43 | 52 Pumpkin Crumb Cake

I love fall. Don't you?

All those colored leaves on the trees and on the streets, sunshine during the day, cuddling up with a blanket and burning some candles in the evening. Yes, I love it.

I'm also totally into fall vegetables. Like pumpkin.

(And yes, also: Happy Halloween!)

Pumpkin Crumb Cake

From Cooking Classy

For the crumbles

100 g (3/4 cup) flour

3 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

pintch of salt

85 g (6 tablespoons) butter, melted

40 g (1/3 cup) pecans, chopped

For the cake

225 g (1 3/4 cups) flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cloves

100 g (1/2 cup) sugar

100 g (1/2 cup) brown sugar

55 g (1/4 cup) butter, softened

60 ml (1/4 cup) vegetable oil

2 eggs

250 g (1 cup) pumpkin puree (see note below*)

50 g (3 tablespoons) sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

For the glaze (optional)

85 g (2/3 cup) powdered sugar

1 tablespoon milk

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

• For the crumbs, whisk together flour, sugars, cinnamon, and salt. Pour in melted butter and combine until evenly moistened. Add pecans and set aside.
• Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F).
• For the cake, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves.
• Blend together sugars, butter, and oil until combined. Add eggs one at a time. Add pumpkin puree, sour cream, and vanilla. Slowly add in dry ingredients at slow speed and mix until just combined.
• Pour batter into your prepared baking pan and sprinkle crumbs evenly over batter. Bake for about 40 - 45 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely.
• For the glaze, whisk together powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla until smooth. Add more milk or powdered sugar to thin or thicken if needed. Drizzle over cake. Allow glaze to set before cutting.

 

My modifications:

None. But I omitted the glaze. I actually did mean to make it but then totally forgot about it when were ready to dig in... 

The taste:

I think this might just be the perfect Pumpking Crumb Cake. Honestly. It's delicious (even without the glaze) and it is very moist and fluffy. I highly recommend you go to your kitchen after all the Halloween shenanigans are over and use up those pumpkins. Because yes, you can of course also *make your own pumpkin puree.

What's your favorite pumpkin baking recipe? 

Do you prefer Pumpkin Pie or Pumpkin Cake?

43*52 Pumpkin Lasagna

It's pumpkin time ;)

I'm always happy when I see the first pumpkins of the season around. 

And every year I'm looking for new recipes for what to make with all these pumpkins.

I browsed through tons of pumpkin lasagna recipes for this week's bake but in the end mixed them all up into one basic, easy vegetarian version.

Enjoy this week with another non-cake-bake!

Vegetarian Pumpkin Lasagna

Inspired by many different recipes

1 medium butternut pumpkin (or hokkaido)

1 onion, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

olive oil

500 g (17.5 oz) mashed/sieved tomatoes (passata)

basil or oregano, dried

salt and pepper

lasagna sheets

mozzarella, shredded

• Peel pumpkin and remove seeds. Cut into smaller cubes.
• Heat up olive oil in a pan, cook onion and garlic for about a minute. Add pumpkin and sautée for about 5 minutes, stir frequently. Add passata, season to taste and let cook until pumpkin is almost tender.
• Using a spoon or ladle, put a bit of the tomato sauce (without pumpkin) on the bottom of a casserole dish/pan. Lay out lasagna sheets on top. Top with some pumpkin-tomato-sauce, lasagna sheets, pumpkin-tomato-sauce again, lasagna sheets and end with a bit of tomato sauce. Sprinkle shredded mozzarella over top and bake at 200°C (390°F) for about 25-30 minutes.

(sorry, just a bad iphone shot this week...)

My modifications:

None. This is my interpretation of an easy and quick pumpkin lasagna.

You can of course also add minced meat and/or a bechamel sauce but I didn't miss either.

The taste:

Great. Another pumpkin recipe that I will definitely make again.

What is your favorite pumpkin recipe?

41/52 Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars

There's no denying it. Fall is here. 

But that's not a problem - at least not for me - as I love fall. 

The colors, the fresh crisp air, cozy evenings with lit candles... 

And pumpkins. Let's not forget pumpkins. 

Until a couple of years ago, I loved the look of them but not the taste. 

I'm really glad this changed and pumpkins have become a big part of my autumnal cuisine.
Hence, today's choice of baking...

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars

Adapted from Bake at 350

300 g (2 cups) flour

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon allspice

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

227 g (2 sticks) butter, room temperature

275 g (1 1/4 cups) sugar

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup canned pumpkin

200 g (8 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips

• Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F).
• Combine flour, spices, baking soda, and salt.
• Whisk together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. 
• Add the egg and vanilla and combine well. 
• Add pumpkin. 
• Fold in the flour mix until just combined. 
• Stir in the chocolate chips.
• Pour batter into prepared pan (about 20x30 cm or 13x9 in) and bake for about 35 minutes. Let cool and cut into bars.

My modifications:

Since I had it at home, I used pumpkin pie spice which made it a bit easier. Use about 2.5-3 teaspoons if you wanna do the same.

I "only" used 200 g (8 oz.) of chocolate chips instead of the suggested 12 oz. (340 g). I love chocolate but that was definitely enough.

In Germany, we don't really know or eat canned pumpkin. There is only pickled pumpkin so I gave it a try. Of course I drained the pumpkin before adding it to the batter but what I didn't consider is that the butter could still curdle. And it did. But I just processed the batter with my hand blender and it was all good. So to all my readers in Germany: pickled pumpkin works well, don't worry about the possible curdling and just blend away...

The taste:

Autumnally going on Christmassy which means totally yummy (at least in my terms). I felt that the pumpkin flavor came out better on the second day so make it one day ahead if you can.

What do you love about the fall season?

38/52 Pumpkin-Apple-Pizza

I recently reveiced this recipe for a Pumpkin Tarte Flambée in my inbox and immediately wanted to try it.

Reading through it again to prepare my shopping list, I didn't really feel like it anymore. Mostly due to laziness (having to roll out the dough really thin just kind of put me off...).

So I started looking for similar recipes, also Pumpkin Pizzas, and just created my own mix of them all.

Pumpkin-Apple-Pizza 

Feeds 4

1 ready-made pizza dough

3 tablespoons sour cream salt & pepper

marjoram (or other herbs)

2 tablespoons parmesan, grated

1 onion, sliced

400 g (14 oz) pumpkin (or squash - I used butternut), peeled & thinly sliced

2 small apples, peeled & thinly sliced

100 g (3.5 oz) feta cheese, coarsely crumbled

• Preheat oven to 220°C (430°F) (or according to package instructions). Put pizza dough on baking sheet. 
• Season sour cream with salt & pepper and herb of your choice (I used dried marjoram) and spread evenly on dough. 
• Sprinkle parmesan evenly over sour cream. 
• First arrange onion slices, then pumpkin slices, then apple slices on sour cream-parmesan. 

• Crumble feta over it and bake for about 30 minutes (or however long your pumpkin and dough need). Serve with (green) salad.

My modifications: 

None, since this is my own creation.

If you like meat, you could modify it by adding bacon pieces. I'm sure that would be nice as well.

The taste: 

Like autumn... Like more...

What is your favorite autumn (baking) recipe?