White Chocolate Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

Don’t fight it, embrace pumpkin madness. I drink Pumpkin coffee in the morning. I put pumpkin butter in my oatmeal. So it’s only appropriate that I get my pumpkin on when baking this month. When we were younger, going pumpkin picking was a big deal. It was in our blood growing up in the ghetto of Shelton, Connecticut where people drove from hours away to go to Pumpkinseed Hill at Jones Tree Farm to pick pumpkins in the fall, Christmas Trees in the winter, and strawberries & blueberries in the summer. We were allowed to get any size pumpkin we wanted as long as we could carry it all the way to the checkout by ourselves. I was definitely a medium-size conservative pumpkin girl myself, and unoriginal with my carving skills.

I made regular pumpkin snickerdoodles yesterday before our home tennis match where we are responsible for bringing some snacks for the match. Unfortunately, our undefeated streak as the Young Animalz working girls dynamic duo ended yesterday in a nail-biter of a match, against some really aggressive and tall women from another club who could reach every shot we tried to get past them. My strategy next time will be to get the opposing team to load up on sugar BEFORE the match, and then we’ll be able to take them down in the game. Hindsight, 20:20. Anyway, this afternoon I forgot to buy toffee at the grocery store so my original idea for toffee pumpkin cookies was not possible because of sheer laziness in not wanting to walk back to the store. So I pulled everything out of my special magic baking drawer of deliciousness, and found to Ghiradehelli white chocolate bars, so figured I’d jack up the pumpkin snickerdoodle recipe from yesterday with them. I have to say, pumpkin, cinnamon and white chocolate is an award winning combination.

Ingredients:

  • 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
  • 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
  • 8 ounces white chocolate bar (or 1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips)
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar and 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon for rolling

Step 1: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Beat together butter and  1 1/2 cups of sugar until creamy. Add egg and vanilla and mix until incorporated. You will probably need to scrape the side of the bowl with a spatula once or twice. Add the pumpkin puree until well combined.

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Step 2: In a separate bowl sift together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt and pumpkin pie spice. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and beat on a low speed until incorporated.

Step 3: Coarsely chop the white chocolate bars and add to the batter and mix until evenly distributed. You should probably refrigerate it for at least 20 minutes so it’s easier to work with.

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Step 4: In a separate bowl, mix remaining sugar and cinnamon. Using a small cookie scoop or a teaspoon, roll even size balls of dough. Coat them with the cinnamon sugar mixture by rolling them in the bowl then place on a sil-pat or parchment-lined baking sheet. Press down with two fingers so that the cookies bake evenly.

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Step 5: Bake at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

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These cookies pack a deliciously sweet pumpkiny punch. More than even a monster size pumpkin from Jones Tree Farm. I hope my coworkers are ready for a sugar pumpkin coma tomorrow morning.

There are two things in this world that can make everything better when life gets a little crazy: my mom and Home Depot. What’s even better? When my mom makes a weekend trip to Boston and we get to go to Home Depot together. My mom came up for the weekend to “be really productive around the house” with me (translation: Spend Skip’s money.) After tennis yesterday, we took a nice trip to Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel to just wander and browse the store (things that drive Skip crazy). We then of course had to visit my favorite place — Home Depot — and just browsed the aisles to start planning the next set of projects for the house. Wainscot, shutters, a backsplash, and a media console are next up in my 6-month release schedule for house projects.

Last night we raged (aka. had some bomb risotto from Stephi’s and were in sweatpants watching Breaking Bad by 8:15) so this morning we planted about a million tulips. Thank goodness for Linda’s green thumb, otherwise there would be no plant life anywhere in my yard. The only exciting thing about gardening is I am convinced I am going to find some bones or hidden drugs in my backyard every time I start digging back there. It seems someone years ago used to chuck glass beer bottles in a pile back there, which we always dig up giant shards of glass when trying to dig holes for flowers, which at least keeps things interesting. And to reward ourselves for our gardening productivity today, we spent the rest of the day in the Copley mall. Before mom caught her train, I took her to my happy place – Flour Bakery. Let me tell you, life does not get any better than spending the afternoon with my mom, while enjoying a Chunky Lola cookie and raspberry seltzer.

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Well, until you get home and continue the Breaking Bad marathon of course which has resulted in nothing except severe anxiety and regular nightmares that I am wanted by the Mexican drug cartel. When one of the annoying political campaigners knocked on my door (for the 800th time) this afternoon, I was very tempted to swing the door open in a Walter White fedora and say “I AM THE ONE WHO KNOCKS.” Unfortunately, I live in Southie so it would be risky trying this since the only White known in this area is Whitey Bulger, the only gangster more notorious than Walter White.