1. Pumpkin Crème Caramel

Pumpkin Crème Caramel

I think these are quite an elegant dessert, but are reasonably simple to make. These are just a baked custard with some pumpkin purée stirred through the mixture, giving it a bright colour and lovely flavour. I also added a cloud of whipped cream on top, and candied pumpkin seeds for a fantastic contrasting crunch. I kept this one restrained and didn't put any pumpkin spice in the custard itself, but couldn't help myself and added just a hint of spices to the candied pumpkin seeds. The recipe makes four crème caramels and they do need to be made at least a few hours in advance (or overnight), so I think they'd make a good dessert if you were having, say, a small Thanksgiving dinner party around the big day, and wanted to serve something that's seasonally appropriate, but not OTT pumpkin spice.

Pumpkin Chocolate Babka

Ok, so you may remember that I am totally into the pumpkin baking right now. (Coinciding with all the American and northern hemisphere bloggers moving into fall/autumn baking!) I've already made pumpkin bread, and pumpkin streusel muffins, and have just had pumpkin recipes on the brain. Well, the other day, one of my favourite bakeries, Le Petit Grain in Paris, posted a picture on Instagram of a pumpkin and pistachio praliné sourdough babka that looked totally amazing. I HAD to have it! Unfortunately, a return flight to Paris was not on the agenda, and I spent all day thinking about how I could make something similar. And that night straight after work I got into the kitchen and made it!

Pumpkin Chocolate Babka

So - I used Stella Parks' yeasted pumpkin bread recipe as the base. You may remember this excellent, orange-coloured dough from last year's pumpkin and pecan cinnamon scrolls with cream cheese icing. It's a relatively easy dough - just plonk everything into a food processor and whizz for a couple of minutes until it comes together in a smooth and stretchy ball. (Note: according to Stella, this dough HAS to be done in a processor and not a stand mixer or by hand - you need the blades of the processor to break down the fibrousness of the pumpkin and allow the gluten in the flour to develop. Apparently by hand it will never happen, and you're likely to overheat the motor in a stand mixer before the dough is sufficiently kneaded).

For the filling and shape, I used the über-famous chocolate babka recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's book Jerusalem. I added cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg to the filling for a pumpkin spice vibe, as well as sprinkling some pepitas on the top  to really hammer home the idea that this is a pumpkin babka. There's also a sugar syrup, that you use to drench the cooked babka - I added some of the spice mix to that too, so the flavour would really permeate throughout the loaf.

Pumpkin Chocolate Babka

I'm not gonna lie - there's a bit of work involved in this. None of it is particularly difficult; it's just time consuming. So read through the recipe carefully and plan it out! I did this all on a weeknight straight after work, and ate it for breakfast the next morning, as it needs to cool completely before you slice into it. (I cooked and ate dinner while the dough was having its first proof, and kept washing up as I went, so the kitchen wasn't too much of a disaster zone when I was done). You have to prove the dough twice - once for 1-2 hours when it's just a ball of dough; once for another hour once the log is formed. I did it all in one go, but I reckon you could do a slow proof overnight in the fridge for either proof if that suits your timing better.

Pumpkin Chocolate Babka

Either way, the babka is deceptively easy to make and form, and the results are sooooo impressive! The dough is soft and light with great crunchy edges, the chocolate swirl is super decadent, and I love the toasty crunch of the pecans and pumpkin seeds. The spiced syrup keeps it moist and gives a subtle warmth and gorgeous fragrance. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Chocolate Babka
Dough adapted from Serious Eats; Shape, filling, and syrup adapted from Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

Ingredients
For the dough
455 grams bread flour
9 grams table salt
7 grams dry yeast
340 grams pumpkin purée
55 grams maple syrup
55 grams unsalted butter, melted
For the filling
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
25 grams icing sugar
70 grams dark chocolate, melted
60 grams unsalted butter, melted
15 grams unsweetened cocoa powder
50 grams pecans
10 grams pepitas
For the syrup
60 millilitres water
50 grams caster sugar

