy and lacked cohesiveness.  The rolls didn't rise properly and the design melted.  They tasted great, but they were a poor texture, being too dense and heavy.  The first batch was much better.



Conclusion:  I liked these very much!  They
have a strong pumpkin flavor, and with the doubled spices they can definitely stand on their own.  (In fact, they might actually be a bit too flavorful to be a good dinner roll.)  These aren't truly a "sweet roll", but you could increase the sugar and perhaps add a glaze to make them one.  I liked them better served with cream cheese than with butter.  I've been looking for a rich, dense, mildly sweet dinner roll recipe, and this is perfect.  I'll probably be adding walnuts instead of the cranberries and candied ginger most often in the future, and will also try these as plain whole wheat walnut rolls.  This is a keeper!


Original recipe:  Cranberry Pumpkin Rolls via King Arthur Flour