Pumpkin Coffeecake = Love

In my heaven it’ll be pumpkin season all year.  This weekend I rang in pumpkin season with a bang: pumpkin beer on Friday and TWO pumpkin dishes yesterday.   I woke up craving coffeecake and realized that I had a ton of cake flour leftover from Dennis’ birthday cake, so it made perfect sense to get baking ASAP.  I was also excited to use the oven with our brand-new knobs that Andy so skillfully grabbed off of a stove that was being removed from another apartment.  Look at this beauty:

I wish you knew what the old knob looked like.  Thanks, Andy!

I had found a recipe for coffeecake on Smitten Kitchen and it looked fabulous, but it was meant to be a rhubarb coffeecake and I had no rhubarb and wasn’t in the mood for a fruity cake.  SK’s recipe did have a fantastic crumb topping that included cinnamon and ginger – both of which naturally go well with pumpkin.   I had almost no choice but to make this a pumpkin coffeecake. 

True to my pumpkin-loving ways, I have an entirely pumpkin cookbook (A Harvest of Pumpkins and Squash by Lou Seibert Pappas) that has a delicious looking walnut-cranberry pumpkin coffeecake recipe (I haven’t tried that one yet).   This recipe had no crumble, though, so I decided to go with a hybrid and take my favorite parts of each recipe and combine them.  The result was to die for – this cake is truly fabulous.

Pumpkin Coffeecake

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s Big Crumb Coffeecake & Lou Seibert Pappas’ Cranberry-Walnut Pumpkin Coffeecake

Crumbs:

1/3 cup dark brown sugar


1/3 cup granulated sugar


1 teaspoon ground cinnamon


1/2 teaspoon ground ginger


1/8 teaspoon salt


1/2 cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) butter, melted


1 3/4 cups cake flour

Combine and set aside.  If you're like us and have no real kitchen and no real living room, you can let your crumbs hang out with the herbs.  

I love our herb garden.

Although, now that I'm thinking about it, our kitchen/living room really is a living room...since there's not many other places in this apartment to do your living.  That's neither here nor there - now on with the coffeecake!

Cake:

1 ¼ cups cake flour

1/3 cup yellow cornmeal

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

½ cup sugar

2 eggs

6 tablespoons softened butter

1/3 cup sour cream

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 cup chopped and dry roasted walnuts

To make the batter:  

1) Roast the chopped nuts in a 350 degree F oven for 10 minutes until fragrant but not visibly browned.  Leave the oven on for baking the cake.

 I love our well-used cookie sheets.

2) Allow the nuts to cool on the cookie sheet while you combine all cake ingredients up through sugar and stir or sift to combine them.

3) In a separate bowl, do the same with the eggs through the pumpkin and whisk to make sure it's good and homogenized (SAT word).

I love our new couch with its weird cover.

I also love that the coffee table plays a large role in our cooking endeavors.

I also love my new computer - all the better for blogging.

4) Now stir the dry into the wet and mix only enough to combine everything - really try to restrain yourself.  I love to stir, so I can understand why that could be difficult.

5)  Fold the walnuts in gently so that they're evenly distributed throughout the batter.

6) Pour the batter into a buttered/floured 8"by8" or 9"x9" baking dish.  Use your hands to crumble the crumb topping evenly over the batter.  Make about 1/2 inch-or-so sized crumbs.

I've loved cooking in this pyrex dish since I was little.  

Thank goodness my mom had two so I could steal one.

7) Pop the crumb-topped beauty into the oven for 40-45 minutes or until the top is nicely brown and a knife comes out clean when inserted into the center of the cake.

I don't love our tiny stove.  But we make do.

8) Let cool for a bit...but only long enough so that you wont hurt yourself when taking the first, most spectacular, bite :)

I LOVE this cake!

I highly suggest eating a piece of this when it’s still warm – ice cream wouldn’t be a bad addition, although it’s very moist on its own.  It was perfect for breakfast this morning alongside some vanilla yogurt (Sar’s suggestion) and coffee, obviously.

In case you’re wondering, the other pumpkin dish I made was pumpkin soup from Jacques Pepin’s Fast Food My Way.  It was outrageously simple and delicious: onion, celery, garlic, veggie broth, and the leftover pumpkin.  As suggested in the book, I toasted some walnuts with a few dashes of salt and cayenne and enjoyed those and a dollop of sour cream with the soup.  What's not to love about a pumpkin-filled meal?

Happy fall!

-Lil

Luck of the Irish Soda Bread Buns

"I want another piece!"

"I love Irish Bread!"

"It's still warm. It tastes warm and yummy warm!"

The critics agree, Irish Soda Bread is awesome! Now, I am sure you are wondering who these tough critics are.. So I'll tell you: they are the four-year-olds in my UWS nursery school classroom.

As picky eaters go, nursery school children top the charts. In this infamously picky crowd, it is almost unbelievable that every child present in school today ate (devoured) their portion of Irish Soda Bread. Not all, but most, requested more. This cooking project supports my belief that if you allow children the opportunity to take part in cooking and food prep they are more apt to try (and love) foods.

With all of this bread baking in our UES apartment I have been looking for an opportunity to bring it crosstown into my classroom. I feel that cooking is great for kids and that bread especially is therapeutic -- the kneading is a perfect outlet for movement.. and in a productive way! So, as Saint Patrick's Day approached I planned to make Irish Soda Bread with the classroom.

Children "folding and smooshing" aka kneading:

I modeled kneading and asked them to describe what I was doing. I threw in the word "kneading" and gave equal (if not more) emphasis to "fold and smoosh." Some children wanted to shape their dough "like playdough" which is perfect. They played and kneaded for about 5-10 minutes and rolled the dough into a ball as they were ready to put it onto the baking sheet.

A soda bread is a term that encompasses a everything from your basic baking soda-flour-salt bread to a sweeter, raisin-filled, more dessert-like soda "bread" (in quotes because it may be more cake-like than bread). American's are more familiar with the cake-style and the Irish are more familiar with the basic, bread. It is a quick bread which means there is less wait time because the recipe doesn't call for any yeast -- the rising agent is the baking soda.

Luck of the Irish Dairy Bread Buns (adapted from The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion)
(Printable Recipe)

4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon butter at room temperature
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Combine dry ingredients. Blend thoroughly making sure to press out any lumps in baking soda.
3. Add butter.
4. Use fingers to rub in butter.
5. Make a well in the center.
6. Count to 20 while slowly pouring in buttermilk.
7. Stir gently.
8. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until dough comes together.
9. Divide into 6-8 equally sized pieces.
10. Knead and shape individually.
11. Bake for about 20-30 minutes** until golden brown.
12. Let cool and finally, ENJOY!

**If you bake this as a whole loaf of bread you'll need to adjust the cooking time to be longer, about 40 minutes.

I will spare you most of the teachable moments this recipe provides.. counting to 20, digging the well, etc. I could go on and on. Lil can testify. I would like to note the fourth step, using fingers to rub the butter into the flour. It was a fantastic tactile experience for the children with the exception of one child who had a sensory hesitation so I invited him use a spoon. Even he participated in the kneading. Both kneading and stirring with the hands provided awesome, joyful learning experiences.

Happy belated Saint Patrick's Day!
- Sarah