Posts Tagged ‘pumpkin’

I confess –  this post was written (and made) a week in advance, with the knowledge of where I would be yesterday. That place was sunny Orlando, FL, where I spent the day squealing and fangirling my heart out at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I have no shame in saying I am a huge Harry Potter geek, but nothing compared to my sister V. So for her 30th birthday my other sister D and I surprised V with an all-expense covered trip to Orlando to visit the coolest attraction I’ve ever been to. This was a surprise 8 months in the making and we were so happy we could just combust. To celebrate, the weekend prior I decided to whip up one of the most mentioned treats in the HP universe: pumpkin pasties (that’s past-ees not paste-ees).

Pasties are a traditionally English baked good usually savory filled with meat and vegetables. Sort of like a high-end Hot Pocket. I ate them quite often while I studied abroad there (they were cheap, everywhere, and filling) and always have a special place in my heart. Since the pasties in HP are often sold on the Hogwarts Express with candy and other treats, we can assume J.K. Rowling’s would be sweet, not savory. So think of these as pumpkin handpies: buttery crust, sweet pumpkin filling, and lots of good spices. Just magical.

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Hooray hooray for autumn desserts! I know my previous apple dessert could be considered my autumnal dessert christening, but I’d much rather prefer this were it because it’s just so much tastier, but not that much more complicated! I got to act as office dessert dealer fairy once again this week and made these to celebrate my coworker Kara’s birthday.  She seems to have a sweet tooth to match mine, so I knew I wanted to do something ultra rich, decadent, and of course, chocolatey.  Since I’ll be making cupcakes for Halloween in a few weeks (ooh, preview!) I decided to go with this, because honestly: cheesecake + pumpkin + chocolate = how can you go wrong?

The original recipe calls for chocolate wafer cookies and for some reason my local grocer only carried these ridiculously overpriced froufrou ones ($5.69 for 9 ounces of cookies! are they insane?!) so I decided to go a more frugal route. Luckily I remember once reading a recipe on The Pioneer Woman Cooks which had you use chocolate Teddy Graham cookies to make the base of a chocolate crust. Already being a huge fan of them, I figured killing two birds with one stone (make the bars, satisfy my own sweet tooth) was the smartest route.

Plus it’s so fun to pulse up little animal-shaped cookies.