Over the years, I’ve written about bacon a lot. If you want some serious bacon action, just check out the bacon section of the Macheesmo!

I’ve mentioned in passing how I like to cook bacon, but I thought it would be worth it to spend a post walking you through how I make my bacon.

Not only does this method result in what I believe to be the best bacon possible, but it lends itself well to a bunch of fun variations on bacon which are also included in this post.

So… vegetarians… look away!

Bacon lovers… proceed!

The Perfect Bacon

Yield: 8 strips of bacon

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

Basic Recipe:
8 strips of bacon
Coarse ground black pepper

Chocolate Bacon:
8 strips cooked bacon
2 ounces milk chocolate
2 tablespoons cream, or butter

Maple Bacon:
8 strips cooked bacon
4 tablespoons real maple syrup

Candied Bacon:
8 strips cooked bacon
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Helpful Equipment:
Sheet Pan
Wire rack (oven safe)

Directions:

1) Add oven safe wire rack to a sheet pan so it is slightly elevated off the pan. Lay out 8 strips of bacon on the wire rack. It's okay if the strips overlap slightly. Season with ground pepper.

2) Baked in a cold 400 degree oven for 10-15 minutes.

3) Remove bacon and flip the strips.

4) Bake for another 10 minutes or until very crispy. Let cool briefly before serving.

Chocolate Version:
1) I like the pepper/chocolate combo, but you might want to leave the pepper off if you're doing a chocolate version. Otherwise, cook bacon as directed above.

2) Meanwhile, in a small microwave safe bowl, add cream or butter and chocolate and microwave in 15 second bursts until the chocolate is melted and smooth.

3) When bacon is cooked and cooled to room temperature, drizzle chocolate over bacon. Cool in the fridge for 10-15 minutes so chocolate hardens.

Maple Version:
1) Cook bacon as directed, but when you flip the bacon halfway through, drizzle maple syrup on each strip of bacon. Return bacon to oven to finish cooking.

2) Let cool slightly before serving.

Candied Bacon:
1) Cook bacon as directed. Meanwhile, mix together brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. When you take bacon out halfway through to flip it, sprinkle each strip with brown sugar mixture.

2) Return bacon to oven to finish cooking.

3) Let cool briefly before serving.

The Basic Technique

The title of this post is the BEST way to make bacon, but I probably should’ve added an asterix to that. There are, of course, dozens of ways to make bacon and some are better than other depending on what you want to do with the bacon.

This is not how you should make bacon if you’re adding it to a sauce (like pasta carbonara) or something like that.

This is how you should make bacon if you want to eat big strips of perfectly crispy, salty bacon that aren’t soaked in grease. In my mind, that makes for the perfect piece of bacon and this technique delivers every single time.

You really only need two pieces of equipment to pull this off. First you need some sort of rimmed sheet pan or baking sheet. Most people probably have that.

The piece of equipment that some people may not have unless you bake regularly is a wire rack. And not just any rack… it needs to be oven safe. Like this one. These are cheap and if you make bacon even once a month, it’s worth it to pick one up just for bacon.

Then just set your wire rack on your sheet pan and lay out your bacon in long strips on the wire rack.

The rack is key!

I like to season my bacon really well with coarsely ground fresh pepper, but that’s an optional step.

Once you have your bacon laying on the wire rack, just stick the whole thing in a NOT pre-heated 400 degree oven for about 12-15 minutes. Bacon should start off cooking slowly, so don’t pre-heat your oven for it.

PS. If you’re ever cooking bacon in a skillet or pan, it’s always best to start it off cold.

The reason that this method works so well is because as the bacon cooks, the fat falls away from it and collects on the sheet pan, so the bacon gets very crispy. Because the wire rack is supporting the bacon, it also stays in beautiful strips.

While you don’t have to flip the bacon, I recommend it after about 12-15 minutes just to make sure your bacon is cooking evenly.

Halfway home.

There can be a pretty huge range in bacon thickness. Obviously, depending on the thickness of your bacon, you might have to adjust the cooking time. If you’re using very thick, slab bacon, you’ll probably have to add on 5-10 minutes to the total cooking time.

After you flip the bacon, just stick it back in the oven for another 10 minutes or so.

When you pull your bacon out, let it cool briefly and you’ll end up with these beautiful strips.

Very crispy!

The best part about this bacon is how absolutely crispy it is.

If you don’t like your bacon crispy, you can still cook it this way… just pull it out a few minutes early.

But for me, crispy is where it’s at.

Bomb bacon.

Now that you have the method down, there’s three really fun variations that are very easy to do, but taste amazing.

Let’s go through them!

Choco-Bacon

This looks and tastes very decadent, but is super-easy to do. Basically, cook the bacon as directed above, but leave off the ground pepper. Actually, I like the pepper-chocolate combo, but it’s not for everyone so maybe just leave it off to be safe.

Then, in a microwave safe bowl, add the cream or butter and chocolate and zap it in 15 second bursts until the chocolate is melted.

Once your bacon is cooked, let it cool down to room temperature and then just drizzle on the chocolate. You could also completely dip the pieces of bacon in the chocolate if you want!

Drizzle drizzle

I like the chocolate to be solid for this recipe so after you drizzle or dip it on, just stick the plate in your fridge for 10-15 minutes and the chocolate will harden.

The salty chocolate combo is pretty amazing.

Maple Bacon

Bacon and maple were made to be together. Just a few notes on this variation to make sure it goes smoothly for you.

1) Use real maple syrup. If in doubt, look at the ingredients. It should only have one: maple syrup. If it has corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup, then try again. The problem with these is that they will cook differently on the bacon and it’ll be very sugary. Not ideal.

2) Don’t add the maple syrup at the beginning. It’ll burn by the time the bacon is done. Instead, half cook the bacon and then when you take the bacon out to flip, add a small drizzle of syrup to each strip.

It doesn’t take much to get the job done.

Nature's sugar.

After baking for 10 more minutes, the syrup will mostly evaporate leaving just a light maple flavor on the bacon.

It’s super delicious and really very easy once you master the basic technique.

Candied Bacon

I saved my favorite variation for last.

Basically, you just mix some brown sugar and cinnamon together like so…

The mix.

After the half-way cooking point for the bacon, sprinkle on a bit of the brown sugar on each strip.

While the bacon finishs cooking, the sugar will melt around it and form this delicious sweet crust.

