Zucchini & Pumpkin

On New Year's Day I got dressed to go to the store. I was bored since I was off from work and I had some Christmas cash in my hot little hands begging to be spent. After pulling jeans and boots on, and even going so far as to put my coat on, I realized I didn't feel like going anywhere and that it was too cold outside anyways. Thirty degrees for the high is pretty unusual here in the south, and at those temps I just want to hibernate. Anyways, to warm up I danced around the kitchen making muffins and cookies. I have been on a mission to make an un-cakey pumpkin cookie and I had a recipe I believed to be the winner of that title. I have had this little book sitting on a rack in the kitchen and I have never given it a thought until this past fall, when pumpkins were so rampant. It's called The Pumpkin Cookbook. The cookies on the cover are the ones I speak of. They are a roll out and cut cookie. I halved the recipe and got 9 cookies. My cutters must have been bigger than the ones they used, since it says the entire recipe yields 50 cookies. Here they are in all their naked glory:

I used some cutesy cutters I found at the Dollar Tree. They have a nice pale orange color to them, and only a subtle pumpkin taste. In the future I will add more pumpkin and spices. Overall they aren't too sweet, so I added a glaze to them instead of the frosting called for. They are a nice, crisp pumpkin cookie.

Up close and shiny:

I should mention that while the dough for the cookies was chilling, I made zucchini muffins. I used the same recipe as the previous Zucchini Spice Bread from here, only I left the gumdrops out this time and added the currants and walnuts as directed. These were for work, and they are a bunch of squares.

I absolutely HATE using muffin liners. I only use them when I take muffins or cupcakes to work. Sigh. These turned out very well, and moist, again.

One of my co-workers told me never to bring the pumpkin cookies again, as she could not keep her hands off them. I take that as the highest compliment.

Christmas Baking Wrap-up

The cookies were a hit, to say the least. Monday morning I marched my goods into work with me, and Tuesday morning I was presented with empty containers and lots of thank yous. Tuesday afternoon I got a phone call from a friend who received her box in the mail. She was overwhelmed by all the goodies. She said she would have to ration them out to her husband or they would end up as his dinner. The damage is as follows:



Many thanks to the post office who keeps coming through with their promise of a "next day delivery."

Before I added the fudge. This bucket went to the maintenance guys at work. A bucket full of cookies and fudge does not last long with 30 dudes around.

Cookies for a department upstairs from me. They are always so good to me. Lesson learned: when you're good to me, I give you food.

I didn't get a pic of the leftovers I took for my office. Obviously I don't like them nearly as much, as I didn't even bother to wrap them up pretty. I threw them in a tupperware container.

This afternoon, I made Zucchini Spice Gumdrop Bread. After reading about adding gumdrops to Zucchini Bread here, I just had to do it. I searched for the perfect bread recipe, and decided on the Zucchini Spice Bread in The Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen. I picked this book up used last summer, and I have yet to use it until today. I followed the recipe as is, only subbing safflower oil instead of melted butter, using two flax "eggs," half ww pastry flour/ap flour and a cup of gumdrops instead of nuts and raisins. It was a very low sugar bread, perfect for the gumdrops as they add a good bit of sweetness. I used Dots because they are my favorites. I overdose on them every year at Halloween. They are the only thing in the candy dish I am interested in, and they disappear fast. I quartered each one and sprinkled about 2 tablespoons of sugar over them in a bowl and rolled them around in it, until they were somewhat coated. I was short about a quarter cup of shredded zucchini, but they turned out great. They are moist and spicy.

When cut open, it looks very similar to a fruit cake.

Talk about creative thinking. The woman that thought this up is a genius.