Coco's Harvest Pumpkin Pie

Have you ever been to Coco's Restaurant and try their Harvest Pie? Well, I have and I LOVE it! Anyway, this year's thanksgiving I didn't buy enough ingredients for my pumpkin cheesecake pie and had two extra pie crusts, so I searched for a copycat recipe of Coco's Harvest Pie and stumbled onto this no bake recipe. It has two layers, the bottom layer is a pumpkin mousse and the top is one like pumpkin pie.


Ingredients 
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 tablespoon milk or half and half
1 tablespoon sugar
1½ cups thawed Cool Whip
1 Keebler Ready Graham Cracker Crust
1 cup cold milk
2 boxes (4-serving size each) instant vanilla pudding
3 cups canned pumpkin
1 3/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (substitute: 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, ½ teaspoon ground ginger, ¼ teaspoon ground cloves, if pumpkin pie spice is not available)

Directions

Pumpkin Mousse Layer
Beat cream cheese, 1 tablespoon of milk (or half and half) and sugar in a large bowl with a wire whisk until smooth. Gently stir in Cool Whip and 1 cup of canned pumpkin (or however many spoonfuls of pumpkin to this mixture if you'd like a more mousselike layer.) Spread on bottom of pie crust.

Pumpkin Layer
Pour 1 cup of milk into bowl. Add 2 boxes of pudding mix. Beat with wire whisk for one to two minutes. Mixture will be thick. Stir in 2 cups of canned pumpkin. Add all the spices with a wire whisk. Mix well. Spread over the cream cheese layer. Refrigerate at least 4 hours or until set. Garnish as desired. Store leftover pie in refrigerator. 


When I made this recipe, I had enough of the pumpkin mousse layer for two pies. See how much this recipe yields for you. After making these pies the recipe says to refrigerate for at least 4 hours, I found that it may be easier to keep in the freezer, to make it more thick and less runny. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pie

I have made this pie for two thanksgivings now and has been my favorite, as well as my friends and family, and now I want to share it with you all. I acquired this recipe from a Taste of Home Thanksgiving booklet I found at the store register.

Ingredients
1 (9 in) unbaked pastry shell

Cream Cheese Layer Ingredients:
1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
3 tbsp powdered sugar
1/2 tspn vanilla extract

Pumpkin Filling:
1 2/3 cups heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 cups canned pumpking
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup sugar
1 3/4 tspn pumpkin pie spice

note: if pumpkin pie spice is not available, you can substitute with 1 tspn ground cinnamon, 1/2 tspn ground ginger and 1/4 tspn ground cloves.

Directions

1. In a small mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth. Spread into pastry shell.
2. In a bowl, whisk pumpkin filling ingredients until smooth. Pour over cream cheese layer. Cover edges loosely with foil.
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 70-80 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Store in the refrigerator.

I used the ready made honey maid gram cracker pie crust for this recipe and the pumpkin filling was enough for two pies. So I suggest getting double ingredients for the cream cheese layer and another pie crust, so you don't waste the extra pumpkin filling.

I hope you enjoy this recipe, let me know if you had extra pumpkin filling just as I did.

Lemon Poppy Seed Scones

Here's my recipe for Lemon Poppy Seed Scones, I used a combination of two different recipes, the main recipe I referenced was Grandma Johnson's Scones recipe. Also, if you have a scone pan, you don't have to kneed in the dough, you can just scoop them into the scone pan, no need to grease the pan either. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do. Expect more scone recipes, as they are my favorite. This recipe will yield 2 batches full of the scone pan.



Dry Ingredients:
4 cups of flour
2 tspn baking powder
1 tspn baking soda
1 tspn salt
1 cup of sugar
1/4 tspn cream of tartar
4 tbsp poppy seeds
4-5 tspn grated lemon rinds
1 cup of butter


Wet Ingredients:
1 cup sour cream
1 large egg
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice


Lemon Glaze:
1 1/2 cup of powdered sugar
lemon juice (as needed)
yellow food coloring (optional)

Directions

1. In a small bowl, blend the sour cream and baking soda, and set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a large baking sheet.
3. In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, cream of tartar, poppy seeds, lemon rinds, and salt. Cut in the butter. Stir the sour cream mixture and egg into the flour mixture until just moistened. 
4. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead briefly. Roll or pat dough into a 3/4 inch thick round. Cut into 12 wedges, and place them 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.
5. Bake 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until golden brown on the bottom

Prepare glaze while scones are in the oven.

