Bready or Not Original: Pumpkin-Gingerbread Coffee Cake
Wake up to lovely autumn flavors with this Pumpkin Gingerbread Coffee Cake!
It’s beautiful to behold, and beautiful upon the tongue, too.
This isn’t a straightforward pumpkin cake. The gingerbread flavor is what comes across foremost–that molasses with a warm combination of spices–with the pumpkin flavor underlying it all.
The pumpkin, of course, also permeates the cake with a moist, tender crumb. The crumb topping has all of the spices and acts in lovely contrast (in coloration and flavor) to the cake beneath.
Oh yes, and the dried cranberries sprinkled throughout add little nuggets of tartness with a different kind of chewy texture. I bet this would be great with dried blueberries or cherries, too.
This cake would be incredible for a dessert, snack, and especially as a breakfast–especially on a special occasion like Halloween and Thanksgiving morning.
Greatly modified from original recipe in Fall Baking 2016 by Better Homes & Gardens.
Bready or Not Original: Pumpkin-Gingerbread Coffee Cake
Equipment
- 9x9 or 8x8 square pan
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour or whole wheat flour
- 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter 1 1/2 sticks, softened
- 15 ounces pumpkin puree
- 2 eggs room temperature
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 1/3 cup buttermilk or sour milk
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 cup dried cranberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven at 350-degrees. Line pan with foil and apply butter or nonstick spray.
- In a large bowl, combine both flours, cornmeal, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pepper. Cut in the butter to form coarse crumbs. Measure out 1 cup of the mixture; set aside to use as topping.
- In another bowl, mix together the pumpkin, eggs, molasses, and baking soda. Stir together the dry and wet ingredients, then fold in the dried cranberries.
- Spread batter in prepared pan. Sprinkle reserved crumb topping over entire surface.
- Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, until the center passes the toothpick test. Completely cool at room temperature. Slice within pan, or use foil to lift onto cutting board.
OM NOM NOM!
Bready or Not Guest: Fiery Surprise Cupcakes by Wendy Nikel, author of THE CAUSALITY LOOP
I’m happy to welcome Wendy Nikel back for another bout of cupcakes and a time travel novella! The Causality Loop finishes up her four-book sequence from World Weaver Press, and it’s fantastic. The perfect end for the series. (Disclaimer: I have indeed read them all, courtesy of WWP.) As novellas, each book makes for a quick read… but not so quick that you can’t enjoy a cupcake (or two) as you snuggle into your reading nook for a much-needed escape from our current timeline.
If you haven’t yet, check out Wendy’s past visits:
THE CONTINUUM and Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes
THE GRANDMOTHER PARADOX and Cherry Cupcakes
CASSANDRA COMPLEX and Chocolate Blueberry Cupcakes
THE CAUSALITY LOOP
Fiery Surprise Cupcakes
by Wendy Nikel
It’s release day for THE CAUSALITY LOOP, the fourth and final Place in Time novella, which means that once again, it’s time for me to pull out my mixer, cupcake pans, and frosting tips, and share with you something delicious to celebrate my new book!
I have loved coming up with new cupcake recipes for each of these books. In a way, it’s kind of like being on Cupcake Wars or Sugar Rush – some of my favorite Netflix competition shows. In each of these, the judges provide a theme or challenge for each round, and bakers have to come up with ways to meet it by producing a delicious dessert. And while the previous books were a bit easier to figure out – space-inspired chocolate coffee cupcakes with galaxy-swirled frosting for THE CONTINUUM; Midwest county fair-inspired cherry chocolate cupcakes for THE GRANDMOTHER PARADOX; and a blueberry cupcake for THE CASSANDRA COMPLEX, which was inspired by an old Fred Harvey recipe – this one was a bit more difficult to figure out, but I had a couple elements I knew I wanted to include.
The first of these was fire! As you can see from the cover, fire plays an important role in this book. The opening pages (which you can read here) start out with an act of arson, which our main character Dodge Greenley hopes will protect his family – and the scent of smoke follows him throughout the book.
The second element I wanted to include was a callback to the previous books. In many ways, this final novella brings things full circle, pulling in story threads, characters, and elements from the previous three books, so I wanted to tie that into my celebration cupcake somehow. I scoured recipe books and baking blogs, searching for the perfect combination.
I pulled out my favorite basic cupcake recipe and grated the zest of one lemon to balance out some of the bolder, more “fiery” flavors I was planning to add later.