When the bacon cools, the sugar hardens and makes the bacon even more crispy (which I like) and the salty sweet combo is perfect.

You must try this.

So there you have it. The definitive way to make really good bacon with a few fun alternatives!

Give it a shot if you’re in the mood for crispy and delicious bacon.

Millions of cinnamon rolls!

You know you’re a food blogger when…

1) You are used to eating meals at room temperature because you had to spend 10 minutes photographing the darn thing.

2) You have the grocery store aisles memorized.

3) You bring baked goods to bars during happy hour just so you can get them out of the house.

Number three is exactly what happened with this delicious thing. I made it, photographed it, ate more of it than I should have and then rushed out the door to catch a beer with some friends.

I was about to leave when I decided… what the heck… let’s bring it to the bar! This was a good idea. People loved it because the tiny little rolls are bite-sized. Even our server snuck a few pieces!

While I was going to write that this recipe is really great for brunches, it also happens to be perfect for bars.

Chocolate Chip Monkey Bread

Yield: Serves 10.

Prep Time: 30 minutes + rise time

Total Time: 4 hours

Ingredients:

Dough:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 cup milk, warm
1/3 cup water, warm
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon instant yeast
3.25 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
2 teaspoons salt
3 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips (opt.)

1-2 tablespoons butter, soft for bundt pan.
1 teaspoon vegetable oil, for rising

Brown Sugar Coating:
1 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
8 tablespoons unsalted butter , melted

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk

Helpful Equipment:
Bundt Pan

Directions:

1) Butter pan with 2 tablespoons softened butter and set aside for later.

2) In a large bowl, mix together milk, water, melted butter, sugar and yeast. Meanwhile, mix flour and salt in standing mixer fitted with dough hook. Turn machine to low and slowly add milk mixture. After dough comes together, increase speed to medium and mix until dough is shiny and smooth, 6 to 7 minutes. If at any point dough is very sticky, add more flour by the tablespoon.

If you don't have a mixer, just mix the ingredients in a bowl with a wooden spoon until the dough forms a rough ball. Then turn out onto a floured surface and knead the dough until it forms a smooth ball, about 5-6 minutes.

3)Turn dough onto lightly floured counter and knead briefly to form smooth, round ball. Coat large bowl with vegetable oil or nonstick spray. Place dough in bowl and coat surface of dough. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise until dough doubles in size, about an hour.

4) For the sugar mixture, mix brown sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl. Place melted butter in second bowl.

5) To finish bread, remove the dough from the bowl, and pat into a rough 10-inch square. Sprinkle chocolate chips on half of the dough and fold it over. Then roll out again to a square. Using a bench scraper or knife, cut dough into tiny 1/4-1/2 inch pieces.

6) Roll each piece into a rough ball and dip into the melted butter, allowing excess butter to drip back into the bowl. Roll in the brown sugar mixture, then layer balls in the Bundt pan. Try to stagger the balls so they form a single thing.

7) Cover the Bundt pan tightly with plastic wrap and let rise for another hour until the balls are about 2 inches from the top of the pan.

8) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Unwrap the pan and bake until the top is deep brown, about 35-40 minutes. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a late and allow to cool slightly, about 10 minutes.

9) While the bread cools, whisk the confectioners’ sugar and milk in a small bowl until the lumps are gone. Using a spoon, drizzle the glaze over the monkey bread. Serve warm.

Adapted from a Brown Eyed Baker recipe.

The Dough

This dough is basically a cinnamon roll dough. It’s pretty much the easiest kind of dough to work with in my opinion. It’s really easy to mix and knead. It’s very soft and stretchy. It’s really easy to roll out and shape!

Start it by mixing all the dough ingredients except the salt and flour in a small bowl. Stir them together and let them sit for a minute or two to make sure the yeast is dissolved and active. It should start foaming a bit.

In a mixing bowl, combine your salt and flour and add in the liquid stuff. If you have a stand mixer, just mix this all together with the dough hook on low-medium speed until it comes together in a soft ball, about 5 minutes.

This is a really easy dough to make without a mixer though. Just stir the ingredients together with a wooden spoon and once they are all together, knead the dough on a floured surface until it’s a nice smooth and soft ball.

Mixer or no mixer, if the dough ever gets sticky, add more flour.

Pretty straightforward

Once your dough ball is formed, add it to a bowl that’s been lightly oiled. I just used some vegetable oil and coated the inside of the bowl. Turn the dough ball over in the bowl so it gets nice and coated and then cover the dough and let it rise for about an hour. It should double in size.

This was my finished dough ball.

After a short rise.

Making the Balls

Now for the fun part. Scoop the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out into a large square. Then sprinkle your chocolate chips on half of the square.

The chocolate is optional, but I thought it worked perfectly in the recipe. You can use almost any chocolate chip. I just used some semi-sweet chips that I had in my pantry.

You only need a few ounces to get some nice chocolate flavor.

No need to go crazy with chocolate.

Fold the dough over and pack it down so the chocolate chips are more or less enclosed in dough.

Folded and lightly rolled.

Then use a knife or a dough scraper to chop up the dough into bite-sized pieces. You should shoot for 60-70 little pieces. About 1/2 inch squares is a good goal.

It’s actually good to have different sizes though so don’t worry about them all being totally even.

Approximately a million.

Filling the Pan

In a small bowl, mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon. Also use a separate small bowl and gently melt some butter in the microwave.

Working with a few pieces of dough at a time, roll them into rough balls and dunk them in the melted butter.

No substitutions here...

Then toss them in the sugar and cinnamon mixture and roll them around. A light coating is all you need.

Like an inside out cinnamon roll

Then toss the finished balls in a bundt pan that has been pretty heavily buttered.

Keep going until you use all your dough. If you have a normal sized pan you’ll probably about half fill the pan which is perfect.

About half full is good.

If you don’t have a bundt pan, I don’t see why you couldn’t make this in a normal baking dish. It might not be quite as attractive, but it would still be delicious.

Regardless of the pan you choose, after you finish stacking all the balls of dough, cover the pan and let them rise a second time. About another hour should give you a great puffy dough.

While it might not look like these have risen much, keep in mind that they are also expanding to fill a bunch of little cracks that are in between all the dough balls. This second rise is really important.

A longer second rise.