Method
To make the dough, place the bread flour, salt and yeast in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the double blade. Pulse a few times to combine. Add the pumpkin purée, maple syrup and butter, and process until the dough becomes a smooth ball. This should take 75 seconds to 2 minutes. To test if the dough is ready, pull a small piece off and stretch - if it breaks, it needs to be processed for longer, so process for another 20 second burst and test again. It is ready when you can stretch it into a thin, almost translucent sheet without it breaking.
Remove the dough from the processor and form into a ball. Place into a lightly-oiled bowl, cover with clingfilm, and allow to prove until doubled in size. (1-2 hours on a mild day; it will be faster the hotter the weather is).
To make the filling, stir together the cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Set aside approximately half the spice mixture for the syrup. To the spices, add the icing sugar, dark chocolate, butter and cocoa powder. Stir to combine.
Toast the pecans in an oil-less dry frying pan over medium heat until toasted and fragrant. Tip out onto a chopping board and chop roughly.
To assemble, punch the dough down to expel the gas (hehe). Roll out the dough into a large rectangle, approx. 30 x 40 centimetres.
Spread the chocolate mixture over the dough in a thin layer, leaving a centimetre border all the way around. Sprinkle over the pecans, saving a handful for topping the finished loaf.
With the long side facing you, gently roll up the dough lengthwise to form a log, finishing with the seam side down. Press gently to seal.
Using a serrated knife, slice a centimetre off each end to neaten it up and discard the offcuts. Slice the log in half lengthwise, then place the two halves next to each other, with the stripey cut sides are facing up. Gently press two ends together to seal, then form a simple plait by bringing the right side over the left side, then repeating until you get to the end. Gently press the ends to seal.
Line a 29cm x 14cm x 7.5cm loaf tin with baking paper. Lift the plait into the prepared loaf tin. Cover loosely with clingfilm or a clean tea towel, and allow to prove for an hour until slightly risen and puffy. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 190C.
Sprinkle the remaining pecans and pepitas over the log. Bake the log for 20-30 minutes (covering with foil if it's going brown too quickly), or until cooked. A skewer inserted into the cake shouldn't come away with any raw dough (although it will obviously have some melty chocolate on it!)
Make the syrup while the loaf is cooking. Place the water and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Allow to boil just until the sugar is dissolved, then remove from the heat. Stir in the reserved spice mixture.
Once the loaf is cooked, pour the syrup evenly over the hot loaf. Allow to cool until it is just warm, then remove to a wire rack (discard the baking paper) and allow to cool completely. You should probably put a plate under the rack to catch any sticky drips.
Slice into thick slabs once cool.
Makes one loaf.

Have you made this recipe? Leave a comment below! Tag me on Instagram @sarahcooksblog and hashtag #sarahcooksblog

First up: complimentary Birthday Nando's. Of course.

Birthday Nando's

My big celebration is always my annual slumber party - a chilled out gathering at our place, with comfy clothes, and lots of snacks and wine. I always organise this for the weekend before my actual birthday.

Champagne!

We made a range of nibbly snacks - fruit kebabs, crudités and Nigella's gorgonzola and cannellini dip, guacamole, tomato and bocconcini skewers, loads of chips and crackers, and prosciutto-wrapped grissini. (We found gluten free grissini at the local deli so it was easy to keep everything gluten free and make it easy for our coeliac guest).

Nibbles

Sandra also made meatballs in the air-fryer, which we served with a hot tomato sugo. Air fryer meatballs are so great! They go all crispy on the outside and stay juicy inside. Yum! We also wanted to make these gluten-free, and Sandra had the genius idea of crushing up some of the gluten-free grissini to use instead of regular breadcrumbs.

Meatballs

For my birthday cake, I baked Bravetart's chocolate skillet cake in two twenty centimetre pans, which I split in half and sandwiched with cream cheese buttercream for an epic four layer cake. I also had some fun with some pink swirl piping to decorate! Both recipes are excellent, and I loved them.

Pumpkin and Pecan Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing

This recipe is a mash-up of two Bravetart / Stella Parks recipes - I used the recipe for her Yeasted Pumpkin Bread, but rather than baking it in a loaf or as dinner rolls, I went the whole hog and turned them into cinnamon rolls. I used the filling and icing recipe from her Overnight Cinnamon Rolls, with some minor adaptations - boosting the quantity of pecans, and adjusting the spices to give it more of a pumpkin pie vibe. I later learned that Stella has an end-to-end recipe for pumpkin cinnamon rolls in her book, which is a little different to this one, but I can't see myself making those. The yeasted pumpkin bread is just too good, and the combo is too perfect. I'll want to make this again and again!

So let's take a look.

