Get Baked with Autostraddle: Pumpkin Edition

Oh hey, what’s up there AUTUMN. All of the pumpkins are on sale now, I think, which means it’s the perfect time to try Stef’s Roasted Pumpkin Soup or Sarah’s Vegan Pumpkin Pie. I’m not even going to make the easy joke about Sarah and her pie. It’s too easy. I have some dignity. Also I’m cold, so.

OH MY GOD LAURA’S MOM MADE PUMPKIN SQUARES YOU GUYS OH MY GOD THERE’S EVEN A PICTURE TO PROVE IT OH MY GOD LAURA’S MOM.

Ok I think this is maybe the cuddliest Get Baked we’ve ever done. I just want to cuddle with everyone and eat all of these foods and then get back to cuddling. I can’t even do the dishes. I CAN’T DO THE DISHES I AM TOO BUSY CUDDLING.

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1. Pumpkin Squares

by Laura

These babies blow cupcakes out of the water. Not only are they as dense as brownies, they’re BARS. Bars means you can cut one giant piece and no one can get mad at you for having too much because you only had one. In the interest of international friendship, I’m including metric measurements. American measurements are in bold just so no one gets confused and accidentally adds 480 cups of sugar.

laura pumpkin bars

Bars

4 eggs
vegetable oil: 1 cup / 210g
sugar: 2 1/2 cups / 480g
canned pumpkin*: 16 ounces / 455g
cinnamon: 1 1/2 teaspoons / 4g
flour: 2 cups / 200 grams
salt : 1/2 teaspoon / 2.5g
baking soda: 1 teaspoon / 4.4g

Icing

cream cheese: 3 ounces / 85g
butter: 6 tablespoons / 86g
vanilla: 1 teaspoon / 5ml
powdered sugar: 2 cups / 260g
half and half: 1 teaspoon / 5ml

*According to the Internet and 3 non-American sources, canned pumpkin is one of those things that only exist in North America, kind of like refrigerated eggs. If you can’t find it in your grocery, there are plenty of ways to make it from a fresh pumpkin, just make sure you follow all the instructions and strain out the liquid because fresh pumpkins contain way more water than canned pumpkin; the puree should have a consistency somewhere between mashed potatoes and apple sauce.

Mix the eggs, oil, and sugar in one bowl. Combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon in another. Add the pumpkin to the wet ingredients, mix, and then fold in the flour mixture. Bake in a 1 inch deep jelly roll pan for 20-30 minutes at 350F/180C. Alternatively, you can take my little red hen route and send your mum an email and ask her to bake pumpkin squares for you. Don’t do this though! You will end up with culinary blueballs when she send you pictures but no actual food.

laura pumpkin bars

Anyway. Let the cream cheese and butter come to room temperature and then cream together. Add the vanilla and half and half (or just milk if you don’t have any) and then slowly mix in the powdered sugar until the icing is spreadable. Don’t forget to wait until the bars are completely cool until you starting icing them! I’ve ripped the tops off of many pans because I was too impatient. Like most desserts worth eating, these are better if you put them in a plastic bag or plastic container and wait until the next day to try them.

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2. Pumpkin Granola

by Rachel, originally from Two Peas & Their Pod

5 cups rolled oats
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice*
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
¾ tsp. salt
¾ cup brown sugar*
½ cup pumpkin puree
¼ cup applesauce*
¼ cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup dried cranberries (these are expensive, I used golden raisins)
1/2 cup pepitas (I bought them raw and toasted them in a hot skillet)

*things that were in the original recipe but I omitted because I didn’t have any/didn’t want to because I don’t like my granola very sweet, and everything still turned out really good

1. Preheat the oven to 325° F. In a large bowl, mix oats, spices, and salt. (The recipe doesn’t call for it, but I added a pinch of cayenne because I like spicy/sweet better than just sweet.)

pumpkin granola

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together brown sugar, pumpkin puree, applesauce, maple syrup and vanilla extract. Whisk until smooth. Pour wet ingredients into oat mixture and stir until the oats are evenly coated. At first it will seem like there is not enough wet ingredient and you will panic but it will be totally fine in the end. You don’t have to overmix it, because then you’ll get these big clumps that turn into delicious clusters when it’s done. It will be damp and wet and kind of weird but these things are also fine.