Baking and Glazing

Once your dough has risen a second time, bake them at 350 degrees for about 35-40 minutes. They should be a nice golden brown and you might also notice some brown sugar bubbling up around the edges. That means it’s done!

This was my finished bread and it not only looked great, it smelled amazing!

Hello beautiful.

Let this cool in the pan for a few minutes and then invert it on a plate or platter.

Meanwhile, just stir together the powdered sugar and milk to make a very simple glaze.

Once the bread has cooled for 10 minutes or so, go ahead and drizzle the glaze all over it.

A simple glaze.

You could slice this, but I actually preferred serving it with toothpicks so people can just pick off the bread piece that they want.

Some people prefer the outer ones that get kind of crispy. Some like the inside ones that are soft.

So good!

For the delicious and show-stopping dessert that is produced, this thing really isn’t that hard to make. The dough is really easy to bring together and then it’s just a matter of rolling it, dunking it in butter and sugar and baking it.

In other words, you make do this. Anyone can make this.

And everyone should.

The crumb is awesome.

If I were to tell you that size matters, you would probably think I was telling an inappropriate joke.

On any other day, you would be correct.

But on this day, I’m talking about coffee cake. And size definitely matters when it comes to coffee cake.

Not the size of the cake actually, but the size of crumb.

Let’s face it, the best part of any coffee cake is the brown sugar laced, slightly crunchy crumb that tops the cake. That’s why coffee cake exists. So why not go big on it? Why not pile on heaps of the stuff?

Why not indeed. And that’s what this coffee cake includes: A big thick layer of nothing but crumb.

Blackberry Big Crumb Coffee Cake

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:

For Filling:
1 pint blackberries, washed and halved
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon corn starch

For the Big Crumbs:
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon crystallized ginger, mashed
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 3/4 cups cake flour
A pinch of salt

Cake:
1/3 cup sour cream
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup cake flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces and softened

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer or Hand Mixer

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 325 degrees

2) Butter an 8-inch-square baking pan.

3) For filling, slice blackberries in half and toss with sugar and cornstarch. Set aside.

4) To make crumbs, in a large bowl, whisk together sugars, spices, salt and butter until smooth. Stir in flour with a spatula. It will be a solid dough.

5) To prepare cake, in a small bowl, stir together the sour cream, egg, egg yolk and vanilla.

6) In a separate mixing bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add butter and a spoonful of sour cream mixture and mix on medium speed with a hand mixer or stand mixer until flour is moistened. Increase speed and beat for 30 seconds. Add remaining sour cream mixture in two batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition, and scraping down the sides of bowl with a spatula.

7) Scoop out about 1/2 cup batter and set aside.

8) Scrape remaining batter into prepared pan. Spoon blackberries over batter. Dollop set-aside batter over blackberries; no need for it to be even.

9) Using your fingers, break topping mixture into big crumbs, about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch in size. They do not have to be uniform, but make sure most are around that size. Sprinkle over cake.

10) Bake cake until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean of batter (it might be moist from blackberries), about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. Cool before serving.

Adapted from a NY Times recipe.

Berry Berry Good

There’s a fair amount of ingredients in this bad boy, but there are lots of duplicates so it isn’t too bad really. There’s three basic parts to the cake and we’ll make them all separately and then pile them all together: The cake, the berry filling, and the big crumb topping.

Let’s start with the filling. I went with blackberries, but you could use any berry I think.

Pretty things.

Assuming you do you blackberries, I recommend chopping them in half just because they can be a bit large.

Then just mix them in a bowl with the other filling ingredients. Filling is done!

I worried that the filling would be too watery, but it turned out fine.

I was worried about this, but it worked great.

Crumb Time

This is a great recipe for crumb. It’s nice and thick and produces big chunks of crunchy and sweet topping. It’s a keeper for sure.

The one ingredient that you may not have used before is crystallized ginger. It gives the crumb a really light ginger flavor which is amazing. If you can’t find it though, don’t worry about it. It’s not essential to the recipe.

One of my favorite ingredients.

If you use the crystallized ginger, be sure to chop it up really finely. The stuff is pretty strong and you wouldn’t want someone to bite into a big nugget of it.

Combine that with all the other crumb ingredients (except the flour) in a large bowl. Once everything is combined well, stir in the cake flour with a spatula or large spoon. And yes. You must use cake flour. No substitutions.

The finished crumb will a really thick dough that will kind of crumble if you pick it up. That’s what you want.

What's up crumb?!

The Cake

The cake part of this recipe is pretty straightforward. Mix together all the wet ingredients in a small bowl (eggs, yolks, sour cream, and vanilla). Then in a large bowl, add the dry ingredients, the softened butter, and just a spoonful of the sour cream mixture.

Beat this together with a hand mixer or stand mixer until the butter and flour and sugar are mixed in together well.

Starting that cake.

Once that’s all beaten together a bit, go ahead and add in all the liquid ingredients and continue to mix until the batter is smooth. It will be a pretty thick batter, but try not to over-mix it. Basically, stop mixing when you can’t see any flour.

This was my finished batter.

This is an odd batter, but it works.

Finishing the Coffee Cake

In a lightly buttered 8×8 baking dish, scrape in almost all of the cake batter. Leave about 1/2 cup of the batter for later.

Then add on all of your blackberry filling followed by the rest of your cake batter. It’s okay if it’s not perfectly spaced out. Just kind of get it all in there.

Batter, blackberries, batter.

Next, take all your crumb mixture and break it up into large pieces. Add those pieces to the cake!

The crumb will pretty much completely cover the entire cake which is awesome.

So crumby.

Because there’s a lot of moisture in the berries, you’ll need to bake this cake for a bit longer than you would without them.

Bake it at a low 325 for 60-75 minutes. A toothpick should come out of the center cleanly.

The finished version will be a thing of beauty.

A bit rustic looking...

Let this guy cool completely and then you can chop it up and serve it up.

Check out the cross-section on this cake. It’s like half crumb which is perfect.

A peek inside.

I made a few different coffee cakes over the years here on Macheesmo, but this is definitely my favorite to-date.

It would be a great thing to have around for the holidays for people to snack on with their morning coffee!

Unassuming, but delicious.

This year I decided to participate in my first ever Cookie Swap!

This means that I sent out three boxes of cookies to three food bloggers and three other food bloggers will be hopefully sending me three boxes of goodies.