Dough ingredients

The dough is a standard bread dough, with pumpkin purée added, providing moisture, colour, and a mild pumpkin flavour. One thing to note is that this dough has to be made in a processor. It's quite a bit stiffer than regular bread dough, and according to Stella, trying to use a stand mixer to develop the gluten in this dough sufficiently would either break the mixer, or would produce significant heat / oxidisation and ruin the dough.

Having said that, it comes together quite easily in the processor, and only takes a couple of minutes to get to the right stage.

Dough

Basically, you process the ingredients until they come together into a pliable dough, and then do the "windowpane" test. When you can stretch a small section of dough into a thin translucent sheet without it breaking or cracking, then it's ready. If it breaks, then keep processing it in twenty-second bursts until you can pass the windowpane test. My dough took about two minutes in total.

Windowpane test

Dough square

Then you cover it in a butter-sugar-spice mixture and chopped toasted pecans...

Dough and filling

...and roll it up! Stella has an amazing trick for cutting the soft dough - using a piece of kitchen twine! Just place the dough on top of the twine, cross the ends over, and pull sharply. It cuts the dough much more cleanly than a knife, with much less squishing.

Use a string to cut the dough into rolls

Look at those beautiful spirals!

Ready for the oven

Pumpkin and Pecan Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing

When I made these last year, it wasn't for any occasion. Sandra was overseas working, and I had a free Saturday at home before dinner with friends, so thought I'd embark on a little baking project. Once they were done, I took some photos, but I wasn't planning on eating any as I didn't want to ruin my appetite for dinner. But they smelled and looked so good, I thought I'd better try one while it was still warm. Well, dear friends, it was one of the best things I'd ever eaten in my whole life, I shit you not. Woweee! The soft, pillowy dough, the warming spices, the crunchy sugary edges from where the sugar and nuts had caramelised on the pan, the sweet yet tangy cream cheese frosting melting into the buns - it was just perfection.

Crunchy edges...

I packed two up and immediately drove over to my parents' house so they could partake in the deliciousness. I also packed up two more for my friend Alaina (who I was having dinner with that night) and then rushed off to dinner. And the remaining seven buns? Well... they were definitely all gone by the end of the week.

Pumpkin and Pecan Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing

Give these a go! I hope you like them as much as I did!

Pumpkin and Pecan Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing
Pumpkin dough recipe from Bravetart's Yeasted Pumpkin Bread, Filling and Icing adapted from Bravetart's Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients
For the pumpkin dough
455 grams bread flour
9 grams salt
7 grams dry yeast
340 grams pumpkin purée, canned or homemade
55 grams maple syrup
55 grams butter, melted
For the filling
130 grams pecans
115 grams softened unsalted butter
170 grams light brown sugar
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 gram salt
For the cream cheese icing
115 grams cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
120 grams icing sugar

Method
For the dough
Place the bread flour, salt and yeast in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the double blade. Pulse a few times to combine. Add the pumpkin purée, maple syrup and butter, and process until the dough becomes a smooth ball. This should take 75 seconds to 2 minutes. To test if the dough is ready, pull a small piece off and stretch - if it breaks, it needs to be processed for longer, so process for another 20 second burst and test again. It is ready when you can stretch it into a thin, almost translucent sheet.
Remove the dough from the processor and form into a ball. Place into a lightly-oiled bowl, cover with clingfilm, and allow to prove until doubled in size. (1-2 hours on a mild day; it will be faster the hotter the weather is).
For the filling
Place the pecans in a dry frying pan and cook over a medium heat until toasted and fragrant. Remove to a chopping board, allow to cool slightly and then roughly chop. Set aside.
Place all the ingredients for the filling in a mixing bowl and beat until smoothly combined. You can use a mixer or a wooden spoon, I think this is easier to do with a wooden spoon). Set aside.
To make the cream cheese icing
Place the softened cream cheese in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and add the vanilla extract. Sift in half the icing sugar and then beat slowly to incorporate. Sift in the remaining icing sugar and beat on a medium speed until silky smooth and pale. Set aside. (If you're doing this in advance, transfer the mixture to a bowl, cover, and refrigerate. Before icing the buns, bring it back up to room temperature - and even microwave it briefly - to get the creamy texture back).
To assemble
Once the dough is proved, punch the dough to remove the gas (hehe), and turn onto a working surface. You can lightly flour the surface if you feel nervous, but I found that with the oil from the bowl, and the butter in the dough, the dough didn't stick to my board. (And no flour also makes for easier clean-up).
Pat the dough out into a rough square, then roll out into a 13 inch / 33cm square. (Lift up the dough every now and then to check it's not sticking).
Take the spice-and-butter filling mixture and spread it evenly over the bright orange dough with an offset spatula. Sprinkle the pecan pieces evenly over the dough.
Roll the dough up to form a log, and end with the seam-side down.
Take a piece of kitchen twine and place it under the middle of the log. Pull tightly from both ends to cut the dough. Using the same method, cut each log into 6 even slices. (You can use a knife if you don't have kitchen twine but it is more likely to squish the dough and result in messier buns).
Prepare your baking dish by rubbing it with a little butter. (You can use either one 22x33cm rectangular baking pan, or two 20cm round cake pans). Arrange the beautiful spirals evenly in your prepared pan(s). Cover with foil and allow to prove for 1 hour, or until risen, expanded and puffy. (Again, the colder your room is the slower this will be, so timing may vary). You could also give it an overnight rise in the fridge.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 175C.
Keeping the pan covered with foil, bake for 45 minutes, or until the rolls are further expanded, and the dough is firm but still pale. Remove the foil and bake for a further 15 minutes until golden brown.
While still hot, spread the icing evenly over the buns and then just go to town.
Makes 12 rolls, serves 1-12 people

