Pumpkin Cookies from Apple Cookie & Chocolate Company, Pittsburgh, PA

I have to admit that I have known about this local cookie baking company for quite a few years, but have never taken the time to try their cookies.  Although they are local they do not adhere to the local bake shop image.  Apple Cookie & Chocolate Company is located in a converted steel mill in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania.  They mostly cater to the trade show venue making specialties for corporations and businesses.

Pumpkin Cookie from Apple Cookie & Chocolate Co.

The picture above is my presentation of one of their specialty cookies for the Halloween season.  I love these with a cup of coffee in the morning.  The container is not one of the containers from Apple Cookie & Chocolate Company but one that my son used to fill with cookies that he bought.  My son formerly worked at the restored mill and ordered $20 worth of these fabulous cookies.  He has brought home some of their other cookies in the past but I can't eat semisweet chocolate anymore so I have tried a piece of their cookies but not really paid too much attention to their products until now.

A couple of years ago I ordered these cookies for my special Halloween treats for my trick or treating guests.  Since I'm known in the neighborhood as the cookie lady, these were the perfect treat for them.  Apple Cookie normally packages their cookies differently but they wrapped these for my son individually.

Two years ago when I went to purchase for the upcoming holiday, I was disappointed because they only package the pumpkin cookies in the larger size and they cost $1.50 each.  That is too expensive for my purpose since over 150 children come to my door each year, but I will order enough for my personal craving for these cookies and my special bags for my grandchildren.

They also carry buckets of their chocolate Chip, Oatmeal Raisin, White Chocolate and Peanut Cutter in cans for special occasions.

Besides baking cookies this company does specialty marketing gift selections.  They are online and can be viewed at http://www.applecookies.com.   If you are looking for that special treat for a party or shower, I recommend you give this website a look see.

Halloween at Paddy Cake Bakery, Bloomfield, Pittsburgh, PA

When you are out and about looking for those Halloween Treats, there's a local bakery in the Bloomfield neighborhood that fills the bill and is sure to have just what you want.  I feature them each year for Halloween because they do such a fantastic job in decorating for this holiday.



This bakery has never changed their icing recipe that was brought over from the old country and is simply the best butter cream icing that I've ever tasted.  Light and Fluffy without that gritty sugar taste.

Halloween is a fun time at the bakery and their decorators go crazy with the theme.  The ghost cakes have petit four icing on them.

and the wonderful petit fours are decorated with Fall Mums.




On the spookier side they offer the ever popular coffin cake. 

OR, you can get a half cake mounted into a backdrop with a design to be a haunted house. 

If you want to get macabre, you can buy a brain cake.

 Halloween is a time to tickle the youngster's taste buds and Paddy cake does that with their candy apples during the Halloween season.

Halloween wouldn't be complete without cookies and Paddy Cake has sugar cookies that are pumpkin cut outs.

or pumpkin gob  cookies.

Whatever your Halloween pleasure, you wont be disappointed if you visit Paddy Cake Bakery in the heart of the Bloomfield business section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

A couple of more designs by Paddy Cake Bakery.

Happy Halloween Shopping



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.

Soup Feeds the Soul

Let's talk about making soups and putting them up for winter.  By putting them up for winter, I mean freezing portions for later use.  I find that soups from the freezer are just as good and sometimes better than when we first made them.  So let's get started and make some of my favorite soups.

There is nothing better for you in cold weather than a bowl of soup. One of my favorite recipes for soup is Tortellini Soup.

This soup takes some special techniques if you follow the recipe closely but is well worth the effort. This hearty soup is sure to chase away those chills.

You can't make soup from scratch without including Homemade Vegetable Soup. My mom made the best and I've spent a lifetime trying to duplicate her recipe.

There is one rule to making good vegetable soup and that is the more vegetables the better. My personal like is to add butter beans but no lima beans. Since this is Lent, You would make the vegetable soup without any meat base but my Mom usually started her vegetable soup by simmering chuck roast chunks to give it a fuller flavor.

Another one of my favorite soups for this season is Stuffed Pepper Soup.

This is another hearty soup that is very easy to make. The hardest part of the process is sauteing the ground beef.

All of these soups use a tomato base but what could be better than home made chicken dumpling soup.

When you start out with a good chicken broth and add the goodness of chopped chicken and vegetables.  Topping it all off with those wonderful doughy dumplings to give it a hearty flavor.

There are so many other soups we can make for the coming blustery Winter season.