While I was mailing my boxes of cookies I did have this moment of thinking that this might be some very elaborate pyramid scheme to get millions of free holiday cookies for a few lucky people!

I had this vision of the creators (Lindsay and Julie) sitting around hundreds of boxes of collected cookies… laughing all the way to the dentist’s office.

Of course, that won’t really happen. Food bloggers are generally the nicest people ever and I have full faith that I’ll receive my delicious boxes of cookies.

This year I think something crazy like 700 food bloggers signed up for the cookie swap. I have no earthly idea how long it took Lindsay and Julie to organize and match that many people, but I do honestly hope they sent themselves a few free boxes of cookies just for the trouble!

If you want to sign up for next year’s cookie swap, there’s already a signup form for it.

These brown butter guys are the cookies I sent out to my matches!

Brown Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Yield: 36 cookies

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, browned
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2/3 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup oat flour
3 1/2 cups rolled oats (not instant kind)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 Cup dried cherries, chopped
1 Cup chocolate chips

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer or Hand Mixer

Directions:

1) Add butter to a small saucepan over medium heat. Melt butter, stirring slowly. After butter melts, continue to cook for a few minutes until the butter solids start to brown. It easy to tell this if you use a non-dark colored pan as you'll be able to actually see the brown bits on the bottom. You can also tell when the butter is browned by the smell. It will start to smell very nutty which means it's done!

2) Pour off browned butter carefully. Try to leave most of the browned solids in the pan, but it's okay if some go with the butter. Let this cool.

3) Cream together sugars with brown butter until they are smooth using a hand mixer or stand mixer.

4) Beat in eggs one at a time and vanilla extract.

5) In a separate bowl, combine all dry ingredients except chocolate chips and cherries.

6) Slowly mix in dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Mix until just combined.

7) Stir in add-ins (chocolate and cherries).

8) Spoon large tablespoons of cookie dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

9) Bake cookies at 375 for 10-12 minutes until they are lightly browned around the edges.

10) Let cookies cool on a wire rack.

Butter, Browned

What I like about these cookies is that they are surprising. They look just like normal old oatmeal cookies, but they are jam-packed with flavor.

Step one to creating that flavor is to brown some butter. That gives the cookies a great nutty flavor that goes really well with the brown sugar.

If you’ve never browned butter before, it’s not all that hard. Just add your butter to a small saucepan and melt the butter over medium heat. Stir it frequently and after a few minutes the butter solids will separate out and sink to the bottom of the pan.

If you have a light colored saucepan, you’ll be able to actually start to see them brown a bit. You’ll also be able to smell the butter. When it’s done, it will have an intense nutty smell.

Start to finish, the butter browning process maybe takes 5-6 minutes.

Then you can pour off your browned butter. Try to leave behind most of the butter solids, but its okay if some get mixed in. It won’t affect the recipe at all.

Flavor town.

The Cookie Dough

Start this dough by mixing together all the dry ingredients in a bowl. If you can’t find oat flour, you can definitely use just all-purpose flour.

All the dry business.

Using a stand mixer or a hand mixer, beat together the browned butter and sugars until they are smooth and light. This should take a few minutes.

Then slowly mix in your eggs and your vanilla.

Once that is all mixed together, slowly mix in your dry ingredients, working in batches.

Try not to overmix this dough. When the flour is incorporated, it’s done!

Pretty simple.

The Add-ins

I figured these cookies would have lots of flavor and great texture as-is, but this is a cookie swap so I wanted to amp up the flavor even more.

So I mixed in some chocolate and dried cherries. I figured it’s hard to go wrong with these flavors.

Don't skimp on these!

Once those are mixed in your dough is done and you’re ready to make some cookies!

This makes a lot of cookies.

Baking the Cookies

Scoop large tablespoon-sized balls of dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. You should get about 36 cookies out of this recipe.

Twelve cookies per baking sheet should be about right.

Ready to go!

Bake these guys at 375 for 10-12 minutes.

The should be lightly browned around the edges and still a bit soft in the center.

Let them cool on a wire rack if you have one.

If you’re photographing your cookies, here’s a TIP! Don’t photograph them on a counter that is almost exactly the same color as the cookies.

Talk about camouflage!

My counter is like camo for these...

The Packaging

I stressed out a lot about how to ship these cookies. I ended up letting the cookies cool completely and then sealing them well in a large freezer plastic bag.

Next I lined a large box with plastic wrap and filled the bottom with spicy kettle corn! I figured that would cushion the cookies a bit and also give the recipients a little extra treat.

The finished package!

Signed. Sealed. Delivered.

Now I need to make another batch of these for myself!

Fun and tasty!

Finding fun ways to use leftover bread is a small hobby of mine. That said, a guy can only make so many impromptu bread puddings!

Croutons are a classic use of leftover bread, but it hit me a few days ago that these could be easily adapted to a breakfast thing by making them sweet instead of savory.

The resulting croutons are these slightly sweet crispy cubes that taste almost exactly like cinnamon toast crunch. They are sturdier though and stay pretty crunchy in milk (at least for a few minutes).

This makes them a really fun topper for cereals! They were really tasty sprinkled on my morning granola.

Cinnamon Crunch Croutons

Yield: Makes 2-3 cups.

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

2-3 cups leftover bread, cubed
1/4 cup butter, melted
3-4 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Directions:

1) Cube bread into 1/4 inch cubes. Lay bread cubes out on a baking sheet lined with foil and bake for 10 minutes at 325 degrees to lightly dry out the bread.

2) Melt butter in the microwave. Toss the dried bread cubes with the butter until the bread is well coated. Sprinkle in 2 Tablespoons of sugar and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and toss bread with cinnamon and sugar.

3) Return bread to baking dish and sprinkle with extra cinnamon and sugar to coat well.

4) Bake for 15-20 more minutes at 325. Turn the croutons once or twice while cooking.

5) Let croutons cool completely to make them extra-crispy.

6) Use croutons as a topping for cereal or granola!

The Bread To Use

I’m almost positive that you can use pretty much any bread you want for this recipe. Ok… maybe not something super-savory like rye bread, but mosts sandwich breads or crusty loaves will work perfectly.

Ideally, it would be a little on the stale side even. Once you’ve picked your leftover bread of choice, just cube it up! Shoot for smallish cubes here. About 1/4 inch is a good goal.

Any bread will do.