After mixing all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder) in one bowl and the wet ingredients (sugar, butter, eggs, lemon zest) in another, I combined them with a bit of milk. Then, it was into the cupcake trays and into the oven for 16 minutes at 350 degrees.
While they were cooling, I started on the orange frosting. I blended the orange extract and orange food coloring (I used the gel kind for a bright hue) into the butter until it was smooth, then alternated adding the powdered sugar and milk until it was the consistency I wanted. Then it was time to try out a new tip I’d run across in my research – a pastry bullet.
The idea with these is to lay out plastic wrap, drop your frosting directly onto it, and then twist it up into a “bullet” that’s easier to handle and tidier to clean up. Tie one end close to the frosting and leave a few inches of twisted plastic wrap on the other end. I was really pleased with how this worked out. When it was time to frost, I could just throw it all into the pastry bag, thread the longer end through the piping tip, cut off the extra, and be ready to frost without the mess of trying to maneuver the frosting into the very bottom of the bag or the excess frosting coming back out the back of the bag.
But first, it was time to add my surprise! I found large, round sprinkles in the colors of each of my previous book covers – blue, red, and purple – and mixed them together in a dish. Then I took each of the cupcakes, cut a hole in the middle, and had my assistants (my kiddos wanted to help with this part) drop the sprinkles into the center of the cupcake.
Then we took the inner section we’d cut out of the cupcake and placed the top of it back onto it to cover the hole we’d made. Ta-da! Now when you bite into the cupcake, you’ll get a confetti-like surprise!
After we frosted the cupcakes, I threw them back into the fridge while I prepared the next step: our fiery cinnamon Red Hot drizzle. I dumped about half a cup of Red Hots into a saucepan and just barely covered them with water. Stirring constantly, I melted these over medium heat.
Once they were melted and I pulled them off the stove, I could drizzle them onto the frosted cupcakes. The drizzle thickens fairly quickly; I had to put it back onto the hot burner a couple times to thin it out again to make it easier to dribble onto the cupcakes.
I topped the cupcakes with orange and white sprinkles (if you do it while the Red Hot drizzle is still hot, they stick to it pretty well).
And now our fiery surprise cupcakes were finally ready for consumption!
About THE CAUSALITY LOOP:
Dodge Greenley is tired of being the go-between for his time-traveling family. All he wants is for them all to be able to live together peacefully in one era—is that too much to ask? But after breaking all the Rules of time travel in a desperate attempt to retroactively free his parents from the threat of the secret organization his father worked for a hundred years earlier, Dodge makes a startling discovery. It turns out there’s someone else stalking his family up and down the timeline, and this time, the menace may be coming from within the Place in Time Travel Agency itself.
Enlisting the help of his 22nd century coworker, Dodge sets off to the year 1915 to rescue his sister from a threat that might have originated at any point in their past, present, or future, proving once again that the greatest threat to time travelers is other time travelers.
THE CAUSALITY LOOP: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes/Apple Books | World Weaver Press
About the author:
Wendy Nikel is a speculative fiction author with a degree in elementary education, a fondness for road trips, and a terrible habit of forgetting where she’s left her cup of tea. Her short fiction has been published by Analog, Nature: Futures, Podcastle, and elsewhere. Her time travel novella series, beginning with The Continuum, is available from World Weaver Press. For more info, visit wendynikel.com
THE CAUSALITY LOOP Fiery Surprise Cupcakes
Ingredients
Cupcake Ingredients:
- 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 cup butter 2 sticks 2 sticks
- lemon zested zested
- 4 eggs
- 3 Tablespoons milk
Frosting ingredients:
- 1 cup butter 2 sticks 2 sticks
- 4 cups confectioners' sugar
- 6 Tablespoons milk
- orange food coloring
- 1 teaspoon orange extract
- Red Hot candies
- sprinkles
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Sift together flour and baking powder. In separate bowl, blend sugar and butter. Grate lemon zest into the mixture.
- Add eggs to sugar mixture one at a time.
- Gradually add the dry mixture and milk into the sugar mixture until well blended.
- Fill cupcake liners half full and bake for 15 to 17 minutes. Let cool.
- Beat butter, food coloring, and orange extract until creamy. Alternate adding 1 cup confectioners' sugar and 2 tablespoons milk, mixing well after each addition, until all ingredients are mixed in.
- When cupcakes are cool, carefully cut a hole into the top of each cupcake. Pull out the inner section of cake and set aside. Fill hole with sprinkles, then replace the top of the cake and frost!
