My three favorite things: Pumpkin, Oatmeal and Badgers

Dear Baking World,

Finally! Recipes! And a really good one at that.

This weekend my roommates and I threw a taco feed before the Northwestern Badger football face-off. We've done this before, but it was hotdogs not tacos. And last time, I made the mistake of making cupcakes. I found cupcake pieces scattered all over the apartment. I found a cupcake with two giant bites out of it that had been returned to the plate. Cupcakes are not good for pre-football game parties. They're only good for civilized gatherings.

So cookies it was.

Because it's October and pumpkin season, I decided to give pumpkin cookies a shot. They were supposed to cakey but because I made them the day before and refrigerated the dough, it resulted in a different cookie than I predicted. Here's a baking powder lesson: baking powder has two components. One part reacts instantly and the other part does not react until later. If you make a cake batter and put it in the fridge overnight, it won't rise when you bake it. Same thing happened to these cookies. They didn't become cake-like; rather they were dense BUT DELICIOUS! So the point of the story is, although they weren't as cakey as they were supposed to be, the results were just as (if not more) delicious.

The second recipe I tried was lauded as THE GREATEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES EVER (even though they have oats and coconut involved too.) When I was in first grade, I had my first experience with oatmeal cookies. On a class field trip we visited an Amish farm and the lovely Amish lady baked oatmeal cookies. I was not an intrepid first grader, so I am impressed that I even tried them. They were heaven. To this day, they were the best oatmeal cookies I've ever had. I've tried to find something comparable and these cookies are the closest I've gotten. They were extremely buttery, so they baked very spread out. They had two times more oats than flour (which was fine with me.) I definitely should have baked bigger cookies. According to my roommate (and I agree with her) they're weird but amazing. The fact that the plate was nearly empty by the time the party was over was an indication of their deliciousness.

Side note about the oatmeal coconut chocolate chip cookies: I used chocolate chunks against the advice of the comments. They said to use mini chocolate chips. I understand why. The chocolate chunks are just too much for this buttery cookie. Mini chocolate chips would've made a more evenly spread cookie.

So many cookies!

Pumpkin spice cookies (unfortunately I totally spaced on taking any pictures except for these...with the taco plate in the background.)

Pumpkin Spice Cookies

(adapted from allrecipes.com)

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. ground cinnamon (of course I put in more)
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg (didn't have any so I didn't put it in. I put a dash of ginger in instead)
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, cream butter, sugars. Add the pumpkin, egg and vanilla. Beat until creamy.

In a separate bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Mix the wet and dry ingredients together. Drop onto cookie sheet by tablespoonfuls.

Cream cheese frosting

8 oz. cream cheese (1 package)

4 oz. butter (half a stick)

4 cups powdered sugar

Cream the cream cheese and butter together. Add the powdered sugar. Continue adding to taste. 

Frost cookies when they're cooled.

Oatmeal Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 sticks unsalted butter

1 cup brown sugar, packed

6 Tbsp. sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 cup flour

2 1/4 cups oats

1 1/2 cup coconut

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (mini!!!) (Also, this is about a bag)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cream the butter and sugars at high speed for 4-6 minutes. Add eggs and beat until well blended. Beat in vanilla, baking soda and salt. Add flour and mix on low until just blended. Stir (I hand-mixed) in the oats, coconut and chocolate chips.

Make as large or as small as you want them. I made the cookies too small and they were very fragile. This recipe recommends 1/4 cup cookies, which sounds like it would produce more stable cookies.

Bake 15-18 minutes.