How to Get Rid of Extra Pumpkin Without Really Trying

Welcome back friends! Today we solve the problem of me having half a can of pureed pumpkin left in my fridge. I don't have any real need for pumpkin in my life so the solution is more pumpkin cookies! And before you say, "But you just did that!" allow me to rationalize my decision. First off, I wasn't involved in every part of baking the pumpkin cookies last time. So, I denied you opportunities to laugh at my ineptitude. Secondly, this is totally a different recipe! This one is for ICED pumpkin cookies! So that makes it totally different. Obviously. And thirdly, I just felt like it. So there.

As I mentioned, this recipe is for Iced Pumpkin Cookies. This recipe is brought to you by Allrecipes.com and has some sufficiently vague directions for your entertainment. It's also kinda two recipes in one because I had to make the pumpkin cookies and then I had to make the glaze for the "iced" part. Uh oh. Who remembers the last time I had to make a glaze? To remind you, I ended up with an overly thin glaze that ROLLED off my brownie cups. So I think that this is a sufficient enough challenge for a week when I have a probability exam.

The first step was to combine the dry ingredients which I missed the opportunity to do last time. Uh, yeah, that was easy. Not much to report there. Next step was to cream the butter and sugar. Uh oh. I appear to be out of salted butter. Who runs out of butter? And there's no way I'm going out for butter so unsalted butter it is. Technically, the recipe didn't specify salted vs. unsalted but when I made a similar recipe previously, it specified salted. Hope they turn out ok. Next, I mixed in the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla. Other recipes I've followed are specific about the order that things are added in, particularly for wet ingredients, but this just seemed like a free for all of "Toss it all in! It'll be fine!" I'm already suspicious of recipes that aren't coming from cookbooks and this really isn't helping the cause.

Mix in dry ingredients. Check. "Drop on cookie sheet by tablespoonfuls; flatten slightly." Well, I tried. But the dough was pretty sticky so I ended up with slightly flattened, slightly spikey looking cookies that weren't the perfect hemisphere cookies displayed in the picture. No big deal though. Now bake cookies. Between baking batches of cookies, I spent my time trying to memorize probability proofs for my midterm tomorrow. Miserable as that was, at least my kitchen smells like sugar and spice and everything nice.

And now for the glaze. I was really really dreading this after last time. However, I followed the directions precisely, and when I was done I got a way more solid looking glaze than last time. I was told to "add milk as needed to achieve drizzling consistency" and am not entirely sure what that means but I did have to add a tiny bit of milk so that I didn't have gloppy drizzling. I was also told to drizzle the glaze with a fork. This...worked. I'm just as surprised as you are. This recipe was 100% smooth and flawless in execution. Sorry to disappoint all of you who enjoy reading about kitchen disasters but either I'm getting better at baking or this recipe was absurdly easy. I even got advanced with my drizzling technique:

Aren't they pretty? I tossed them in the fridge for a couple minutes to solidify the glaze before bring them to colloquium but other than that, flawless pumpkin cookies. Oh, also, I tasted one but I really don't like pumpkin cookies so I'm no judge of how good they are. I only really tasted it so I could say that I tasted it. I thought they were gross but my officemate just said they're delicious so I'm gonna go with what she said. Success!

Critical Reception:
I don't really have much to add about the baked goods from last time. My mom had some of the cranberry crisp and liked it (though she suggested that if I ever make it again to cut the sugar in half, which I totally agree with) and I brought the Fall shaped pumpkin cookies into my office and people have been slowly chipping away at them so I guess people like them. Or they're starving. I'm going to bring them to colloquium to let them be finished off today so maybe I'll have more to add after today. Sorry for being so boring today, but it has been just an uneventful week for baking. I'll try something really crazy next time, k?

A Disney Moment: Pinocchio

Ever since I was pretty young, I remember really hating Pinocchio. I found the “I Got No Strings” segment annoying and overly catchy and the whole thing was lacking in common sense to me. Then again, I was a good kid who was never once swayed away from going to school by a traveling marionette show. However, viewing the movie as an adult, I must say, it was a lot more appealing than I remember. There were still some pretty obvious problems including that Jiminy was not a terribly effective conscience and that the timeline of the story makes zero sense. I mean, how long was Pinocchio on Pleasure Island? It seems like the whole thing happens in about 24 hours but Geppetto manages to get himself (and his two pets) swallowed by a whale, leaving his cottage for spiders to take over with cobwebs in that time. I just don’t quite get it. On the other hand, the artwork of it is sheer beauty. I really took note of how detailed every little thing was in the film. I also thought that some of the camera angles (so to speak) were really interesting. The angles really jump around and the one that stuck out in my mind was when Pinocchio is skipping away with the two anthropomorphized animals that sell him to Stromboli. It wasn’t a shot from above exactly, nor was it on the plane of where the characters were. It was more like at a 45 degree angle to the action. It’s hard to explain. But it was cool enough for me to take note of it.

Let’s see, what else? Pinocchio’s still an idiot but being a newly made boy I guess that’s forgivable. Oh! How the hell was Jiminy breathing underwater for so long? It was literally aggravating me as I watched. I was ok with Pinocchio underwater because he’s made of wood (and even had the foresight to sink himself down with a rock because wood floats. Kudos for that one, Pinocch.) but poor Jiminy would have drowned several times over during their search for Monstro. Also, I’m pretty sure this is the movie that taught my sister the “but why?” response and I may never forgive Pinocchio for that. The bottom line though for me was that I’ll remember it as one of the most beautifully drawn films I have ever seen. I rank this one about even with Snow White (maybe slightly higher) and is still a classic. Plus, I respect any children’s film that uses the word “jackass” so freely and then uses the power of animation to turn it into a pun.