I know, it’s been like an eternity since I posted anything on here. Do me a favor, and don’t look back at the last post to see just how long it’s been. Life got crazy busy, with plenty of good things, and sadly, this is one of the things that suffered.

What better reason to re-enter the blog world than with a pumpkin recipe in October? I came across a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie recipe while browsing the endless pumpkin recipes on Pinterest awhile back. It claimed to be a soft but chewier cookie than most of the cake-like pumpkin cookies out there. I pinned it right away and knew it would be at the top of my fall baking to-do list.

I followed the original recipe, that you can find on Tessa’s blog, Handle the Heat, right here. I only made one little tweak along the way. I replaced all the ground cinnamon, ginger, and clove spices with doTERRA essential oils. I made a double batch of the recipe, using 1 drop of Clove Bud, 2 drops of Ginger, and 4 drops of Cinnamon Bark.

Our family jumped into the world of essential oils a little over a year ago, as a way to cut back on some of the synthetic products we were using in our house, and they’ve quickly found their way into every nook and cranny of our lives, even what we eat. I love that these oils are so safe that we can ingest them. I can’t say the same about all brands of essential oils. Do your research first!

I highly recommend that you make these cookies and even better if you can make them with these oils! If you want to know anymore about other uses for essential oils, I’d love to share, but didn’t want to bore everyone here for a cookie recipe with that. You can find me on Instagram at @oilsallthetime or on Facebook at Oils All The Time to learn more about them or get in touch with me about how to order some of your own oils to use in your home.

love and butter,
amy

I know what you’re thinking…”another pumpkin recipe? c’mon already.” Well, yes. No excuses, except I love this pumpkin bread. I’d rather not tell you how much of it I’ve eaten in the last 3 days. If that’s not what you’re thinking, it might be something like, “eeewww, whole wheat?” And that’s where you would be wrong, very wrong.

Have you heard of Whole Wheat Pastry Flour? If not, this might just rock your world right now. Whole wheat pastry flour is a 100% whole grain flour, that’s made of a soft white wheat. It has a protein content of 9% which lands it in the middle of cake flour and regular all purpose flour. All that means is that it’s a whole grain flour, that you can use in place of regular all-purpose flour, without hardly noticing a difference. I’ve started to use it as a replacement for all purpose flour in our house. I am sure that there are instances where you couldn’t sub it with exact results like the original recipe, but I’ve been really happy with what I’ve tried so far. I love when I can incorporate whole grains without feeling like I’m making a sacrifice of flavor or texture.

Now, back to this pumpkin bread. I originally got this recipe from my friend Courtney that I used to work with, back when I used to work at a large format printer company, of all places. I have loved that recipe and made that recipe time and time again. It’s always a winner, it freezes well(if for some strange reason you don’t just eat it all at once), and it comes together quickly. The other day, I realized I hadn’t made a batch, this fall, and knew that MUST be remedied at once.

When I pulled up the recipe, to see if I had all the ingredients it required, I was struck by how much granulated sugar it had, and that it called for vegetable oil. I’ve been trying to cut back on how much refined sugar we eat in our house, especially in something like this that I would gladly eat for breakfast, which means I would have to let Liam have some with breakfast too. In order to feel a little bit better about having this bread for breakfast, instead of the 3 cups of white granulated sugar, I cut it back to 1 cup of granulated sugar, and 1 1/2 cups of real maple syrup. That also meant cutting back on the water in the recipe, as well as upping the amount of baking soda in the recipe. A little googling is how I found suggestions on how much to adjust everything. Vegetable & Canola oil are things we’ve cut out of our kitchen, the best that we can, because of how refined, processed, and genetically modified they are. An easy swap for the vegetable oil was butter, because of course. When I’m making decisions about food in our house, I’m generally not focusing as much on calorie content but more on the “realness” of it. So, butter is going to win over vegetable oils, shortening, margarine, etc. And of course, I swapped out the all purpose flour in this recipe for my new bff whole wheat pastry flour.

