Our friend Anne was born on the same day as my daughter Mira and made it out into the world a mere half an hour before her, so the girls are little twin stars. When Anne was still on the inside and ML was taking my prenatal yoga classes at the Kula, we had no idea that our daughters were going to be life-long friends and would be meeting up for cookie-baking sessions over 3 years later.
This recipe for pumpkin, chocolate-chip cookies is KILLER, and should definitely be a part of your Halloween treat-baking. After trying to finagle my (other) friend Jamie out of her business partner’s sister’s in-law’s next door neighbor’s childhood friend’s grandma’s top secret recipe for a year now, with no positive results, I finally had to sit down and figure out something for myself. Anne and Mira really did most of the work here and all of the entertaining. That night, after the girls had eaten a princess dinner, involving ML’s delicious turkey meatballs and several bites of princess broccoli, they sat down to eat warm pump-chip cookies that they dunked in tall glasses of cold milk. I took it a little further and sandwiched locally made vanilla ice cream in between, really, for sheer trick-or-treat hedonism.
Anne and Mira’s Pump-Chip Ice Cream Sandwiches
*4 c. all purpose flour
*2 t. salt
*1 T. cinnamon
*1 t. nutmeg
*2 t. baking powder
*2 c. light brown sugar, packed
*1 c. sugar
*1 c. (2 sticks) of unsalted butter, softened
*1 c. pumpkin puree
*2 t. vanilla
*4 eggs, preferably organic and room temperature
*16 oz. of bittersweet chocolate chips
Line two baking sheets with silpat mats or grease them with a little butter.
Measure out the flour, salt, spices, and baking powder into a medium sized bowl. Encourage your mini-chef to learn how to level the flour and the baking powder and try it on her own. Then, she can give all those dry ingredients a gentle whisk.
Next set up a very large bowl with the sugars and the butter, and cream them with an electric mixer or beat them till fluffy with a wooden spoon. Guide your mini-chefs hand with this but also let them be a big part of the fun mixing. Beat in the pumpkin puree. Crack the eggs into another small bowl, so that you can fish out the shells as the mini-chefs practice cracking, and then beat them into the butter-sugar mixture, one at a time. Beat in the vanilla.
Scrape down the bowl, and stir in the flour mixture. Definitely let your Yummy do the special pour in of the chocolate chips and fold them in together. Put the mixture in the fridge for at least 30 minutes and maybe even a few hours to chill. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
Using a tablespoon or a small ice cream scoop, make little balls out of the batter and drop them onto the baking sheets. Let your mini-chef pat them down like a pancake. As they bake, they will not spread out very much, so you can space them pretty close together. Bake 9-12 minutes.
After the cookies have baked, have been cooled a minute, and spatula-ed onto a cooling rack for a few minutes, you and your mini-chef have a two options: Dunk in big glass of cold milk and/or put a small scoop of vanilla, chocolate, pumpkin, caramel, cinnamon, and the list goes on ice cream in between two cookies to make a sandwich. All the sandwiches can be assembled and put to stay cold on a baking sheet in the freezer till ready to serve.