4. Pour the oat mixture onto a pan lined with foil or parchment paper. Use the largest pan you have – preferably a cookie sheet – and spread the granola thinly, or else it won’t all get crispy. Use several pans if you need to.

4. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove pan from the oven and stir with a wooden spoon. Bake for an additional 15-20 minutes or until the granola is golden and crisp and fucking delicious. The house will smell really good at this point, and this will be awesome. If you need to toast your pepitas, do that now. Remove from the oven and stir in dried cranberries and pepitas. Let cool completely. Store in an airtight container. Eat with yogurt, milk, soymilk, or on its own.

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3. Pumpkin Soup

By Stef

Hello! It is cold outside and this soup is warm and tasty. It’s hard to take cute pictures of yourself cooking soup.

6 cups low-sodium vegetable stock
1 1/2 cans cannellini/white beans
6 cloves garlic, peeled and diced
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
olive oil
1 cup pumpkin, peeled and diced into 1/2″ cubes
1 tbsp thyme
1 cup carrot, diced
1 bay leaf
1 medium onion, diced
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
salt
black pepper
1 bunch kale, washed, stemmed and cut into 1/2 inch pieces

1) Preheat your oven to 400°F. Drizzle a baking sheet with olive oil and lay out your pumpkin, carrot, tomato and onion. Sprinkle with more olive oil and some salt and pepper, and place inside the oven to cook for 20-30 minutes. Stir occasionally to prevent burning.

2) Remove vegetables from oven and set aside. You’re gonna use all of it, trust me. If anything gets stuck to the pan, loosen it up with a little vegetable stock.

3) Get your soup pot OMGGGGGG. Add your diced garlic, onion and grape tomato and cook on medium heat until the onions are translucent.

pumpkin soup

4) Add kale, thyme, the bay leaf and about 4 cups of vegetable stock. Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down to low and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. The kale should be getting tender, like your little heart.

5) Add white beans, simmer for another 20-30 minutes. I know you want to eat this soup right now but THERE’S MORE.

6) Add your pumpkin, carrots, leftover vegetable stock, cayenne pepper (to taste) and 1/2 tbsp salt. Cook another 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

7) Add more black pepper, let it cool and then EAT IT.

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4. Vegan Spiced Pumpkin Pie

By Sarah Croce

For some reason, I find that the general public often tries to make pumpkin pie and 90% of the time fails miserably. Yet they still bring their failed ventures to family functions, assholes.

This is a no-fail (and vegan!) recipe for those clueless cooks.

Crust:

1/2 cup unbleached flour
7 TB whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 TB sugar
1/2 tsp. baking powder
3 TB canola oil
3 TB soymilk plus
1/2 tsp. white vinegar
3 to 4 TB water

Filling:

1 Small pumpkin (the small ones have all the flavor)
1 Cup soymilk
1 Cup granulated sugar
1/3 Cup cornstarch
2 TB Molasses
2 tsp. Vanilla extract
2 TB ground cinnamon
1 TB ground ginger
1 TB nutmeg
1/2 TB ground cloves
1/2 TB allspice

Slice the pumpkin up into fourths and scoop out all of the gucky insides along with the seeds. Then oil that sucker up and put it on a baking sheet and pop it into a 400 (why is there no degree symbol on this laptop!!!) degree oven for about 40 minutes or until a fork easily pierces it.

While it’s baking you should make the crust. Mix the soy milk and the vinegar together separately and let it sit while you mix both flours, the salt, the sugar, and the baking powder together in a chic ceramic bowl. Then mix the oil and water into the soymilk/vinegar mixture (it should be slightly curdled and thicker). Pour most of that over the dry mix and stir it all around until everything is all wet, if you need more liquid then pour the rest over it as needed).

pumpkin pie

Mash that crust into a pie tin and make the edges as pumpkin-pie-like as your little heart desires. Throw that into the oven with the pumpkin for about fifteen minutes or until it browns lightly. It will rise unless you put baking marbles on it while it bakes. I personally like to let it rise then pat it down with a spatula when it comes out of the oven. Lez be honest, no one is ever going to see the crust except under all your delicious pie so who cares, amirite?