The Pre Bake

Eventually we will be tossing these guys with butter and cinnamon and sugar, but for now we want to dry them out a bit to firm them up and make them easier to coat.

So just scoop them onto a baking sheet lined with foil and bake them for about 10 minutes at 325 degrees. It should just dry them out a bit.

Just lightly toasted.

The Butta

Normally, I use olive oil for croutons, but I couldn’t help substituting butter since it’s a breakfast/sweet style crouton.

Melt your butter and pour it into a good tossing bowl.

Sweet sweet butter.

Then just add in your dried bread cubes and toss them together so they are well-coated with butter.

At this point, also add in about half of your cinnamon and sugar and toss that together to get a good base on the croutons.

A light butter coating...

The Final Bake

Return the croutons back to the baking sheet and spread them out in a single layer. Then hit them with more cinnamon and sugar. I recommend going pretty heavy on it since some will fall off while baking and also you want these to have lots of flavor since you’ll just add a few to your breakfast.

A liberal sprinkle.

Now return these to the oven and bake them for another 15 minutes. Give them a stir halfway through just to make sure they are cooking evenly.

They should be nice and crispy, not too browned, but lightly browned.

These are just about perfect.

Nice and crispy.

I added a handful of these to my morning granola and I loved it! It gave it a nice, slightly sweet flavor and the texture is awesome.

Tastes just like the cereal... except sturdier.

I was a bit worried that these would immediately turn to mush in a bowl of cereal, but they actually stayed crispier longer than normal cereal does.

I think these might be really fun for kids although I don’t actually have kids… so I can’t confirm!

As an adult who considers himself a big kid, I really liked them.

Simple and delicious.

After a long week of cooking and eating, I’m going to assume that most people are looking for something very quick and easy to make for brunch or breakfast.

One of my favorite quick breakfasts is a cut up grapefruit with a sprinkle of salt or sugar on top.

This recipe just kicks that up a notch by broiling the grapefruit with a tiny pinch of butter/sugar topping. The topping caramelized a bit and makes something resembling a grapefruit creme brulee.

In other words, it’s really good. Not to mention that it literally takes under 10 minutes.

Broiled Grapefruit

Yield: Serves 2-4.

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

2 grapefruits, halved and prepared
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of salt

Directions:

1) Preheat broiler on high.

2) Cut grapefruits in half and use a knife to cut out each segment away from the tough walls.

3) Mix butter, brown sugar, sugar, cinnamon and pinch of salt in a small bowl.

4) Top each grapefruit half with a good sprinkle of the topping.

5) Broil grapefruits on a baking sheet for about 4 minutes until the topping is caramelized.

6) Let cool briefly and serve immediately.

Cutting the Grapefruit

The grapefruit is kind of an intimidating fruit. It’s large and the wonderful fruit inside can be a bit tricky to get to.

I remember as a kid always asking my mom to cut up the grapefruit so I could easily scoop out each individual segment. I still use the same technique today.

One of my favorite fruits.

Just chop the grapefruit in half to reveal all of the individual segments. Then take a sharp, small knife like a paring knife or steak knife and carefully cut out each segment.

This might seem like a lot of work, but it really only takes about a minute per grapefruit. I usually run my knife around the outside of the fruit and then work on the inside, carefully cutting each segment from the hard rind part.

Be sure to cut on each side of each interior wall so every segment is loose and easy to scoop out.

Get it?

That’s pretty much the hardest part of this recipe.

The Topping

This topping is about as easy as it gets. It’s just even parts butter, brown sugar, and white sugar and then a pinch of cinnamon and salt.

Hard to go wrong here...

Mash this all together with a fork and you’re ready to rock!

A good crumb topping.

Broiling the Grapefruit

Sprinkle some of the topping on each grapefruit half. You should have enough topping with this recipe to do two grapefruits. I actually over-did the topping a bit on these two halves. You could use less because it melts down anyway.

Ready for the broiler!

Set these under the broiler on high and broil them for about 3-4 minutes.

The butter and sugar will melt pretty quickly and caramelize a bit on the grapefruit.

It forms almost a candied crust on the top of the grapefruit segments.

Just a few minutes...

Because the segments are pre-cut, they are still really easy to scoop out.

The grapefruit is slightly warm and has a nice mix of sweet and salty. It’s completely delicious.

Really good flavors.

Two of these halves (1 full grapefruit) is actually really filling.

If you’re were serving these as a side though, then I would just serve half a grapefruit per person.

The leftovers!

For a dish that takes under 10 minutes to make, it’s actually a really classy dish and very tasty.

I think even people that aren’t huge grapefruit fans would have a hard time not liking this.

Better than it looks!

“I’m going to have to email your Mom…”

My wife, Betsy, replied, “Yep.”

I had just made the best roasted turkey of my life and the planned Thanksgiving menu was going to have to come to a screeching halt to accommodate it.

Betsy and I normally spend Thanksgivings with her side of the family and over the years they’ve slowly relinquished control of most of the meal to me. There are, of course, exceptions. Betsy’s mom is always in charge of mashed potatoes and gravy because I can’t imagine that I could improve them in any way from her versions.

So, I’m normally in charge of the bird, stuffing, rolls, one or two sides, and maybe a pie or two if I’m feeling frisky. Normally, I just use Alton’s fantastic turkey brine recipe that makes a very solid bird.

Unfortunately though, I’m not sure I can ever go back to that recipe after trying the brine in this post. Hands down, best roasted turkey I’ve ever had.

I just did a turkey breast for this version, but you could easily cook an entire turkey with the same brine mixture. I intend to do just that in about 10 days.

Apple Cider Brined Turkey Breast

Yield: Serves 4-6.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours + overnight brine

Ingredients:

Note: If you want to do a whole turkey, just double this recipe.

1 whole turkey breast (5-6 pounds)
1 quart apple cider
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon Szechuan peppercorns
4 whole star anise pods
3 garlic cloves
3 scallions, sliced
3 inches fresh ginger, sliced thick
3 dried shiitake mushrooms
1 cinnamon stick
A few sprigs of cilantro
10 cups cold water

For cooking:
1 green apples
1 lemon

Helpful Equipment:
Digital Probe Thermometer

Directions:

1) Mix the cider, salt, soy sauce, and sugar in a medium pot and bring it to a simmer to dissolve the salt and sugar.

