October Pumpkin Recipe Month

"All our pies are pumpkin here."

When I was a child, my paternal grandfather would stop at Donohue's Bakery on the way home to purchase a dessert.  He would telephone and ask what we wanted.  I would say, "pumpky pie."  He would retort, "All our pies are pumpkin here."  I have always been particularly fond of pumpkin pie and my maternal grandfather baked the best pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving.  He was a pastry master when it came to crust.  From the time I was a child, I always graded a pie by the crust rather than the filling even though I love pie in general.

Mashed Pumpkin Flower Patties

The flowers that you see above can be eaten too.  My neighbors cuts them as they flower.  She takes them in and mixes them with bread crumbs and eggs.  Then she pan fries them in a thin layer of oil.  The end result is a bit too sweet for my taste in appetizers but they are good.  Giant Eagle was selling these flowers at an exorbitant price and its so easy to get your own by planting one pumpkin seed.  I prefer swiss chard patties to these.

Pumpkin Cookies with Orange Frosting

I love pumpkin baked goods and my best friend's mother had the best recipe for pumpkin cookies.  These cookies are soft bake and the icing is just sweet enough to not give the cookie a distinct flavor of it's own.  The recipe is an easy one and I recommend it for those little rug rats out there.

Pumpkin Bread

But my favorite pumpkin recipe of all is pumpkin bread.  I love it plain but I sometimes add walnuts.  My friends also add raisins but I'm not fond of raisins in baked goods so I'll just leave those out.  I love this just plain with some cream cheese spread on it.  I don't even want nuts in this one.

Pumpkin Chiffon Cake

Now this is a cake to die for.  It is so moist that you it got it's name from that feature.  Pumpkin Chiffon Cake is one of the best cakes that I have ever tasted and I make it in a bundt pan so that I can either ice it with  whipped cream icing or just dust it with powdered sugar and a dab of whipped cream on the cake when I serve it.  The end result is pretty as well as scrumptious.

Jack-o-lantern

I have made this recipe many times into a jack-o-lantern for Halloween by icing two bundt cakes to look like a pumpkin.  To be honest I used to make this using a spice cake because my Dad's birthday was on Halloween and his favorite was Spice Cake.  The same recipe can be made in mini bundt pans for individual jack-o-lanterns.

jack-o-lantern directions

The instructions for doing this are easy and pictured above.

Now that I have listed my favorites with the links to the recipes, I invite you to comment and give us your favorite recipe.