Monday, November 9, 2009

Pumpkin Cookies er Graham Crackers

These are actually graham cracker cookies or they were meant to be that.I had bookmarked pumpkin graham crackers from Cupcake Project and through the link given there also went to eggless graham crackers of Bakingbites.So I decided to use the eggless recipe with the addition of pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spices and also gave it pumpkin shape ala cupcake project.The result was a tasty and spiced cookie though I am not sure I could call it graham cracker.

Graham crackers are made from Graham flour- a combination of white flour and wheat bran and germ.They were founded by Sylvester Graham as a part of Graham diet and the flour which he developed was called Graham flour and was healthier than normal ordinary All Purpose Flour.Though these days,commercial graham crackers are made from APF.If you have graham flour then use it instead of the whole wheat flour given in the recipe .

Ingredients:
Whole Wheat Flour: 1 and 3 /4 cups
All purpose Flour:1/2 cup
Sugar: 1/2 cup
Baking Powder: 1 tsp
Baking Soda: 1/2 tsp
Salt: 1/2 tsp
Cinnamon + Ginger+Nutmeg : 1/2 tsp each OR Pumpkin PieSpice: 1-1.5 tsp as per taste


Cold Butter: 8 tbsp (1/2 cup or 1 stick )unsalted


Molasses: 4 tbsp
Pumpkin Puree: 4 tbsp

Preparation:
In a big bowl mix together the flours,baking soda,salt,baking powder and the spices.Add cold butter cut into cubes and mix well pinching and fluffing till the mix resembles coarse sand.Add in the molasses and the pumpkin puree.Instead of 4 tbsp molaases,you can use honey or a mix of honey and molasses 2 tbsp each.Knead to form a dough which will be sticky.Place the dough between 2 plastic wraps and roll it out into 1/8 inch thick.The dough before chilling and not yet 1/8 inch thick looks like...


Chill the dough for atleast 1 hour or several hours.Retrieve the chilled dough,and then roll it out into 1/8 inch thickness if it is not then,using a pumkin cookie cutter,cut out shapes and place them on a lighlty greased baking sheet.If you find it hard to take out the cut shapes,one way is place the chilled dough on the baking sheet,mark out shapes and take away the remaining dough.Reroll the remaining dough and again roll it into 1/8 thick and repeat the process.Using the tines of a fork give a face to the pumpkin,er I did this for the first two batches only.

Bake for 15 minutes in a preheated oven at 350F till the edges start browning.Take out from the oven and let them cool completely in the baking sheet itself.Mine were pulled out a when the edges were more than a little brown.I allowed them to cool in the baking sheet itself and this made them crunchier.

The taste on first bite was that of molasses and spices.It was like eating into a spice cookie.I never felt I was having a graham cracker which I had when I was in US.Then second bite onwards,I felt/imagined I was biting into a graham cracker.The taste was just right,cinnamony teddy grahams that I had tucked into.. well it could be my imagination.Pumpkin -I never felt it.may be because I used just little or the molasses overpowdered it or I do not know.Also the remaining two cookies turned a bit softer the next day.Basically the taste was GREAT,but when you compare my adaptation from 2 great recipes with the commercial ones then I am not so sure.Anyway most of the cookies (graham or not) were finished before the day was over and the remaining I found had turned a bit softer the next day.So do check the original recipes of Baking bites and Cupcake Project before thinking of making mine.I will be making this again though as the taste was great.

8 Comments:

shahana said...

yummy pumpkin cookies!!!!

Finla said...

Wow i just love those shapes, looks beautiful, especial for this time if the year.

Cham said...

The cookie re cute :) My son loves all these fun shapes!

Priya Suresh said...

Cute cookies...looks prefect for me..

Sanghi said...

Wow.. delicious pumpkin cookies..!

Tina said...

Yummy yummy....

Red Chillies said...

Looks so pretty and seems so easy to make.

veggie belly said...

these cookie are super cute!

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