2) Add all the other brine ingredients except the turkey and the cold water. Let the brine simmer for about 5 minutes. Then kill the heat and let the brine slowly cool to room temperature.

3) Mix cold water in with brine and submerge turkey breast in brine. If you don't have enough brine to cover the whole turkey breast, just make sure the actual breast meat is submerged in the brine.

4) Stick this in the fridge overnight to brine.

5) When ready to cook, preheat oven to 475 degrees. Rinse off turkey breasts with cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Discard brine.

6) Slice apples into 1/4 inch slices. Add two slices of apple and the lemon (cut into eighths) into the cavity of the turkey.

7) Set turkey, breast side up, in a roasting pan on a bed of the sliced apples.

8) Cook turkey breast at 475 for 30 minutes. Then remove and insert digital thermometer.

9) Turn oven heat down to 350 degrees and cook turkey until it registered 165 degrees in the thickest part of the breast, probably about another 75-90 minutes. If you don't have a probe thermometer, I would check the temperature after 60 minutes and go from there.

10) Once the turkey is done, wrap it in foil and let it rest for 30 minutes.

11) Slice off each breast and slice them across the grain into 1/8-1/4 inch slices.

Adapted from November 2011 Bon Appetit.

Preparing the Brine

I’m not going to get into the science of why brining is good, but basically it results in a cooked turkey that’s much more moist than its unbrined brother due to the way that salt reacts with the proteins in the meat. Just trust me. It’s good and worth the time.

I’ll admit, there are a lot of ingredients in this brine. They all serve a purpose, but if you can’t find them all, don’t feel like you can’t make this brine. At the end of the day, I’d say 80% of the flavor comes from the apple cider. As long as you have that, you can make this happen.

The base of the brine and really all you need to make this if you’re in a pinch.

The basics of a brine.

Of course, if possible, any of these spices will just up the flavor complexity of the brine. Use as many of them as you can, but don’t freak out if you’re missing one.

Bring the cider, brown sugar, soy sauce, and salt to a simmer in a medium or large pot. Then add in all your spices and herbs. The only prep I did to my spices was chop my garlic cloves and scallions in half and slice my ginger into coins. Then just toss everything in the pot.

This will smell good.

Let this simmer for about 5 minutes, then kill the heat and let it slowly cool to room temperature. This will give plenty of time for the flavors to infuse into the brine.

Once the brine is room temperature, add the cold water and you’re ready to brine.

Brining the Bird

If you’re doing a full bird, make sure you have a large bucket or pot that can fit your entire bird. Most years, I use a small cooler for this honestly. It works great.

I was just doing a turkey breast though so I just used a large bowl and make sure that my breasts were submerged in the brine. When I do it with a full bird, I’ll make sure the whole bird is submerged.

That's a big bowl FYI.

Whatever device you use, cover it well and place it in a refrigerated place overnight. Depending on the temperature, sometimes I’ll just stash my turkey cooler setup outside somewhere or in a cool garage for the night. Just make sure your temperature outside is around or under 40 degrees and make sure rodents can’t get to it.

Cooking the Bird

When it’s time to cook, take your bird out of the brine and discard your brine. There’s no reason to keep it. It’s done all it can do to help us out.

Then rinse off your turkey really well with cold water. The brine is very salty and you don’t want it coating the bird. There’s plenty of flavor soaked into the bird. Trust me.

So rinse off the bird and then pat it dry with some paper towels.

At this point I’d recommend adding some lemons and apple slices to the cavity of the bird. This will just give it a bit more flavor and moisture as it cooks.

Stuffed with flavor.

The next step is very far from necessary in my mind, but Bon Appetit recommended it so I tried it out. I’m not entirely sure what it accomplished. Basically you just set the turkey on a bed of apple slices in the roasting pan.

It did make it a bit easier to take the bird out of the roaster after cooking because it wasn’t stuck to the pan at all.

I would call it an element of flare. It’s not necessary though by any stretch.

A bed of apples...

Lately I’ve used Alton’s technique when it comes to cooking turkey and it works really well.

Basically, you start the turkey in a super-hot, 475 degree oven for 30 minutes. Then pull the turkey out and insert your probe thermometer if you have one. Turn the oven down to 350 degrees and continue to cook it until it reaches 165 degrees internally (thickest part of the breast in my case here, or thickest part of the thigh if you’re cooking a full bird).

This was my breast after 30 minutes cooking in the super-hot oven.

NOTE: If you’re using a probe thermometer you can’t have it in for this part of the cooking. It could melt.

After the high heat bake.

Total cooking time for your bird at this point will depend on a huge number of factors so I’m not even going to try. I’ll tell you that my 5-6 pound turkey breast here took about 70 minutes to finish cooking at 350 degrees.

If you’re doing a whole turkey, obviously this will be much longer, but in the past, my turkeys have finished in about 3 hours. The quick, hot cooking period at the beginning really speeds up the overall time. I can’t even imagine cooking a turkey without some sort of thermometer so just rely on yours to tell you when the bird is done.

If you are cooking a whole bird though, I high recommend watching Alton’s videos (sound!) to learn how to use a foil triangle to keep your breast meat from drying out. It cooks a lot faster than the dark meat so by covering it in foil, you can make sure the breast meat and dark meat are perfectly done at the same time. It’s a crucial technique and easy to do.

Resting and Slicing

Once your bird hits its temperature, pull it out, cover it in foil and let it rest for at least 30 minutes. This is maybe the most important part of the whole process. If you slice right into it, all the juices will run out and you’ll have a much dryer bird.

For my breasts, after they had rested I just sliced them off the breast bone so I could slice them up nicely.

These breasts are around 2 pounds each.

Then I slice them across the grain into thick coins. This is how I carve a full turkey also. It’s makes sure everyone gets some of the crispy skin and just makes it a lot easier to serve.

Very juicy.

I know you can’t smell this, but I’ll hold it up really close anyway.

It has a really faint apple cider and spice taste and smell that’s just out of this world.

Delicious piece of turkey.

Well, this has been a long post, but it’s an important one.

You still have over a week to make this happen for Thanksgiving. I highly, highly, recommend you give it a shot.

Have you brined a turkey? Have you apple cider brined a turkey? Leave a comment!

Crunchy and delicious.

When I first moved to DC 6ish years ago, I lived in a group house for about 3 of those years. For those that aren’t familiar with a group house, it’s basically when 4-6 adults try to live together in large house.