Notes:

• Due to the stiffness of the dough, it has to be made in a processor, it won't work doing it by hand or in a stand mixer.

• If it makes timing easier, you can do the second rise in the fridge overnight. 

Have you made this recipe? Leave a comment below! Tag me on Instagram @sarahcooksblog and hashtag #sarahcooksblog

More pumpkin and cinnamon roll deliciousness from the archives:

• Pumpkin Bread with Cream Cheese Glaze
• Cream Cheese Cinnamon Rolls with Caramel Pecan Topping
• Cardamom Tahini Pumpkin Pie

Roast-Plum Ice-Cream

When I came into that glut of Queen Garnet plums recently, I did a quick poll on my Insta Stories to get some suggestions on what to make with them. The most popular response, by a country mile, was plum ice-cream. I love ice-cream, both eating and making, and I couldn't wait to get into the kitchen and try my hand at making plum ice-cream! (Does anyone remember my "Ice-Cream Sunday" project?)

One tricky thing about home-made fruit ice-creams, though, is that they can set very hard and be difficult to scoop, due to the water content in the fruit. The addition of sugar and alcohol does help them set less firmly, which is why you'll often see fruit-based ice-cream or sorbet recipes including a splash of kirsch or other booze, and why it's usually not recommended to significantly reduce the amount of sugar stipulated in the recipe.

However, last year I learned a great technique for deeply flavoured yet still scoopable roasted cherry ice-cream, from the wonderful Stella Parks AKA Bravetart. (You can read about the cherry ice-cream in more detail in my gushing post about Bravetart - she's pretty damn awesome). I thought the technique might work well with other stonefruit, like plums, so I gave it a go! Spoiler alert: I was right.

So, here's how I did it. I started by halving the plums (leaving in the pits), and roasting them with sugar until softened and juicy. This intensifies the plum flavour, and cooks off a lot of the water. Leaving the pits while roasting in also adds extra plum flavour.

Queen Garnet plums, ready for roasting

That colour is incredible.

Roast plums

Once the roasted plums were cool enough to handle, I fished out all of the pits, added them to a saucepan with some cream, brought it to a simmer, and then turned off the heat and let the cream infuse. This gives the cream a mild almond flavour, and a hint of colour from the plum flesh clinging to the pits. (Although I suppose that hint of colour is moot, seeing as the pale cream is be added to the blood-red plums later!)

Cream for steeping

And to pre-empt any questions I might get, and because I found this topic interesting, inside the pits of stonefruit are tiny almond-shaped kernels, also known as noyaux, which contain a substance called amygdalin, which if ingested raw can turn into cyanide, and in large quantities can be toxic. However, in this recipe, the noyaux (and the amygdalin) are locked away inside the plum pits, and if any trace amounts were to slip out, it would be neutralised through the cooking process (roasting and simmering).

I don't mean to alarm - noyaux are a proper food product, used commercially, and are edible if processed correctly. For example, apricot kernels are used to make bitter almond extract, and they can be distilled into liquor (crème de noyaux). I've seen lots of recipes for home cooks online using noyaux to flavour jams or marzipan, but the noyaux do need to be cooked properly to break down the amygdalin. I'll be honest though, even cracking open a stonefruit pit to get at the noyaux seems like way too much effort, so for now I have no interest in any home cooking with noyaux!

