Pumpkin Cookies Redux

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! In this very brief blog post (because I'm busy with things like, you know, cooking Thanksgiving dinner), I revisit the Iced Pumpkin Cookies that I made not too long ago. The reason I'm baking these again is because a) my mommy really liked them and was sad that I only let her have three cookies last time and b) it's Thanksgiving and pumpkin is a Thanksgiving thing, right? I wasn't entirely sure if I should even blog about this baking adventure since it's like one of those really lame sequels where it's just recreating the first successful film to make more money but I decided that I won't be baking much this week so I'd rather not leave you blog post-less.

So on to the cookies. This time I decided to double the recipe so I can serve them as one of the Thanksgiving desserts. Plus the recipe really only calls for half a can of pumpkin and what was I going to do with a half a can of leftover pumpkin when I still don't even really like pumpkin? Exactly. So doubling the recipe. Being at home, I got to once again use the lovely KitchenAid mixer and got overly happy about how well the butter and sugar was creamed. Seriously, it was so white and fluffy and it was like new fallen snow. I've been baking too much. Anyway, nothing interesting to report about the baking. It was smooth because I've done it before. The doubled recipe made a hell of a lot of cookies though.

Things got a little fun during the icing phase of the cookies. Since I doubled the recipe I figured I should double the recipe for the icing too, right? Wrong. Wayyyyyy too much icing. Also, despite assurances from my mom that we are never out of vanilla extract, we ran out of vanilla extract. Now, it's Thanksgiving week and I had already been to the supermarket twice that day and I so was not braving the Shop Rite crazies again so I (of course) Googled "vanilla extract substitute". Apparently you can use maple syrup! Cool, right? And we actually had that so that was exciting. Then my mom and I spent some bonding time icing the cookies and slightly competing to see who could decorate the cookies better. Overall, a smooth, relaxing baking experience. We stacked the cookies on a plate to cover them for turkey day and when they were halfway covered, they looked like a cave of cookies. Behold! The Cave of Wonders Cookies:

I was not inclined to try these cookies again since I really just don't like them. My mom loves them though and my boyfriend liked them a lot so, success. Now, this has nothing to do with anything but go see The Muppets. I went to the midnight showing and did not stop laughing for the entire movie. It was fantastic. I won't gush because I do enough of that but I ranked it in my top ten movies that I've seen. Ever.

Critical Reception:
So the cinnamon bread has been decently well received. My boyfriend was surprised and delighted that I went out of my way to make him the cinnamon bread he loves. My sister and mom agreed that I used the wrong proportion of starter. I did the bad math. With the amount of starter I had, I should have made 4 loaves of bread, not 2. Oh well, live and learn, right? Still tasty, just a little denser than I would have liked. P.S. Go see The Muppets.

A Disney Moment: The Three Caballeros 
Ok, so powering through the dark Disney days, the next film was The Three Caballeros. I remember that song! So I had higher hopes going in than I did with Saludos Amigos. That was a mistake. Apparently the premise is that it's Donald's birthday and he's opening gifts. Within approximately 30 seconds, my sister and I got annoyed and turned on subtitles so we could understand Donald. It was late, we were tired, and we just couldn't deal with it. So, in the first segment, Donald receives a projector with a film documentary on birds. Oh boy. So boring. I can't decide whether or not I should be ashamed to admit this, but we fast forwarded through part of this. We just couldn't do it.

Next was a segment about Pablo the penguin. It reminded me of Pedro the mail plane from Saludos Amigos. We didn't find Pablo very interesting. It's just the whole documentary style of the segments that doesn't grab me. The next segment was about a flying donkey. This one was mildly entertaining. Partially because I thought it was cute that the donkey's name was Burrito. I just asked my sister what she thought about this segment. She didn't remember it existed. Nuff said.

Next, Donald got the popup book from hell because that other bird pops out of it and then they jump into the book to sing about the samba. One of the better segments but still not great. Then we meet the third bird and we sing Three Caballeros. Yay! The only memorable part of the movie! But it was so short. Sad. The next segment tells a religious story about Christmas and pinatas. It's confusing. Then the birds fly to Mexico on a flying carpet sarape. This was the point where we got a little crazy. Donald's love interest had crazy eyes and she terrified us. All of the men in the segment were creepers (because yes, the movie has real people in it and yes, that annoyed us) and after calling them creepy repeatedly we realized, South America...late 1940s...NAZIS! Every time we saw one of the creepy men we'd just yell "Aaaaaah! Nazis!" Yeah, we're mature.

I don't even care about talking about this film any more. The movie ended with a really tripped out scene that rivals Pink Elephants and anything that would been seen in Alice in Wonderland. I think this one ranks about a 2/5 because I liked the actual Three Caballeros part and the shorts were ever so slightly tied together by Donald opening birthday presents. And because the other 4 movies in this 5 movie grouping are just really bad. There's such a low bar. You know what doesn't have a low bar though? The Muppets. Just sayin'.