We had a wonderful day today and hope everyone else did too.
We hope your Christmas is merry and bright!
Christmas 2007
A scrap page I put together during nap time today documenting our first attempt at decorating cookies. 🙂
The journaling reads:
I had originally planned to NOT bake cookies with Ian this year and figured we’d leave store-bought cookies out for Santa. I really thought Ian was too young to be able to help out all that much. Like normal, I changed my mind at the last second and then didn’t have the supplies on hand to do any baking. I had Mike run to the grocery store and get pre-made dough. Ian helped me put the dough on the pans for baking and after they were cooled, we decorating with red, green and white icing as well as red sugar sprinkles. By the time we got around to decorating, Ian pretty much lost interested so I channeled my inner Martha Stewart and made some “HO HO HO” cookies.
Here is a picture of the plate full of cookies and glass of milk that we left out for Santa:
Scrapping resources:
-Template: Weeds and Wildflowers Design
-Paper: Holiday Sugar Cookie Blog Train (various designers used)
-Alpha (used for “cookie”): Betsy Tuma’s Advent Alpha – December 8
-Date tag: 2ps 25 Days
Something about winter and Christmas inspires me to bake. I made Bakerella’s pumpkin pie bites back in October and while I liked it, it wasn’t quite “IT”. It’s been in the back of my mind since then and I decided to make these for Christmas Eve dinner…only this time, I decided to make a few changes:
#1. The first time we made these, I used a silicon baking pan. Molding the dough in the soft pan was a complete (and I do mean COMPLETE) pain in the rump. Not only that, but they took an hour to bake in the pan (vs the 12-15 mins as stated in the recipe). This time around, I used metal baking pans. Molding the dough was easier and I was much less frustrated by the process. 😉
#2. Last time, we used generic pre-made dough and I’ll be honest, I didn’t love the flavor. We still ate 2 dozen pumpkin pie bites but I knew I never wanted to use that dough again. This time we used Pillsbury dough and it tastes MUCH better. Very yummy!
#3. I really liked Bakerella’s recipe for the pie filling but my family didn’t like it as much as a traditional pie. Again, we ate all 24 of the bites so its not like the original recipe wouldn’t cut it. I just decided I wanted to try a different pie filling this time around. I ended up finding a pumpkin pie recipe on Libby’s website. I figured that I might as well go with the recipes suggested by the experts, right? Well, it was a good choice. The pie filling was EXACTLY what I was looking for. Awesome!!!
So, when all was said and done, I made a combo of 2 recipes. 🙂
Pumpkin Pie Bites
INGREDIENTS:
Crust-
2 refrigerated ready-to roll pie crusts
1 egg (egg white only)
Pie Filling-
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2 large eggs
1 can (15 oz.) LIBBY’S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
1 can (12 fl. oz.) NESTLÉ® CARNATION® Evaporated Milk
INSTRUCTIONS:
Crust-
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Use a cookie cutter to cut 12 circles from each pie crust. You will need to roll the dough thinner than it comes out of the box. (I used a drinking glass to make circles the correct size.)
3. Press dough shapes into a 24 cup mini muffin tray. Make 12 at a time, alternating cups to make sure pie crusts don’t overlap each other.
4. Apply egg whites from one egg to the top edges of each pie. (FYI- I might skip this step next time. The bites didn’t end up burnt but I think the egg whites on the top was an unnecessary step.)
Pie Filling-
1. Mix sugar, cinnamon, salt, ginger and cloves in small bowl.
2. Beat eggs in large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture.
3. Gradually stir in evaporated milk.
Pie-
1. Spoon mixture into each pie crust. (The filling is pretty “runny” so I poured into a liquid measuring cup and then used that to pour into the cups.)
2. Bake for 40-45 minutes at 350 degrees or until a toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.
3. Cool on wire rack. Serve immediately or refrigerate.
It’s great when topped with whipped cream! Enjoy!!!
FYI- I had a bunch of pie filling left after I filled the 2 dozen pumpkin bites. Next time I might try to make another dozen bites but this time I didn’t feel like cutting another dozen circles and molding them in the baking pan. (I only have 2 pans so I would have had to start the process all over again.) Instead of tossing the extra batter, I made a regular (albeit shallow) pumpkin pie according to the instructions on the Libby website. It looks really yummy and since I already tasted the pumpkin pie bites, I know its going to taste awesome too! 🙂