Happy Fall!
Sorry I’ve been a little less present here. Life. I wish there were at least 8 extra hours in a day. Wouldn’t it be cool if we all had 32-hour days? Or would we then just stress out even more and mess it up with that extra time? I just want eight extra hours a day for the times I don’t sleep well so I could catch up.
Oh well. At least the cooler weather has meant less sweating for me, which is huge! I love fall weather. Bring it on!
So…I tried to make two other things before making these cookies; one was a PB&J Cake, which ended up needing more of the “J”. I took it to work. It needs work. I’m still tweaking the recipe for that, which may or may not make it here later. We’ll see…
The other thing I made was another cookie with pumpkin, although it needed a little more of everything in it. It was sort of an oatmeal raisin cookie recipe, but with pumpkin and coriander. They were also a little bit cakier that I would’ve liked, and I think I didn’t put enough coriander or pumpkin. They were just meh. I still have those cookies next to the coffee mugs in our kitchen and will serve them with our coffee in the mornings. At least they are kind of healthy.
The whole reason for focusing on coriander is that someone left a one pound bag of whole coriander seeds at the giveaway table at my work. We have a table where people can leave stuff they want to give away or don’t need. So I took it home.
I only used a small amount, for the previous oatmeal raisin cookie, and decided that I needed to buy seeds from the store to compare. The newer store-bought coriander seemed stronger in flavor, but overall, for me, coriander just seems like a very subtle flavor. And that’s because I think is more of a supportive spice in the background and it typically gets overshadowed by more distinct and aggressive spices used in recipes. I could be wrong.
Nevertheless, I wanted to showcase the coriander with pumpkin here. So I basically used 2 tablespoons of ground coriander in place of the typical spices used with pumpkin pie–allspice, clove, ginger, nutmeg, and of course cinnamon.
I was tempted to add cinnamon, but felt that it would end up overpowering the coriander. I’m so glad I left it out. I could really taste the coriander here. And the pumpkin flavor, the real flavor of the pumpkin flesh, not the pumpkin pie flavor everyone associates with pumpkin, really shows through here, albeit it really isn’t a strong flavor. But it’s there.
The original recipe did not have much sweetness, so I added just a little demerara sugar on the sides, which I feel also add a visual and textural crunch that helps add more variety, although if you do not want to add the sugar, feel free to leave it out; I feel it would still be a great cookie.
Enjoy!
Pumpkin Coriander Cookies (adapted from this Pumpkin Shortbread recipe from Recipe Girl)
ingredients
8 ounces unsalted butter
3/4 cup confectioner sugar
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 and 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 Tablespoons coriander
1 teaspoon angostura bitter (optional)
1/3 cup demerara sugar
1 egg white
method
Sift the flour and salt and coriander into a bowl and stir with a whisk to combine thoroughly. Set aside. Cream the butter and sugar with a hand held mixer until light and fluffy. Add the pumpkin and vanilla and angostura bitters, if using. Blend until mixed thoroughly.
Add the flour and blend on low speed until wet. Do not over mix. Shape into a log shape on a floured counter top or work space. Use plastic wrap to wrap it up tightly and refrigerate for several hours to overnight. Don’t worry if the log shape is not cylindrical enough. After refrigerting it will be easier to keep a more cylindrical shape.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
After being refrigerated, unwrap and place on work surface. Dough will be easier to handle cold. Brush entire log with egg white.
With a non-serrated sharp knife, slice into 1/4-inch thick cookies, reshaping each into more of a circle as needed after cutting. Roll the edges with demerara sugar. Place spaced out on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes in oven. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.
DAVE BAKES 
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