Last month, my friend, Hannah, and I had a hypothetical conversation about booking a mini break to Paris, a few weeks past and the idea of Paris was still very much just a daydream. One evening, after a few hours of hotel research, we decided to live as spontaneously as we could and booked our little holiday at 1.30am.
Passport in hand and 15 days after booking, we were sitting on the Eurostar en route to Paris. It was my first holiday without family, which made me feel very grown up and sophisticated.
We stayed in Opera, at the Hotel Palm; a fancy little hotel, with a view of the Eiffel Tower from our balcony window.
I fell in love with Paris, it's beauty, it's people, the food and after only 4 days of exploring the city I was very sad to come home.
I first tried out this recipe a few weeks ago, shortly before Halloween, whilst there was a plentiful supply of Pumpkins in stock at the supermarket and grocery stores. This recipe is a combination of a few I found online, my first attempt was trial and error to try and get the measurements right, (bear in mind, a lot of Pumpkin Spice recipes I found were on American websites and use Cups instead of Grams, so my measuring spoons came in very handy.
All of the recipes I found online used canned Pumpkin, which I couldn't find anywhere, I therefore opted to make my own Pumpkin Puree, which ultimately I preferred as it's fresher and didn't contain the preservatives of canned goods. To make the Pumpkin puree, I removed the seeds, and used a hand blender. The second time I made these cookies, all of the Pumpkins were sold out so I cheated slightly and used a Squash, which is the same consistency, texture and has a very similar flavour.
Ingredients:
Cookies:
1 Cup Softened Butter
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
1 Egg
1 teaspoon of Vanilla Extract
Pumpkin Puree
Mix all of the wet ingredients together and then in a separate mixing bowl, whisk:
2 Cups of Flour
1 teaspoon Nutmeg
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Ginger
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
Add both mixes together to form the cookie dough.
Lightly grease a baking tray and bake the cookies for around 10 minutes at 200c degrees.
Icing:
Cream Cheese (I used Quark which is the fat free equivalent)
Icing Sugar
(Optional Peppermint Flavouring or Vanilla Extract)
Sprinkle with Cinnamon.
My favourite thing about these cookies is their light and fluffy texture, they are delicious and the epitome of Autumn and Christmas combined. They'll also help you get over the heartbreak that Starbucks have already stopped serving Pumpkin Spice Lattes for the year.
If you make these cookies, let me know what you think, I'd love to see you tweet or instagram some photos if you do, tag me so I can see.
Happy baking!
See you soon,
Amber
I wasn't really sure how I wanted to celebrate my 19th Birthday at first, it was bittersweet, the last official year of my teens, before the big 2-0. I decided to combine some of the great loves of my life, tea, cake & scones and went for a very stereotypically British celebration of afternoon tea.