Think “The Real World” except it’s actually the real world and not a reality TV show. So it’s even more real.

The house I lived in took holidays seriously, but none more serious than Halloween. Every year we would throw a lavish 150 person Halloween party and spend way more time and money than we should’ve setting up for said party.

One of my favorite traditions was always pumpkin carving. There was something awesome about five twenty-somethings sitting around, watching “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” and carving pumpkins that somebody would inevitably puke in a few days later.

As we carved, we would always snack on roasted pumpkin seeds. We always had leftover seeds though and they would kind of just sit around and get stale.

This recipe is the definitive way to handle left over pumpkin seeds.

Pumpkin Seed Amber

Yield: 1 large sheet

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

2 cups pumpkin seeds, roasted
1 Teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 Teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 Teaspoon cinnamon
1 pound 6 ounces sugar
12 ounces water
1/4 cup light corn syrup

Helpful Equipment:
Silmat
Digital Scale

Directions:

1) Rinse pumpkin seeds well and toss with seasonings.
2) Spread seeds out on baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
3) Bake seeds at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4) Meanwhile, combine water, sugar, and corn syrup in a sauce pan. Bring to a simmer.
5) Simmer, over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until syrup is a light amber color and very thick, about 45 minutes.
6) Stir pumpkin seeds into syrup. Work quickly.
7) Spread onto a silicon baking mat and let cool for 15-20 minutes. Then break into pieces.

Roughly adapted from an Alton Brown recipe.

Roasting the Seeds

While you can buy pumpkin seeds, that’s kind of cheating. Especially during the Halloween season. Also most pumpkin seeds that you buy are shelled (so they are a light green color), but I actually like them with the shells on. They have a bit more texture.

The seed hole.

Once you get all of your seeds out of your many gourds, just rinse them off under some cold water and try to get off any huge bits of pumpkin guts. Then mix them with the salt, cinnamon, and pepper flakes and lay them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

The parchment paper just helps to make sure they don’t get really stuck to the sheet.

Ready to roast!

Bake these guys at 350 degrees for about 15-20 minutes. Stir them a few times throughout the cooking process.

They are done when they are slightly crunchy and lightly toasted.

Try not to eat too many...

Making the Amber

This kind of candy has a lot of different names: brickle, brittle, sugar candy, addictive, etc. I chose to call it Amber this time around because for some reason it reminded me of when they have bugs trapped in tree sap.

Whatever you choose to call it, it’s actually pretty easy to make, but does require one thing: Patience.

To start, measure out your sugar, water, and corn syrup and add them to a pot. I like to use a digital scale for this just so I can make sure my ratios are exact. At the end of the day though, you can eyeball it, it just might make your cooking time longer if you mess it up.

Just good old sugar water.

It’s possible that you don’t need corn syrup for this, but I think it makes it a little easier to work with. If it’s your first time making sugar candy like this, I recommend it. If you’re an expert, you can probably do it without the corn syrup.

Anyway, just bring this mixture to a simmer and simmer it over medium heat. After about 20 minutes, it will be bubbling like crazy and start to reduce significantly. Stir it occasionally and just keep letting it reduce down.

Don't touch this.

After about 35-45 minutes, it will start to turn a light amber color and foam. This means that most of the water is out of the mixture which is exactly what you want.

At this point, you’re racing the clock.

Kill the heat and stir in your pumpkin seeds. Again, work quickly here. The last thing you want is for this to solidify in your pan!

Work quickly people!

Pour this mixture out onto a silicone baking mat and use a spatula to spread it out evenly.

If you don’t have one of these nice silicone mats, I think you could use wax paper or parchment paper. You definitely don’t want to let this stuff cool on something that isn’t nonstick as it’ll fuse to it and you’ll never get it off.

Cool it down!

Let this huge block of awesome cool for about 20 minute and then you can start cracking it into pieces.

I love just breaking it into random shards.

Take out some aggression.

This stuff ended up being completely addicting. It’s obviously sweet, but it’s also salty and a bit spicy from the pumpkin seeds.

The seeds also give the candy some great texture. So you get this big crunch from the candy and then kind of a chewy texture from the seeds.

Plus it just looks cool!

Sweet and salty!

So, if you have some seeds laying around from your pumpkin carving, give this a shot.

It takes some patience, but the results are really delicious!

You guys really pulled a fast one on me with the poll last week. It was a perfect tie between gin and rum! What’s a mixologist to do?

At first I tried to come up with a drink that had both gin and rum in it, but that proved to be pretty hard. Drinks do exist that use both, but they have a pretty specific flavor profile. Most of them weren’t really in the Halloween spirit so I thought it would be easier and more fun to just make two cocktails: one with rum and one with gin.

Frankly, both turned out better than I was expecting due to some awesome simple syrups.

Two Halloween Cocktails

Yield: 1 drink of each

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

Pumpkin Simple Syrup:
1/2 Cup pumpkin puree
1/2 Cup water
1/2 Cup sugar

Pumpkin Martini:
2 ounces rum (spiced rum would be good)
2 ounces pumpkin simple syrup
1 ounce cream
Cinnamon sugar (for rim)

Vampire Blood:
2 cups cranberry juice
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup dried hibiscus flowers

Vampire Blood Cocktail:
2.5 ounces gin
3 ounces club soda
1/2 ounce vampire blood
Garnish with lime

Helpful Equipment:
Cocktail Set

Directions:

1) For pumpkin syrup, just mix all the ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to simmer. Simmer for about 5 minutes and then chill and use. It will store in the fridge fine for a week.

2) For pumpkin martini, wet rim and run it around some cinnamon sugar. Then shake ingredients together with ice and strain into chilled glass.

3) For vampire blood, combine ingredients in small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Reduce the mixture down by about 1/3 which should take about 20 minutes. Chill and use or store for up to 2 weeks.

4) For cocktail, mix gin and club soda over ice. Pour over vampire blood mixture and garnish with lime.

Pumpkin Martini

It’s Halloween and I just had to try to mix pumpkin into one of these cocktails. Anytime you’re trying to mix in a flavor with a drink, it’s usually best to try to make a simple syrup out of it which will make it easy to mix into things.

I was a bit worried that the pumpkin wouldn’t mix well due to it’s lumpiness…

Wasn't sure about this...

