Pumpkin time

Even though I am trying to be better in the kitchen as a cook, I have to say my skills thrive when it comes to baking. This is probably because when I cook I have to follow recipes to a tee and that's pretty much all baking is! The problem is I am obsessed with sweets, I coined the term "I can put down the sweets" because well, I can do exactly that. So when I found out the boyfriend and his coworker were coming to town I jumped on the opportunity to bake a bunch of goodies.

Here is my setup for my baking filled morning. My absolute dream in life is to have a setup like Giada and have all those little containers filled with everything that a baker could ever desire. Ahh a girl can dream!! 

Both of these baked goodies are pumpkin based, so if you are not a loyal pumpkin lover like me then just go away now....and please never come back. I'm kidding, but seriously, how can you not absolutely loveeee pumpkin?!

Let's start off with the banana bread, I decided to make the loaf into muffins just so it was easier to share and I don't mind the opportunity to be able to taste test one...or two. 

The concoction is a mix of my sister, Erin's skinny banana bread recipe and another website's recipe I found for pumpkin banana bread. Greek yogurt is an easy substitute for oil and/or butter. I also realized halfway through my mixing that I accidentally doubled up the pumpkin but that was okay with me. And a constant habit of mine across the board with baking is always adding a little more vanilla extract than called for, but thats a minor crime that never hurts anybody.   

Pumpkin Banana Bread/Muffins 

1 cup sugar (but I substituted for baking Splenda)

2 eggs

2 ripe bananas, mashed 

1/2 cup Greek yogurt

1/2 cup pumpkin purée

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda and baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven at 350 degrees

Beat the sugar and eggs

Add in bananas through vanilla 

In another bowl combine the dry ingredients (flour through cinnamon)

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet one!

Grease loaf pan or muffin pan and pop in the oven!

Loaf bake for about 50-55 minutes

Muffins bake for about 20-25 minutes

After those were finished off, I started the pumpkin cookies. Now these are a little less healthy due to the butt-load of chocolate chips...but once again, Im okay with it. 

Now the recipes for these two are very similar so thats why I added a lot of those little pieces of heaven and also added oats to give the cookies a different texture.

Don't worry, I taste tested the dough and it did not disappoint, so I popped those in the oven. Well after batch one finished off I put batch two in the oven and I couldn't help but try myself a gooey warm chocolatey cookie....so good. I may or may not have continued to eat three total to sum up my nutritious lunch of pumpkin baked goods, I just couldn't say no. Could you?

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup canned pumpkin purée

1/2 cup Sugar (Splenda)

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup oil (Greek yogurt)

1 egg

1 tablespoon vanilla

2 cups flour

1 cup oats

2 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg 

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 (ish) cups chocolate chip 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix pumpkin purée through vanilla

Combine flour through baking soda

Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet ones and then mix in the chocolate chips, or any chip of choice. 

Grease baking sheet

Plop a spoonful size of cookie ( they don't really spread so don't worry about them being too close together)

Bake for about 9 minutes 

By the looks of this, you could probably say that I went a little bit over board with the baking. After all of my taste tests I boxed up most of it for the boy and co. and bagged up the rest for the team since I knew keeping them around were way too dangerous for my waistline. It seemed like the team liked them too so it was another win-win for me! 

Until next time.