I Can’t Believe It’s LOW-FAT Pumpkin Cranberry Loaf

It is starting to feel a little like autumn – and I guess it should be as it is October 1!  So that means the leaves are getting starting the change colours and I feel like baking something with pumpkin.  In my mind the fall equals pumpkins.  Not sure if the pumpkin thing is because I love orange and the smell of pumpkin or the fact that Halloween is around the corner.

I’m not a fan of pumpkin pie so I made this low fat pumpkin loaf with dried cranberries.  The pumpkin and low fat yogurt make the loaf really moist and the chewy cranberries and crunchy cornmeal provide a rich texture.

It is a really nice dessert for your Thanksgiving table and great with coffee or tea the next morning.

And here is how I made it…

Ingredients

 

1 cup brown sugar  (I like the consistency of the Redpath Golden Yellow Brown Sugar)

½ cup all-purpose flour (I always use Five Rose)

½ cup whole wheat flour

½ cup cornmeal

1 ½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp salt

¾ cup pure pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling, I like this E.D. Smith pure pumpkin and you can freeze what you don’t use)

½ cup low-fat plain yogurt (I’ve also used vanilla yogurt)

2 ½ TBSP canola oil (I like Becel)

1 large egg

1 large egg white

1 cup dried cranberries

Directions

In a large bowl, stir together brown sugar, flours, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger & salt. Mix together and get all the lumps out.

In another bowl (I used my KitchenAid bowl but you don’t really need a mix master for this recipe), whisk together pumpkin puree, yogurt, oil, egg and egg white.

Stir dry ingredients with cranberries in until moistened. 

Pour patter into greased and floured 9x5 loaf pan.  I use Bakers Joy it is simply a joy to bake with this product – hence the name I guess – really it is such a great cake release.

Bake 350^O for about 60 minutes.  I always turn my baking half way through.

Cool in pan.  Turn out on wire rack to cool completely.

I’m posting this on Monday to give you time to get organized and bake it for the weekend celebrations. 

Have a great long weekend and a Happy Thanksgiving.

Turkey Legs for Dessert

Canadian Thanksgiving is next weekend – Monday October 8 to be exact.  Of course when you think of Thanksgiving, you think of turkey.  Everyone eats turkey for Thanksgiving right?  And, everyone gets stuffed on turkey and stuffing and potatoes and that green bean dish… and has no room for dessert. 

Well this year, I’m just combining the whole dinner into these drumstick cookies^* and calling it a super cute Thanksgiving.

This year I feel very thankful for my family and old and new friends and, my dogs and generally pretty nice life.

What are you thankful for this holiday?

Happy Thanksgiving!

^*I got the cookie cutter from CopperGifts – it’s the drumstick #1206. 

Now We Are Talking Turkey

Monday is Canadian Thanksgiving and that means I am “Talkin’ Turkey”.  Nice thing about these turkeys is that all the fixins are included and there is no fear that they will be dried out because I used my chocolate brownie cookie recipe. 

Materials Needed for Decorating:

- candy caramel corn – I used the Thanksgiving colours that you can sometimes find but if not the Halloween one will look just as cute

- small heart sprinkles

- candy eyes

- tweezers

- melted chocolate in a squeeze bottle if you want royal icing will also work

- royal icing – orange and white –- as always I stress how much I like Ateco meringue - --- powder because it takes like marshmallows

- round cookie cutter – any size will work the one I used was about 3” around

Instructions and Tips:

Roll out the dough and bake according to the recipe.

I actually sorta placed everything around the cookie to see how it would look before I stuck everything on – just as practice.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler and pour into squeeze bottle OR melt right in the bottle.

Squeeze a line of melted chocolate (or royal icing) and place caramel corns across the top to form the tail feathers.  Let dry (I actually put in the fridge for a few minutes).

Add the eyes with white royal icing.

Draw an orange triangle for the beak and place the heart sprinkle for the wattle – that thing that hangs down under the beak – who knew it was called a wattle?  My sister-in-law that is who knew because I did not know and called her for vocabulary help (THANKS Jill).

Draw the legs.

If you take time to make these, take a little more time and let me know how they turned out.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cake Pops -- Practice Makes Cute!