When the pumpkin is cooked throw it into a food processor with the soy milk, sugar, cornstarch, molasses, vanilla extract, and all the spices. Blend that baby up good! I like to grind my own spices when I am able to because it makes the pie so much more fresh and honest. But that’s just me. What can I say, I like an honest pie.

After the grinding session pour that mixture into the pie crust and bake that at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes until the filling is set and the crust is browned. Let it cool off on the counter then refrigerate it overnight. You can eat it warm if you can’t wait, but the pie really sets once it’s cooled and that’s when the majority of the flavor really comes out too.

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Laneia

Laneia has written 311 articles for us.

52 Comments

  1. The people who do pumpkin pie wrong don’t know the secret to it. You need to add twice the spices it has on the can.

    • Wrong! You skip the can altogether and make it from an actual pumpkin. YES. THIS IS THE WAY OF THE FUTURE. (And add twice the amount of spices, that’s a good idea too.)

  3. i have a little bitty pumpkin on the kitchen table as a halloween decoration which would make about one slice of pie, but now i have an excuse to buy it a posse. a pumpkin posse… my roommate will love this. last week it was “OMG GREEN PUMPKIN WTF” “it’s an acorn squash.” “BUT WHY?”

  6. OMFG, I LOVE PUMPKIN EVERYTHING. No, like really. When my friends see anything pumpkin they text me.

    Ok so I enjoy the savory side of pumpkin (Hello Stef’s soup!). This is one of my favorite things to make: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/pasta-with-pumpkin-and-sausage-recipe/index.html

    I usually add garlic because it makes everything better and more veggies ’cause I like my pasta sauces chunky.

    Also, a friend of mine recently made me pumpkin quesadillas. It involves canned pumpkin, onions, hot peppers, roasted red pepper, garlic, a little sugar and salt in a food processor. Add blue cheese, feta, or goat cheese and fresh cilantro. Done and delicious.

    Additionally, pumpkin in curry is never a bad idea. Ok, that is all.

  7. You guys are psychic. Yesterday, a roommate bequeathed a pumpkin to me. I have already made pumpkin pasta sauce (which is super creamy like alfredo, only no cheese) twice in the past two weeks. That soup looks super delicious.

      • Okay. This is heavily based on a recipe from The SAUCE Book by Paul Gayler. That book is awesome.

        2 tbsp. olive oil
        2 tbsp. butter (or butter-like thing)
        3/4 pound peeled and seeded pumpkin, cut into 3/4-inch pieces (I partially bake it in the oven first because my knives aren’t sharp)
        2 shallots, finely chopped
        1 garlic clove, crushed
        2 cups light chicken/veggie stock
        1/3 cup light cream, but I’ve used half-and-half and it’s turned out well
        about a tablespoon of ground cinnamon
        black pepper
        some quantity of salt depending on salinity of the stock used

        1. Heat oil & 1.5 tbsp of butter in a pan, add pumpkin, cook covered for 5 minutes until softened and a bit caramelized.
        2. Add shallots/garlic and do stuff for about two minutes.
        3. Add stock and boil for 8 – 10 minutes.
        4. Blitz the mixture in a food processor. Gayler claims you should strain this, but I have never done so.
        5. Whisk in cream/remaining 0.5 tbsp butter and add the cinnamon. Heat, but don’t let it boil.

        It ends up looking like this: http://bit.ly/aEAHxG

        • omg yum. what size pumpkin are we talking here? i have no sense of spatial reasoning/am bad at eyeballing it.

          • Hmm … a pie pumpkin that weighs about 1.25 – 1.5 pounds on the grocery store scales would be about the size you need. If it’s larger than a normal paperback (and I’m using Good Omens for reference), it’s probably way over 1.5 pounds.

  9. every year i make a vegan pumpkin pie and every year my family won’t eat my vegan pie because they think it’s made of seaweed and flax. i am going to veganize and make the shit out of those pumpkin bars and not tell anyone and it is going to be amazing, goddamn it.

  10. This is awesome, since clearly pumpkin is the little black romper of baking (Not perfect for every occasion, but DAMN so fine when done right). However, you guys, pumpkin is really expensive this year. There was a bad pumpkin crop or something, and it is ruining my life.

  12. The only things I enjoy about fall are a.) fall colors and b.) pumpkin pie. I am so going to try those pumpkin squares they look super yummy.

