Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding

Bread pudding might be the ugliest dessert ever. Especially when it’s pumpkin orange and dotted with chocolate chips.

It tastes good though. I promise.

Ingredients:

1 loaf of sturdy, day old bread, cut into 1” slices

2-3 Tbs unsalted butter

3 eggs + 3 yokes

2 cups milk

1 cup cream

1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cloves

Directions:

Preheat oven to broil and position top rack 5-6” from element. Butter a 13x9 baking dish.

Butter both sides of bread. Cut into 1” cubes. Spread bread on a sheet pan and toast under broiler until edges of cubes start to brown. Turn cubes over and toast the other side. Reduce oven to 325.

In a large bowl, beat eggs, milk and cream until combined. Stir in pumpkin, sugar, vanilla, salt and spices. Add bread to egg mixture and let stand for 3o minutes, stirring occasionally.

Spoon bread into prepared baking dish. Bake for 55-60 minutes or until custard is set and top is slightly browned. Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever

I’m sure there are a ton of recipes for “the best” chocolate chip cookies but this might really be it. These cookies are soft and chewy in the middle and slightly crispy on the outside. They taste like rich, buttery toffee. But in a cookie. And with chocolate. Mmm!

And these cookies are perfect for ice cream sandwiches.

What makes these chocolate chip cookies so good is browning the butter. Melting the butter makes a chewier cookie and browning it provides a deep toffee flavor. I used a recipe from Cooks Illustrated and tweaked it a little.

Ingredients:

14 Tbs unsalted butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups AP flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 cups (12 oz) semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 (or you can wait to crank up the oven and just let it heat while the dough chills). Make some room in your freezer or fridge for pans of cookies. Line two large sheet pans with parchment paper.

In a large skillet, melt 10 tablespoons of butter over medium high heat. Cook the butter, stirring frequently, until browned and nutty smelling. It helps to use a stainless steel pan so you can see the color of the butter better. Stir in remaining butter. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine sugar, eggs, salt and vanilla. Whisk in butter. Let the mixture stand for 3 minutes and wisk again. Repeat two more times. This helps to dissolve the sugar in the butter, making a chewier cookie.

Stir flour and baking soda into batter. Stir in chocolate chips.

Spoon dough in large mounds (about 3 Tbs) onto parchment lined sheet pans, at least two inches apart. Place cookies in fridge or freezer until firm and cool to the touch. Last time I made these it was hot as heck in my kitchen and it took about 10 minutes to cool them down in the freezer.

Bake cookies, one sheet at a time, for 12-14 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack. Load them up with ice cream and enjoy.

Sparkly Straight Pins

I’ve been using the same pins for years and they’re pretty dull so when I saw these pins on No Big Dill I had to make some.

You can make dozens of them in just a few minutes. All it takes is glue (E6000), small beads that have small holes and extra long straight pins.

I used a skewer to apply a little bit of glue to the end of the pin.

Then I slid a bead on and wiped off the excess glue.

I covered an overturned basket with a piece of paper and poked all of the pins into it to dry.

Pretty and useful. I think they would make a great gift for a seamstress or tucked into a little purse-sized mending kit.

Pin Cushion from a Pimiento Jar

I made these sparkly pins the other day (tutorial coming soon) and needed a place to stick them. I have an old school tomato pin cushion but it rolls all over the table. It usually ends up on the floor prompting some choice words as pins start to pile up in my mouth, beside my sewing machine and other places they shouldn’t be while I search for it.

This guy has a heavy, flat base so hopefully it will stay put.

I started with a pimiento jar (baby food jars would be perfect), paint, a little batting, some barley and few scraps of fabric.

I squirted some paint into the jar, put the lid on it, shook it up and then let it dry upside down. If your jar doesn’t have a lid, you can use a brush to smooth out the paint like I did here.

To make the top, I stacked up circles of batting and then gathered up the edges to form a spherical shape. The poof should be a little bigger than the opening to the jar. I ran a few stitches through the gathered part and cut off the “tail”.

Then I cut a circle of fabric about 3 times wider then the jar and wrapped it around the batting. I gathered up the loose edges and ran 3-4 stiches through the middle to secure it. Then I cut off the excess fabric.

I filled the bottom of the jar with barley (because that it was I had) and hot glued the cushion into the mouth of the jar.

I top-stitched a strip of fabric to cover the jar threads but ribbon would work just as well. I hot glued the fabric around the mouth of the jar and inserted the pins.