Pumpkin Bread

makes 2 standard size loaves

3 1/2 cups Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
2 3/4 teaspoons Baking Soda
1 1/2 teaspoons Kosher Salt
1 tablespoon Pumpkin Pie Spice
1 cup Butter, at room temperature (I always use salted)
1 cup Granulated Sugar
1 1/2 cups Maple Syrup (the REAL stuff)
4 Eggs1/3 cup Water
1 15oz. can of Pumpkin Puree (NOT PUMPKIN PIE FILLING)

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

2. Butter and flour 2 standard loaf pans.

3. In a medium sized bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. Whisk together(that’s my version of sifting) and set aside.

4. In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream together butter and granulated sugar for about a minute or 2 on medium speed.

5. Add the maple syrup, mix, on low, until thoroughly combined.

6. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing, on low, until combined, between each addition.

7. Add the water, mix, on low, until combined.

8. Turn off the mixer, add about a third of the flour mixture, combine on low. Add the rest of the flour in 2 more additions, in the same way.  Do not overmix. You just want to get it combined.

9. Last, but absolutely not least, add your pumpkin puree, and combine with a spatula.

10. Divide evenly, into the 2 loaf pans, they should be about 3/4 full.

11. Bake for about an hour, until a toothpick comes out mostly clean, with a few moist crumbs. I usually start checking mine around 50 minutes in.

12. Once you pull it out of the oven, allow to cool completely before cutting into it. I usually let mine cool in the pans.

13. If you want to freeze it, once it is completely cooled, wrap it well in a layer of plastic wrap, and then a couple layers of foil before stashing it away.

This recipe was a fun experiment, especially since it was a success! I’m always hesitant to make big changes in baking, because I know it is such a science, and I’m still learning about how it all connects and works together, but I have to say, I’m quite proud of this one. I love this bread just as much as the original recipe, and I feel a little less guilty when I eat it for breakfast.

love and butter,
amy

Just the other day, I shared a recipe for chocolate peanut butter overnight oats. They’re super yummy, but ever since the weather has hinted at fall, I’ve been itching to try a version with pumpkin. Well, here it is, and it’s good, really good. They’re less rich than the chocolate version, which is nice if you want something that feels a little lighter in the morning.

With my chocolate version, I didn’t lay out a super exact recipe, and the same goes for these. I apologize if that makes you twitchy, but I promise, these don’t have to be precise. And who wants to complicate an easy, quick breakfast prep, with something silly like measuring spoons?

I’ll give you the run-down below, but if you don’t want to read any further, the only differences from the chocolate peanut butter oats are cutting the cocoa powder & peanut butter and then adding in canned pumpkin (NOT THE PIE FILLING) & a little pumpkin pie spice.

Pumpkin Pie Overnight Oats

Rolled Oats
Chia Seeds
Greek Yogurt (or any non-dairy yogurt you like)
Maple Syrup (the REAL stuff)
Canned Pumpkin Puree (if you’re super ambitious, you can make your own, it’s actually quite simple)
Pumpkin Pie Spice
Milk (I use whole milk, any non-dairy milk would work also)

Grab a pint-sized mason jar and add rolled oats to about 1/4 to 1/3 full.

Add a spoonful of chia seeds.

Next is a big spoonful of greek yogurt.

To sweeten it a bit, I add a splash of maple syrup.

When it comes to the pumpkin, I added a couple of good spoonfuls, around a 1/2 cup probably. I wanted it to actually taste like pumpkin.

I added a big pinch of pumpkin pie spice, initially, but ended up added more once it was all shaken up, at the end. I think I used around a 1/4 teaspoon, but you could definitely use more/less depending on your preferences.

Then, just fill it up with milk, put the lid on, shake up really well, and stick it in the fridge until morning.

So that’s that. Just another fulfillment of my pumpkin obsession.

love and butter,
amy

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It’s been too long since I’ve had a chance to bake something up in my kitchen and share it with all of you. Last week this recipe came through my blog reader, and it immediately went to the top of my “must make” list. All I needed was a reason, make that a chance (because who needs a reason for cookies?) to try them out.