  14. I WANT THESE IN MY BELLY.

    also I know for a fact that although canned pumpkin is a rarity overseas you can get canned pumpkin at whole foods in London… in case anyone was looking.

  18. PUMPKIN BARS ARE AMAZING. my roommate’s mom made 3 trays of them…i may or may not have consumed a tray by myself and then blamed our neighbors…

  19. I made a cumin spiced pumpkin/potato mash once and OMG IT WAS GOOD

    I tried to make a vegan pumpkin pie a couple years back and failed miserably. So my partner reads this entry and said “OH YOU SHOULD HAVE JUST USED THIS RECIPE.” And I said, “Oh, okay, LET ME GO GET MY TIME MACHINE!” lol

    Also, there are blue pumpkins in Australia. Just thought y’all should know. (And you can buy canned pumpkin here but only at the extremely overpriced American food store where a box of Lucky Charms is like $10)

  20. I made pumpkin ravioli for my sister and a pretty girl last night! Homemade dough and everything. It was great and now I’m definitely going to try that pumpkin soup. Looks lovely, thanks for the recipe!

  21. I’ve never had pumpkin before and I’m so curious what it tastes like. This is the first year I’ve seen them at my grocery store but I’ve been too afraid to buy one because I’m pretty sure I’ll do something wrong and make it taste awful and then walk around the rest of my life thinking pumpkin tastes yuck when in reality it was just me messing up the recipe or something. You know? I’d probably try one of these if I wasn’t so afraid!

  22. i like pumpkin.
    i love butternut squash.
    and i think scorn squash is like. the baby jesus. of baby cheeses.
    and here’s one recipe that i will share now.
    1. you cut the butternut squash into strips. like how they make french fries, yeah?
    2.you put them on a baking sheet. spray some pam on the surface. put some salt and pepper on it. or whatever other seasoning you want. play with it. be creative. have fun.
    3. slide it into the oven. for. i forget how long exactly…(and i also forgot to tell you to preheat the oven…)( and i also forgot to how many degrees fahrenheit..)
    point is. you’ll get it down in the end. it won’t take more than a couple of minutes. lower the temperature. longer you wait. shouldn’t take you more than 10 minutes. or 5 minutes. i don’t know. man. my memory is feces.
    point is, once again. just play with it. find the right temperature for you. make an experimental batch. and see how you like it. do you want it to be more crispy? more soggy? more inedible?
    personally mine tasted like french fries. except not really.
    it tasted better than french fries. it was sweet. it was pumpkin. i love pumpkin.

    i think this is my first post?
    so pumpkin took my virginity.

  25. These are a Paula Deen recipe. They are easy and super good. My office loves them, and my coworkers now make them for family gatherings. The only adjustment I’d suggest is to replace the yellow cake mix with gingerbread cake mix. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/pumpkin-gooey-butter-cakes-recipe/index.html

    Cake mix! Sacrilege! I am telling you that I am the kind of person that grinds my own cinnamon and makes my own paneer (make your own saag paneer- guaranteed to get you laid), and I approve of this recipe.

  27. just thought i’d let you guys know that i’m eating kettlecorn popcorn…no biggie, except that it’s YUMMY

  28. Thanks bunches, I’ve spent every day since Halloween trying to find some way to get rid of 46lbs of pumpkin. At least the last 16 were free! (the scale at the check-out only went to 30)

  29. I’m sure someone around here has talked about this before, but for those of you who are vegan, what kind of dairy-free ice cream is best? I have a date who is allergic to dairy and nuts (I know, right) and I want to get her ice cream!

    • i really like soy delicious, but the simply decadent coconut milk stuff is out of control amazing… just be careful with ingredients re: nuts.

    • The Tomberlies raw cashew fake ice cream is amazing! The Lemon Creme flavor in particular is BEYOND. I cannot stress this enough. Unfortunately, its deliciousness is in direct proportion to its expensiveness.

      A couple of my friends keep posting recipes for fake ice cream where you freeze bananas and then blenderize them with a few dates and some other flavoring agents of your choice (cocoa, vanilla, etc.). I have yet to try this but it sounds really good. Has anyone else tried this?

    • And whoops, I just noticed the nut allergy part. So no cashews. Sorry about that. If you try the banana recipe, please report back?

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