Me and Bakerella at her book signing in Toronto

So my inspiration behind this whole blog is Bakerella.  I have been reading her blog for years now – I love the way she writes and her totally creative way of decorating these candy covered crumbled cake more commonly known as cake pops.  And, now that Starbucks has them, they are quite commonly known.  But I can attest to the fact that Bakerella brought them to many peoples attention including mine – and I’m going to try to explain the various processes in making your very own cake pops (and of course, if I don’t mention it my husband, and Director of Marketing, will kill me, you can always contact me to order anything on this blog including cake pops.)

As far as I can figure it out so far there are 3 ways to make cake pops:

1.     - with a box cake mix and canned frosting

2.     - crumbled Oreo cookies

3.     - your favorite ultra moist cake which may or may not need some cream cheese icing to help it stick together (this is what I do and my favorite chocolate cake recipe does not need any icing as it is so moist)

I am going to describe the process with the assumption that you have baked a cake (box or not – there are no judgments here at Flour Child) and may or may not need frosting to help with moisture.  If you are using Oreo cookies you crumble the cookies in a food processor and, I hear, they stick together for a no bake solution.  No matter once you have your crumbs the process is the same.

Materials Needed to Cake Pop:

cake and maybe frosting

candy chocolate melts – for this project I used pink and chocolate

multi-coloured sprinkles

M&M’s – for this project I used the pink breast cancer M&M’s

lollipop sticks

2 or 3 empty egg cartons

styrofoam block

Bake your cake and crumble it with your hands or in a food processor.

Shape your cake pop – this tutorial is making a cupcake shaped cake pops but you could also make a simple ball and decorate it a kazillion different ways.  NOTE:  If your cake does not stick together easily, you may need to add some frosting to the crumbled cake.  Better to add the frosting a little at a time because you really don’t want the cake pop to be too heavy.


TIP:  You can shape the cake pops and freeze them for another time as a cake may make up to 50 cake pops and you may not need all of them.

TIP:  I bought this My Little Cupcake gizmo that shapes the crumbs into a little cupcake.  I like this a lot because it really helps with size – even if I’m not doing a cake pop that looks like a cupcake it sorta ensure a consistent size which is really important.  But, the other day I was cruising around the internet and saw that people were using meatball scoop makers to do the same thing. Then I was thinking of my ice cream scoops I use for making perfect size cookies (I have 2 different sizes) and I think that would work as well.  Size, well probably really weight, is really important when making cake pops because you don’t want them to be too heavy or you will end up with a lot of cake pops that fall off the stick (or as I call them VERY tasty rejects).  I used to have this happen all the time but I think practice and the gizmo really helps. 

Place your shaped cake pops on a wax papered cookie sheet in the refrigerator.

Place the chocolate candy melts in a double boiler to melt the chocolate.  You could also microwave the chocolate but I always burn chocolate this way so I use a double boiler.   For this project I worked first in the dark chocolate and then in the pink.

Once the chocolate is melted, let it cool slightly before dipping.  

TIP:  I usually work taking 3 or 4 cupcakes out of the refrigerator.

One at a time, dip the bottom of the cupcake in chocolate (dip just until the top of the cupcake), insert the lollipop stick about half way into the cupcake and place the cupcake in the egg carton lollipop stick up to dry.

TIP:  I usually put about the egg carton in the refrigerator to help the chocolate cool but you don’t have to as they air dry really quickly.

Melt the pink candy melts in the same way you did the chocolate ones and don’t forget to temper the chocolate for a few minutes before

Dip the cupcake tops into the tempered pink chocolate – you may wish to double dip to make the cupcake tops pop.

Sprinkle with multi-colour sprinkles.

Stick lollipop stick in a foil covered styrofoam block to allow the cake pop to dry completely.  I cover in foil so that the drips are easy to clean up.

I put these cupcake pops in floral Styrofoam covered in foil paper in a rectangular vase and think they look super cute.

Here are some other cupcake pops I’ve made and feel really proud of.

Halloween Cake Pops

Thanksgiving Cake Pops -- the face is a jelly belly

Pool Party Cake Pops -- anything with Teddy Grahams + Chocolate is YUMMY!

I think the key to successful cupcake pops is a lot of plannin and a little of practice.

Cupcake pops are always a fun party pleaser and they are super yummy.  Its moist cake on a stick – how could it not be great?