Let's get back to the plums! Once de-stoned, I transferred the soft plum halves to a jug and gave them a few blasts with a stand mixer to break them down, then added them back to the pan with all the juices. At this stage, if the mixture had been quite watery I would have cooked it on the stove for a bit to reduce the liquid, but as you can see from the photo above the liquid had already reduced in the oven, so I just went straight to the next step, which was to press the plums and juices through a sieve.

Plum pulp, plum concentrate in the background

Pressing the plums through a sieve gives you a concentrated plum liquid. I would suggest being quite firm about this, you want to get as much concentrate as you can out of the plums! Here's what the concentrate looks like.

Plum concentrate

You don't need the plum pulp left in the sieve for the ice-cream, but don't throw it out! You can keep it in a clean jar in the fridge and eat it as you would jam - although it's not gummy and sweet and sticky like a jam; it's more like, well, a lightly-sweetened cooked plum purée, with the focus on the plums and not the sugar. It's really beautiful and I've been enjoying it on toast and crumpets!

Plum pulp on crumpets

Back to the ice-cream... I strained the plum pits out of the cream, and then whisked the cream and the plum concentrate together, with a little salt and lemon juice. It turned the most beautiful blushing pink colour. (Of course, the colour would depend on what types of plum you use - the Queen Garnet plums I used were super intense red). You'll also note that this ice-cream mixture is just plums, sugar, cream, salt and lemon juice  - no eggs or other ingredients that would dull the flavour or colour of the plums in the finished product.

Ice-Cream Base

I then chilled the mixture thoroughly - in an ice bath, and then the fridge overnight - and then churned it. So creamy! So pink!

Churned roast plum ice-cream

Once churned I transferred the mixture to a container and let it freeze properly. And that was it!

Roast Plum Ice-Cream

The technique worked so well with the plums! I found that this ice-cream does need a good five to ten minutes out of the freezer to soften before scooping, but once that's done, the ice-cream is creamy and light and has a wonderfully intense plum flavour. Enjoy!

Roast-Plum Ice-Cream

Roast Plum Ice-Cream
A recipe by Sarah Cooks

Ingredients
750 grams ripe plums, preferably Queen Garnet
75 grams sugar
395 grams thickened cream
Generous pinch of salt
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Method
Preheat the oven to 200C.
Wash the plums and cut into quarters (don't remove the pits).
Place the plums, pits, and sugar into a ovenproof dish (one that can go in the oven and on the stove) and stir to combine. Roast for 45 minutes or until softened and juicy. Set aside until cool enough to handle.
Remove the pits and place in a small saucepan. Add the cream to the pits in the saucepan. Bring to a simmer, then remove from the heat, cover and set aside.
Place the plum chunks in the bowl of a food processor or in a tall narrow container (you can leave any juices or puree in the dish). Break up the plum chunks using the food processor or a stand-mixer. You don't need to puree them, you just want to break up the larger pieces. Return the chopped-up plums to the dish with the juices and give it a stir. If the mixture is quite liquid and watery, heat it on the stove for a few minutes to allow any excess water to evaporate.
Pass the plums and any juices through a sieve into a mixing bowl, pressing with a flexible spatula to extract as much liquid as possible. You don't need the pulp for the ice-cream; transfer to a clean jar and add a pinch of salt, and you can eat it like a jam.
Strain the cream into the plum liquid, and discard the pits. Add the salt and lemon juice and whisk gently to combine.
Place some ice-cubes and water in a large mixing bowl or one compartment of the sink, and sit the bowl with the ice-cream base inside. Allow to cool for about half an hour, stirring occasionally.
Cover the bowl with clingfilm and refrigerate until cold, at least 4 hours or overnight.
Churn the mix in an ice-cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions, until thickened, light and creamy.
Scrape the mixture into a one-litre container. Cover and freeze until firm, approximately 4 hours. Allow to soften at room temperature for 10 minutes before scooping if it is very firm.
Makes approx. 1 litre

Have you made this recipe? Leave a comment below! Tag me on Instagram @sarahcooksblog and hashtag #sarahcooksblog

Sarah received complimentary Queen Garnet plums from Nutrafruit but was not obligated to post or compensated in any way. All opinions are my own.