It’s October, the leaves are starting to fall, changing to various shades of rust before drifting to the floor, you’ve got your cosy clothes out of the loft, meals are starting to shift from light summery flavours to more hearty stews and pies, it’s getting darker in the mornings and everyone is starting to talk about Halloween. It’s also the time that all the shops and market stalls start stocking pumpkins rather than just a butternut squash. Pumpkins are wonderful, and I’m going to spend some time telling you about just how wonderful they are, in the hopes that it’ll stop you wasting them.
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autumn
Pumpkin Pie Brownies
It’s the time of year where I can start putting pumpkin into absolutely everything. This happens every year, and it’s one of the best things about autumn. Some prior examples from the blog include things like pumpkin cinnamon buns, nutella pumpkin pies and pumpkin & black eyed bean curry. You can see everything pumpkin here. I love make spicy pumpkin soups, pies and bundt cakes. I’m not just talking ‘pumpkin spiced’ either as none of that junk has pumpkin in it, just a blend of spices that’s sold to you as the taste of autumn. I decided to experiment with one of my favourite go-to recipes, my brownies. I’ve made cheesecake brownies before and this falls into a similar territory and while I was worried about flavours and moisture levels, the Pumpkin Pie Brownies were a huge success. Read more
Vegan Cinnamon Buns
I’m 10 days into a Vegan month and so far it’s going pretty well. I’ve yet to find myself melting down into a puddle crying about halloumi. There’s still time, but so far, so good. One of the big ones for me when it comes to a month like this isn’t actually my meals, or even what milk to put in my tea, it’s the baking. I usually bake a couple of times a week, minimum, and most of my go-to recipes are full of butter and eggs. Cookies for instance are one of my favourite things to bake, but I’ve yet to find a vegan cookie recipe that’s matched up (if you’ve got one, please, please leave it in the comments below!). I decided to kick the month off with a batch of Vegan Cinnamon Buns though, to see whether I could make a completely vegan dough.
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Squash, Black Eyed Bean and Coconut Curry
It’s been a little while, but man have I been busy. I’ve been to Glasgow for a birthday weekend, Florida to visit Universal Studios and finally attend the grandaddy of them all, Wrestlemania and after all that I’ve been to Scotland for my dad’s 60th birthday, Yorkshire to see my girlfriend’s family and finally Newcastle to see an old uni friend get married. It’s been incredibly hectic, and as such I’ve not had much of a chance to write anything, but I’ve got a fair few things lined up, including a bunch of words about the trips above, but I’m starting with a recipe for a curry I’ve been making almost weekly since the start of the year; Squash, Black Eyed Bean and Coconut Curry.
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Pumpkin Spice Baileys Glaze for Pumpkin Cinnamon Buns
I’m freshly back from a trip to Norway, and I may have eaten my body weight in cinnamon buns. They were completely different to the ones I’m about to post about, but I thought it was relevant. I’m going to be trying to find a recipe for one of them soon, so keep your eyes out for that. In the meantime, this is an updated recipe to something I baked a year ago, and while pumpkins are still in season (yup, they don’t disappear after Halloween) I felt that it was a great time to stick this together. The cinnamon bun recipe itself is the same as the first one, I just didn’t roll it as thin and changed the glaze, from the maple to something slightly different. I stirred through a decent helping of the new Baileys Pumpkin Spice to give it a bit of a kick. The pumpkin spice, unsurprisingly, goes well with the pumpkin in the buns and the cinnamon that’s running through them.