- Melt Red Hots on the stove. Drizzle melted candy over the frosted cupcakes. Top with sprinkles and enjoy with a good book!
Bready or Not: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake
Halloween is about a week away. Let’s celebrate with a Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake!
This is an honest-to-goodness cake, too, light and fluffy and topped with a just-thick-enough layer of frosting.
This cake melds the glorious powers of a spice cake with a chocolate cake, finding a medium that is happy indeed.
As with most of my baked goods, this was packed up and sent with my husband to work. I can report that this cake can be cut into squares and stored in containers with waxed paper between the layers. It traveled surprisingly well.
Most cakes are not that cooperative. I can’t even say how many times I’ve tried a recipe and mangled it when I’ve tried to portion it out to make it more portable. Those cakes don’t typically make it onto Bready or Not.
This one does… and not only is it cooperative for travel, but it’s also darn delicious.
Modified from Taste of Home Desserts Magazine.
Bready or Not: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 1/4 cups pumpkin puree
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil or canola oil
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup white whole wheat flour or whole wheat flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon cloves
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Frosting
- 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter softened
- 3 Tablespoons milk or half & half
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- sprinkle cloves
- 1/3 cup baking cocoa sifted
- 2 1/2 - 3 cups confectioners' sugar
Instructions
Making the cake
- Preheat oven at 350-degrees. Line a 13x9 pan with foil and apply butter or nonstick spray.
- In a large bowl, beat together the pumpkin puree, sugar, oil, and eggs. In a separate bowl, sift together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. Gradually beat the dry mix into the wet. Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the center passes the toothpick test. Let cool to room temperature, or chill in fridge if desired.
Frosting
- In a large bowl, beat butter until creamy. Add in the milk, vanilla, and cloves. Slowly beat in the cocoa and the base amount of confectioners' sugar, adding more if needed to reach spreadable consistency. Cover the top of the cake. Slice within pan, or use foil to lift cake onto cutting board.
- Store covered in the fridge.
*OM NOM NOM!*
New Publication Flood!
Publishing is weird. Stories and poems get accepted and could be published a week later or the next year. It seems like once or twice a year, weird timing kicks in and a whole bunch of things end up published at the same time. This is one of those times.
New stories:
– “The Wind Knows All” in Nature (plus, a blog post on the story behind the story)
– nonfiction “The Advent of New Holiday Traditions” in Chicken Soup for the Soul: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas [Amazon affiliate link]
Poetry:
– “Old Coyote” in Eye to the Telescope Issue 34: Tricksters
– three poems in Daikaijuzine: “A Purring Cat is a Time Machine,” “Dollar Store Monsters,” and “Drought and Dryad”
#SFWAPro
Read MoreBready or Not Original: Pumpkin Raisin Cookies
Pumpkin Raisin Cookies! These delicious treats combine a lot of fall flavors.
I don’t know why I never thought to pair raisins and pumpkin in cookies before. After all, I’ve used them together in bread.
These cookies are all the more delicious because of the use of pumpkin pie spice. That mix is obviously good with pumpkin, but wow, does it go well with raisins!
On the subject of raisins, I am biased toward golden raisins, but really, you can use whatever seedless variety you wish.
Also, using golden raisins makes it less likely that hungry people will endure Cookie Betrayal Syndrome (CBS). This is the condition wherein people who hate raisins accidentally ingest raisins in cookies because they think the raisins are really chocolate chips.
Good bakers are honest bakers. Golden raisins are usually pale enough in color that they won’t mislead people.
Besides, maybe, just maybe, people who’ve endured CBS will think these cookies look so good they’ll give them a try, even knowing what they contain.
Bready or Not Original: Pumpkin Raisin Cookies
Ingredients
Cookies
- 1 cup unsalted butter 2 sticks, softened
- 1 1/2 cups white sugar
- 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg room temperature
- 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup golden raisins
Topping
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
Instructions
- In a large bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar, pumpkin, vanilla, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Thoroughly combine. Beat in the flour, then fold in the golden raisins. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least two hours; this is necessary, as the dough is very sticky, and it's even stickier when warm
- Preheat oven at 350-degrees. In a small bowl, combine the two topping ingredients. Use a tablespoon (a scoop doesn't work well with such sticky dough) to form 1-inch balls; roll them in the topping mix, and place spaced out in a cookie sheet,
- Bake for about 10 to 12 minutes, until cookies are set. Let cool on pan for 10 minutes before moving to a rack. Store in a sealed container.
