Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bars

We had a really awesome Halloween.  It was a blast!  We all dressed up and went trick-or-treating and our costumes were quite the hit.  I am so fortunate to have a really cool husband who not only humors my ridiculous requests but also enjoys participating and isn't completely mortified to walk all over the base wearing a snug green jumpsuit.  What a guy!!

When our girls had filled up their question mark blocks, we headed home where I'd left dinner in the oven.  Dinner in a Pumpkin (minus the green onions - due to the typhoon, we're having a green onion shortage at the commissary) was a bigger hit with the adults than the kids, but still a hit regardless.  I threw together dessert in a flash and put it in the oven while we picked through candies, ate dinner out of a pumpkin, and greeted the later batch of trick-or-treaters.

Dessert, though, is what I REALLY want to talk about.  Oh.  My.  Heavenly.

When I found this recipe on GourmetMomOnTheGo.com and tried it out, I knew I had found something special.  I tasted it and the only word that came to mind was, "Magical."  That sounds ridiculous, I know, but try it and you'll understand.  As my tastebuds exploded into sugary, creamy bliss, I recall thinking that this could be SUCH a versatile recipe.  And it was the first recipe that came to mind when I was thinking about desserts for Halloween.

So, I "Autumned" it up a little bit.  And wow, was it GOOD!


Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bars

Ingredients:

• 2 cans Pillsbury Crescent Roll Creations seamless dough
• 2 8-oz packages cream cheese (I use Neufchâtel), softened
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup solid pumpkin puree
• 1 tsp cinnamon (or pumpkin pie spice - I actually use Pampered Chef's "Cinnamon Plus blend" - LOVE that stuff!)

For the topping:

• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º.  Spray a 13x9" pan with cooking spray, and press one package into the bottom of the pan.
2. With a hand mixer, beat together the cream cheese, 3/4 cup sugar, vanilla, pumpkin, and 1 tsp cinnamon until smooth.  Spread this mixture over the top of the crescent roll dough.
3. Unroll the second can of dough and spread it over the top of the cream cheese mixture.
4. Combine the remaining sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the top of the crescent dough.
5. Bake, uncovered, for 20 minutes.
6. Allow to cool before cutting and serving - the cream cheese mixture will be ultra melty and gooey and a big mess if you are too impatient like I am!

I shared this post at MySweetCreations for Sweet Sunday.

Skellie-Men

I have stumbled across so many cute and awesome Halloween goodies this year that I've been overwhelmed and admittedly at times a bit in over my head.  And now we're only four days out from Halloween and trick-or-treating and I am realizing that I haven't even finished up the kids' costumes yet!  Yikes!

But today we caught a little break.  Okinawa is currently under Typhoon Chaba - a category 4 storm which is blowing like crazy and keeping us all indoors.  This has given me some time to hang out with the kids, finish up some of my treat-making (and brainstorm the treat-making yet to come), and make another extra pair of Halloween bentos.

Last night I was up late icing my Skellie-Men cookies.  I am SO thrilled with how they turned out.  When I got the first little man iced I literally squealed and ran to show him to my husband.  Today I have a tray full of Skellie-Men, ghosts, skulls, and Skellie-Bats.  I still have half a batch of dough in the fridge that I'm planning to make pumpkins out of, but we're all about baby steps here.  Plus, I keep adding more projects to my list, so I am kind of having a hard time keeping up with...  myself.

