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What’s the appropriate snack to eat when you’re getting the family ready for Halloween?

serving-greatpumpkin

Great Pumpkin cookies, of course!

Great Pumpkin Cookies
A delicious snack while you’re waiting for the “Great Pumpkin.”
Ingredients
  • 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 lb. can pumpkin
  • 2 3/4 cups flour, sifted
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon ginger
  • 1 cup raisins
  • 1 cup pecans, chopped
Instructions
  1. Pre-heat oven to 400°.
  2. Mix sugar, shortening, eggs, and pumpkin thoroughly in a large bowl.
  3. Sift dry ingredients and add to pumpkin mixture. Blend well. Add raisins and pecans.
  4. Drop batter by teaspoonsful on ungreased baking sheets.
  5. Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven, and lift off with a pancake turner.
3.2.1311

 

GreatPumpkinCookies

PeanutsCookbook

It’s even more appropriate because our youngest is always bringing along his blanket. (Considering he also doesn’t want to dress up in costumes, maybe I’ll just let him carry the blanket and claim he’s Linus. GENIUS.)

mixing

Canned pumpkin is wonderful stuff. And it’s incredibly good for you. I mean, adding so much sugar and shortening probably reduces that somewhat… but there are still vitamins and fiber. Yay!

batter

Mixing the shortening directly with liquid ingredients (eggs, and in this case, pumpkin) is never a good idea. All those little pale blobs are shortening, and it took many minutes of mixing to get them to shrink enough that I’d consider it all incorporated. It’s faster to cream fat and sugar, and then add other liquid stuff (slowly).

additions

But it did end up OK, especially after the flour was put in, and then we added plenty of raisins and pecans.

dosed

The consistency of this was fairly liquid — not as dense as typical cookie dough, more like a thick cake or quickbread.

tasting-friend

Oh look, a pumpkin guest came to the tasting this week!

tasting-happy

“Ooooh, these are yummy.”

“Cool! Now let’s carve your friend…”

Verdict: Great! Pumpkiny!

From the tasting notes:

Pumpkin-based desserts = yummy. These had a soft consistency almost more like muffins or cake, but were bite-size like cookies. Nice and flavorful. Once again, well-hidden raisins were accepted by the picky eater.

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