But after I started stirring this mixture together though, I knew it wouldn’t be a problem. The pumpkin just kind of melted in with the sugar and after a few minutes of simmering I had this surprisingly smooth syrup that I knew would work great in a cocktail.

Pretty silky smooth!

One Note: For the pumpkin, be sure to use just 100% canned pumpkin. Don’t use the pumpkin pie filling stuff. That stuff has all kinds of crazy stuff in it.

Shake It Up

While you could make this drink on the rocks (over ice) if you wanted, it seemed a bit more elegant to make a real martini out of it. That’s means you’ll need a shaker set of some sort if you don’t have one.

Try it with spiced rum....

A Bartender’s Trick

If you want to know a hint to watch for to see if your bartender is a good one and cares about the drinks they are making, see how they handle the glass. A good bartender will always always chill the glass. That means that if the glasses aren’t kept in a refrigerator, they will ice and chill every single glass that they pour into.

It only takes a few seconds and really helps keep your drink cool for as long as possible.

Very important.

At the last minute, I decided to add a cinnamon sugar rim to the glass also just to play off some of the pumpkin flavors. Not essential, but a fun little touch.

For the rim...

Just wet your glass with a paper towel and then run the rim in the cinnamon sugar. After that, just add your ingredients to your shaker with some ice and shake shake shake. Or stir stir stir. Whatever.

It’s a pretty drink and really tasty. I think if I made this again, I might try it with spiced rum instead of white rum.

Beautiful thing.

Vampire Blood Cocktail

Ok. Onto gin land! This is Halloween play on gin and juice basically. I wanted to make a blood red syrup and then add it to a gin soda and I figured it would be cool looking and delicious.

You’ll need some red stuff to start. I used real, pure cranberry juice, but you could also use pomegranate juice.

making blood!

See those withered flower things down there? Those are hibiscus flowers and they turn things bright red and give them a light floral taste. I love them in cocktails.

Here’s an up close look at these weird things.

They kind of look like what I would imagine vampire flowers would look like actually.

Up close!

Anyway, just like the pumpkin syrup, just mix all these together and bring them to a simmer. The only difference is that with this one you want it to simmer and reduce for about 20 minutes to thicken it up a bit.

Making blood!

A Chill Tip

For both of these syrups, they are best when they are cold. They will take hours to cool off completely in the fridge. What I like to do is set up a bowl with some ice water in it and then put the syrup in a smaller bowl inside the larger bowl. Stir the syrup and the ice water in the outer bowl will chill the syrup down in just a minute or two.

Back to the cocktail!

Then just add your gin and club soda (or tonic) to a tall glass with ice and a small shot of the vampire syrup and you’re all set!

Feel free to garnish with a lime and some fangs!

Awesome drink.

Both of these drinks are freakin’ delicious and you better bet that I’m going to be having one or two of both over the Halloween weekend.

Pumpkin time.

Quick Admin Note: On Sunday and Monday, I’m going to be working on launching a new design for the Macheesmo because I’m a perfectionist and don’t like some of the features with the current layout. Because of that, there won’t be a new post on Monday and the site might be down for a bit over those two days. It’s all for the best though. The new layout is slick.

I’m sure that I’m not the only person in the world who goes over-board on pumpkin buying. I always imagine making tons of pies and so I buy a huge amount of canned pumpkin at some point in the Fall only to have it sit in my pantry for years.

So when Fall actually comes around, I’m always itching to use up some of the pumpkin in my pantry to make room for… more pumpkin.

It’s a sick cycle, but one that results in pretty delicious food.

Pumpkin Muffins

Yield: 12 muffins

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

2 Cups all-purpose flour
1/2 Cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 large egg
1 Cup milk
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
4 Tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 Cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
1/2 Cup pumpkin seeds, roasted
1 Teaspoon pumpkin pie seasoning
Pinch of salt
Pinch of cinnamon

Helpful Equipment:
- Muffin Tin

Directions:

1) Mix milk, egg, vanilla, and pumpkin puree in a small bowl until the mixture is smooth.

2) In a separate, larger bowl, mix together the dry ingredients including the pumpkin seeds.

3) Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Then stir in melted butter.

4) Butter 12 muffin tins and divide muffin batter between the tins.

5) Bake the muffins at 375 degrees for 18-20 minutes until they are lightly browned and cooked through.

6) Let cool briefly before serving. Serve with pumpkin butter if you can!

Making the Batter

This is a pretty standard muffin batter that I just mixed in a few add-ins. Instead of normal sugar, I used brown sugar. Plus some pumpkin, seeds, vanilla, and cinnamon and you’re looking at a nice spin on a classic muffin.

Standard muffin business.

To get the batter started, mix all the liquid ingredients (milk, egg, and vanilla) with the pumpkin puree. Stir this until it’s an even texture.

The liquid stuff.

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, stir together the dry ingredients including the pumpkin seeds.

If you’re carving pumpkins, feel free to use the seeds in the pumpkin. You just want to make sure that you roast them first. Dry off the seeds, toss them with a teaspoon of oil and a pinch of salt, and bake them at 350 degrees for about 8-10 minutes.

Roasting them will give the seeds a much better flavor and texture.

Get it?

When your dry ingredients are stirred together, go ahead and mix in the wet stuff.

Stir this together until it’s in a rough batter. It’s okay if there are a few lumps. It doesn’t need to be perfect!

Smells good already.

As a final step, stir in the melted butter and mix everything together really well.

Butter always helps.

Baking the Muffins

Besides the butter that you add to the muffins, I also recommend using a small dab of butter to lube up the muffin tins. If you don’t do this, your muffins might stick really badly to the pan which is never fun.

You could also use paper wrappers if that’s more your style.

Once your tin is buttered lightly, divide the batter evenly among twelve tins. It’s okay to fill them up pretty high.

Butter those tins.

Bake these guys at 375 degrees for about 18-20 minutes.

When they come out, let them cool for a minute or two and then you can remove the muffins from the tin. The finished muffins should be a light golden brown color.

Good lookin' muffins.

I like to serve these muffins with butter or, if you can get your hands on some, a good pumpkin butter!

Pumpkin butter would've been ideal...

I think the pumpkin seeds kind of make this recipe. I love the color and subtle pumpkin flavor that the puree gives the muffins, but the seeds are like these little surprises in the muffins that give it some crunch and saltiness.

If you have some leftover pumpkin in the next month or two (and who doesn’t), give these guys a shot!