Three for the Price of One Pumpkin Recipes

In my experience of attempting and learning how to make pumpkin pie from scratch I came up with a few other interesting recipes that are easy and simple. To do all of these recipes you'll need one ripe baker's pumpkin.

Recipes listed:
Pumpkin Cinnamon Snickerdoodles
Pumpkin Brownies
Pumpkin Brittle

Preparing the pumpkin
Saw the pumpkin in half and place the two halves into a flat dish (a large casserole dish will work for this) place half a cup of water in the base of the dish and cover with a aluminum foil and bake at 350 for half an hour. You can also do this with the microwave though make sure not to cover it with foil. If in your microwave cook the pumpkin for about 10 minutes on high and let stand for two or three minutes.

Ingredients for prep;
1/4th cup of White or brown sugar
½ teaspoon of: Cinnamon, Nutmeg
1/4th (dry) cups of Honey, Condensed coconut milk, and vanilla
*Eggs
*Milk
(* objects are if you use this to make pumpkin pie filling)
Once the pumpkin is cooked scrape the sides and put into a mixing bowl if you have a hand blender you can use this to break the pumpkin down into the consistency of apple sauce, though if you have the luxury of a blender you can use a blender to do this as well.
Once you've blended this down add ¼ cup sugar to this mixture, about half a teaspoon of; cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla, ¼ (dry) cups of both honey and condensed coconut milk. This is essentially pumpkin pie filling from scratch except for it is missing eggs and milk (if you use this to make pumpkin pie filling add three eggs, and one half cup milk, this mixture of one pumpkin should make two 12 inch pies).

Snickerdoodles:

2 cups baking flour (or all purpose flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon of salt
½ cup of butter
2-3 eggs (depending on size)
1 ½ cups of the pumpkin mixture

In a mixing bowl combine all wet ingredients until they are smoothly blended. Then slowly mix in the flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix until it becomes a sticky dough.
Keep extra flour on hand if you need to thicken the mixture. Work the dough until it is no longer stick and then pull out small clumps and push them down onto a cookie sheet.

Topping for the cookies:
Take 2 tablespoons of cinnamon, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar and ¼ stick of butter. Melt the butter cinnamon and sugar in the microwave until the butter is liquefied but not separated and mix in the sugar and cinnamon until they are more or less dissolved. Using a clean barbecue brush lightly brush the mixture on the yet to be cooked cookies.

Pop them in a preheated oven that is sitting at around 350 F. (Adjust as each oven is different). They should take about 15 minutes to cook. Let them cool and settle after they are pulled out of the oven before you serve.

Brownies: Ok so brownies seem pretty straight forward but these are all from scratch recipes so there is a little more work involved. If you want to make it easy buy a prepackaged brownie mix and substituted the butter and sugar (if sugar is required) with the prepared pumpkin. That said here is a from scratch brownie recipe for you.

1/4th cup butter
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs
3/4 c. flour
1/2 c. dark chocolate; 1-2 Hershey's Dark Chocolate bars
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups prepared pumpkin

Thoroughly mix the wet ingredients in a bowl (prepared pumpkin, butter, vanilla, eggs) until it is a smooth blend.

In a smaller bowl mix the dry ingredients except for the chocolate.
Blend the dry mix into the wet mix; it should have the consistency of pancake batter when done. Grate the dark chocolate with a flat cheese grater into the wet mix while slowly turning it over.

*Optional* In the base of the pan of your choice (I prefer glass casserole dishes for this) place wax paper, wax side down. This will prevent the brownies from sticking to the base of the pan.

Pour the mixture into a pan of your choice and bake at 450 degrees until the top is slightly cracked.

Pumpkin Brittle

1 cup Prepared Pumpkin Mixture
1/4th cup water
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup white Karo syrup
Candy thermometer
Butter a cookie sheet and let it rest. Mix the pumpkin mixture, water, sugar and Karo syrup in a 2-3 quart pan and bring to a boil or until the thermometer reaches hard crack stage (310°F)

Quickly remove from the heat and stir in the butter and baking soda as this will harden very fast. Pour into the buttered cookie sheet and wait for it to harden, then break into small pieces.