Tag: baking

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DIY Pumpkins and Pie!

Pumpkin pie

Here are 11 pumpkin-pie-inspired ideas you can bake or make!

DIYs and pumpkin pies

Eat+Drink

Pumpkin Pie – First, a classic. You can make pumpkin puree for pies and other recipes from a sugar pumpkin or even a regular carving pumpkin. (Really! I did it!)

 


Holiday Spice Mix – Blend these ingredients for a versatile, cinnamony spice you can use as pumpkin pie spice or sprinkle into hot chocolate.

 

Spiced pumpkin martini

Spiced Pumpkin Pie Martini – A pumpkin pie garnish on your cocktail?! Why not? After all, it is the holidays.

 


Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread – You can use canned pumpkin or your own pumpkin puree for this addictively good quick bread.

 


Pumpkin Pie Smoothie – This is a great breakfast on-the-go – especially during the holiday season when you have a lot of pumpkin around and not a lot of time. I added pecans and an extra cup of plain Greek yogurt to Jamie’s recipe.

 

Pie Slice Cookies – I haven’t made these, but they were so adorable that I had to include them! (If you’re looking for cookie decorating ideas and tips, there are TONS on the Sweet Sugarbelle blog!)

 

Pumpkin pie garland by martha stewart

Craft

Thanksgiving Pie Garland – Turns out paper pie slices make perfect pennants! #TeamPie

 

Fall Succulent Planter – Rachel of Maison de Pax planted succulents directly into ceramic pumpkins. Another option would be to place potted succulents inside a real (or ceramic or foam) pumpkin and take them out when you take down the autumn decor.

 

Pie necklace

Pumpkin Pie Friendship Necklaces – StudioDIY shared a tutorial for this making polymer clay pumpkin pie necklaces as part of a Friendsgiving post!

 

Mini Pumpkin Candles  – A simple project from Faith Durant at The Kichn that turns a pumpkin into a candle.

 

Botanical Pumpkins – Fall leaves and Modge Podge are a striking way to decorate pumpkins!

Photos via:
1, 2, 4. Me.
3. A Beautiful Mess
5. Love Bakes Good Cakes
6. Sweet Sugarbelle
7. Martha Stewart
8. Maison de Pax
9. Studio DIY
10. The Kichn
11. Country Living

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Solstice Cookies and Solar Cooking

Solstice cookies

The forecast high in Phoenix for the longest day of the year was 120F (49C).

So it seemed like a great day to try baking outside.

Burton Barr Library

On the way home from the summer solstice celebration at Burton Barr Library last Tuesday, we picked up chocolate chip cookie dough. I chose that for my solar cooking experiment, because there’s no raw egg in it, and if it doesn’t cook all the way, you end up with doughy cookies – not a bad thing, in my opinion!

I scooped spoonfuls of cookie dough into a reflective aluminum roasting pan, covered the top with plastic wrap, sealed the sides with packing tape to trap the heat, and added a meat thermometer, so I could see how hot it actually got next to the cookies.

Solar baked cookies

I had intended to get an earlier start, but at 3:45pm, it was still 120 degrees out. So I decided to give it a go and set the pan in direct sun on our concrete patio.

The temperature inside the pan got as high as 160. The cookies began to look like they were melting, with the oil separating from the dough.

Baking cookies outside

Four hours later, the sun was low enough in the sky that the whole patio was in the shade. The dough had flattened out into cookie shapes that were somewhat solid but still pretty soft.

Solar baking

So we scooped vanilla frozen yogurt on top (à la pizookie), and it was delicious!

Apparently, a proper solar oven will bake faster, even if it’s not as hot out. But I would try my improvised “oven” again on a day when I could get an earlier start and give it a little more time in the sun.

Phoenix library

– More info –

  • The package actually said not to eat the cookie dough raw. That didn’t stop me. But I thought you should know.
  • Many of the solar ovens I saw online have glass on top. If you decide to use plastic wrap like I did (because I didn’t have any glass panes just sitting around), try to get good cling wrap. I used the Target brand, and it was really annoying trying to get it tight across the top. (In the end, it was a wrinkly mess.)

Articles to check out…

Cookie dough

 

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