Anyways, these cookies are pretty much the coolest thing I've ever made, I think.  ;)


Skellie-Men Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened dark cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup margarine, softened
• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 1 whole egg plus 1 egg yolk

Directions:

1. Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt; set aside.  In a medium bowl, cream together the margarine and sugar until smooth.  Beat in the eggs.  Gradually stir in the sifted ingredients to form a soft dough.  Divide the dough into two pieces, flatten and wrap in plastic wrap.  Refrigerate at least two hours.
2. Preheat oven to 375º F.  On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to 1/8" thickness.  (I dusted the top of the dough and the rolling pin with cocoa powder before rolling it out.)  Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters.  (We used a mini gingerbread man, mini bat, mini ghost and mini skull.)  This dough is sticky so be sure to add more flour and/or cocoa powder to the rolling surface as neded.  Place the cookies 1 1/2" apart on cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 8-10 minutes in the preheated oven (for mini cutters, 8 minutes was plenty to produce a crisp cookie).  Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for five minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.
4. Ice as desired.  I used CakeMate's Easy Squeeze bags and tips.

I shared this post at MySweetCreations for Sweet Sunday.

Banana Oat Mini Muffins

Breakfast, breakfast.  I've been on a muffin kick - mini muffins particularly.  It's something about fall, I think.  This morning when A woke up and saw me transferring these muffins from the pan to a cooling rack, the conversation went a little like this:
A:  Mommy, why are you always making muffins?
Me:  Because they're delicious and they're easy and fun for breakfast.
A:  Well, I don't like muffins any more and I don't want them for breakfast.

Insert a sad face here.  She did manage to choke one down and enjoyed it, but I think I'll have to lay off the muffins for a bit so that she can have a muffin break.  Le sigh.

Oh well, these actually turned out quite well and I'm happy with them.  I'll be saving the recipe for later on when A is past her muffin hiatus.  We got about 3 dozen muffins out of this recipe.


Banana Oat Mini Muffins
Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/4 cup Splenda
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/3 cup applesauce
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 mashed bananas

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400ºF.
2. Combine flour, oats, sugar, Splenda, baking powder, soda, and salt.
3. In a large bowl, beat the egg lightly.  Stir in the milk, applesauce, and vanilla.  Add in the banana and combine thoroughly.  Stir the flour mixture into the banana mixture until just combined.
4. Lightly grease a mini muffin tin and add the batter to the cups, filling them almost to the tops.
5. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love cookies, but these are my all-time favorite.  When we were living in Southern California, we frequently shopped at the nearby Ralph's grocery store.  It's on the spendier side - especially compared to the commissary on base - but everything in there seems so colorful and fresh and awesome, so shopping there seemed like a special treat.  Plus, I really like shopping in grocery stores with "ambiance" - it's something about the lighting - and Ralph's was chock full of it.

Our favorites there were the freshly baked daily croissants - my husband had their baking schedule memorized and would get there just in time to bring home fresh, piping hot croissants - and their pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.  The pumpkin chocolate chip cookies were available year round - even in the heat of summer I could satisfy my pumpkin obsession and if I went home and sat in front of a fan while indulging in the cookies, I could pretend it was fall.

We were so sad to leave Ralph's territory and leave these delicious, soft and flavorful cookies behind.  In fact, I was so attached to these cookies that when we passed through California en route from Texas to Okinawa, I made sure to pit stop at Ralph's and bought a couple dozen of them to bring with us.  For the first week in Okinawa, my husband and I carefully rationed the cookies out to each other, savoring every bite.

Then, one day I got a phone call from a friend in hysterics.  She claimed that she knew how to make the Ralph's cookies!  Impossible!

She was right, though, and the cookies are amazingly easy.  And incredibly satisfying.


Pumpkin Chip Cookies
Ingredients:

• 2 boxes spice cake mix
• 1 large can pumpkin pie mix
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400ºF.
2. Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl with a hand mixer.
3. Drop heaping tablespoons of dough onto cookie sheets about 2"apart.  I line the sheets with parchment paper and use a cookie dough scoop.
4. Bake for 12-15 minutes in the preheated oven.
5. Allow to cool several minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Yep, that's IT!  Pretty cool, right?  These are a must try for the season, trust me.  Be prepared to share, though!  When we made these yesterday morning, I ended up with a grand total of 82 cookies.  That's a lot, even for me!  ;)

I shared this post at MySweetCreations for Sweet Sunday.