Earlier this week, I got just that chance when a few friends were getting together for a little class about essential oils (more about that another time). My dear friend, Laura, offered to host us at her house, and since she doesn’t eat anything with gluten, I knew these were the PERFECT cookies to bring along.

Before we get to the recipe, a couple notes…

Oat flour is the backbone of this cookie recipe. You can certainly purchase oat flour, but I keep rolled oats on hand, for making granola and overnight oats. So, I just threw some oats into my Vitamix (best blender ever, by the way) and, in less than a minute, I had oat flour. You could also use a food processor to make oat flour, although you might not be able to get it quite as fine as if you were using a high speed blender.

Bridget calls for a teaspoon of potato flour to add to the tenderness of the cookies. After discovering that a bag of potato flour was $6 at my local market, and doing a little bit of internet research, I decided that she might have meant potato starch and that cornstarch was a similar ingredient. So, I went with cornstarch.

There are several yummy spices in this recipe. One is allspice, which I happened to be out of. So, these cookies didn’t get any allspice. Adding that to my grocery list now to make sure I’m restocked for the next fall baking that’s guaranteed to happen soon. The other spice I want to mention is the freshly grated nutmeg. If you’ve ever grated nutmeg for a dish, you’ll know what a difference it makes. It’s so much more fragrant, and so easy to do. All you need is a grater and some whole nutmeg. The other great thing is that this allows you to grate just what you need for the recipe you’re making, and the whole nutmeg stores and lasts much longer than grated nutmeg.

The original recipe calls for 2 sticks of salted butter. If you know anything about me, you know I’m not afraid of butter. That being said, I was curious to see if I could sub out some of the butter for something a little lighter. Really, I just wanted to be able to eat more cookies without feeling quite as guilty about it. I did a little more internet research and decided to try greek yogurt, because I had a bunch in my fridge already. I’m sure the original recipe with the full amount of butter is even more decadent, but these did NOT taste like they were missing anything.

Finally, I wanted to use some brown sugar in addition to the white sugar, just to add a little more depth. So that’s what I did.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from this recipe
makes approx 40 cookies

2 cups Oat Flour
1 teaspoon Corn Starch
1 & 1/2 teaspoons Cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon Ground Ginger
1/2 teaspoon Freshly Grated Nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon Ground Cloves
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
3/4 teaspoon Kosher Salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) Salted Butter at room temperature
4.75 oz Brown Sugar
4 oz Granulated White Sugar
1 Egg at room temperature
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 cup Canned Pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
2/3 cup Semisweet Chocolate Chips

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Prep your cookie sheets with parchment paper.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, corn starch, spices, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer, cream together the butter, greek yogurt, and both sugars. Because of the greek yogurt, it doesn’t get super fluffy, but make sure to let it mix together well.

4. Turn off the mixer, add the egg & vanilla extract, and beat to combine.

5. Turn off the mixer, add the pumpkin, and beat to combine. I noticed here that the texture definitely didn’t look like normal cookie dough. It almost looked a little curdled? I hate to even use that word, and I was nervous, trust me. I’m blaming it on the greek yogurt, but don’t worry, it gets better.

6. Turn the mixer off, add the flour mixture, and mix on low until thoroughly combined.

7. Turn the mixer off, add in chocolate chips, and incorporate with a spatula.

See, much better?

8. For evenly sized cookies, use a scoop to measure dough onto your parchment-lined cookie sheets. My scoop made about 40 cookies, and I put 12 on each tray to give them enough space to spread a little when they baked.

9. Bake for 8-12 minutes. Because of the color of these cookies, it can be a little bit difficult to know if they’re done. You can tap the top of one to make sure its not super squishy still.

10. Allow to cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet. Then move to a cooling rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container for a few days, if they last that long!

I tell you what, these cookies do NOT taste like they’re gluten free and they do NOT taste like they’re missing any butter. They’re soft, almost a little cakey, and they really do melt in your mouth. I will definitely be making these again before fall is over. I love having a super yummy gluten free cookie in my arsenal too. They aren’t always easy to come by. If you love all things pumpkin like I do, I hope you’ll give these cookies a try.

love and butter,
amy