Glaze Directions

1. Place powdered sugar in a medium bowl, and add lemon juice one teaspoon at a time, mixing vigorously until smooth and thick. (If you like, you can add a couple drops of yellow food coloring)
2. Use a pastry brush to apply a thin layer of glaze over the hot scones. Brushing rather than drizzling gives a smoother appearance and requires less glaze.
3. Serve immediately. Store cooled scones in an airtight container.

Starbuck's Petite Vanilla Bean Scones

This is a picture of my second attempt at baking the infamous Starbuck's Petite Vanilla Bean Scones. I got the recipe from recipezaar.com (click on the link or scroll down). The only thing I changed was the 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract with 2 teaspoons of vanilla bean paste that I purchased at Williams-Sonoma. I also used a scone pan, which proved to be very useful.

On my first attempt, I did not use a scone pan and I tried to cut them into triangles, but it didn't work out very well, so it just baked like a big slab. Also, I noticed that every time I mix the batter together and really incorporate the ingredients well and knead/roll out the dough, it bakes very cake-like and soft. But on my second attempt, I got really lazy and mixed the dough with a hand mixer but left the dough in a kind of "dippin-dots" consistency and spooned them into the pan and packed them in, they came out more 'scone-like' and i guess you could say 'crunchier,' which I loved, it was still soft but it had that nice sort of crunch. Another thing I did was instead of baking the scones "until golden brown on top" like it says on the recipe, I just pulled them out exactly at 15 minutes, because then it keeps the nice creme color that is even all around. I also added some vanilla bean paste to the glaze as well to have the lovely little specks of vanilla bean all around.

Anyway, I hope you love this recipe as much as I do. I really enjoy making them. If you do decide to attempt baking them, feel free to share your experience by leaving a comment.

DRY INGREDIENTS

2 cups all-purpose flour (2 cups weigh 9 oz)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sugar

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut into pieces (5 TBL weigh 70 g)

WET INGREDIENTS

1 cup regular full-fat sour cream

1 large egg yolk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

GLAZE

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

water, as needed

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400 deg. F.
2. Whisk together dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
3. Using any method you prefer, cut the cold butter into the dry ingredients until flour resembles coarse meal, or use the following tip: The "grate" method: I grate a block of cold butter against the large holes of a box grater and weigh the butter ribbons to get the amount I need (1 TBL butter = 14 grams, so 5 TBL = 70 grams). Toss the butter ribbons with the flour mixture, and then use two knives to cut the flour-coated ribbons into 1/4-inch pieces.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the sour cream, egg yolk and vanilla extract until blended. Add this to the flour-butter mixture and stir with a fork until dough forms a cohesive ball. Use a spatula to get the dry bits fully incorporated. (It may not seem to have enough liquid at first, but the dough will eventually come together.).
5. Place the sticky dough onto a parchment-lined (or ungreased) baking sheet and pat into a disk about 1-inch in height. Cut the dough into wedges but do not separate. Or scoop dough into a mini scone pan if available. (Yield will vary depending on how big you slice the wedges.).
6. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown on top.

PREPARE GLAZE WHILE SCONES ARE BAKING

GLAZE

1. Place powdered sugar in a medium bowl, and add water one teaspoon at a time, mixing vigorously until smooth and runny.
2. Use a pastry brush to apply a thin layer of glaze over the hot scones. Brushing rather than drizzling gives a smoother appearance and requires less glaze.
3. Serve immediately. Store cooled scones in an airtight container.

My Baking Bliss

Welcome to 'My Baking Bliss'

I've always loved cooking and baking, but lately I have been really into it. So I decided to keep up a blog about my baking bliss to share with everyone. I probably won't update as often as I'd like but if I find a recipe online or in a book that I'd love to share to anyone and everyone who is interested, be sure to find it on here.

Most of the time I'll post pictures of my attempt at some recipes since I am but an amateur baker, when I finally get the hang of this baking thing and decide to create my own concoctions, I'll have those up as well. However, it may not always be about baking.

Anyway, we'll see where my love for baking (and cooking) will take me. So stay tuned!